The people who are using these manipulative techniques (knowing or not) are often thrown down the search engine results quite quickly.
Here are five tips that may help you get through future updates.
1 – Write your page content for the user and not the search engine
This is one of their most commonly stated points. Google are always saying that the user should come first, and their updates always seem to work towards that end. In other words the things such as keyword stuffing and awkward keyword placement should be a thing of the past. If your keywords are not appearing naturally in your text then clearly they are not supposed to be in there in the first place.
The people who write content of any old nature and then put in keywords that are seemingly unrelated are always going to fall foul of the most recent Google updates. If you keep your user in mind at all times then you cannot go too far wrong. Do not forget that Google wants to create the most user friendly results possible so that people keep on using their search engine.
2 – Add backlinks to websites where you would get direct traffic
If you get direct traffic from the website then your traffic numbers will still be present even if you are kicked off of the Google search engine results. But, Google does have this thing about relevancy, and websites that have the same target audience as you are considered relevant. If you are getting direct traffic from your links placed on other websites then it is safe to say that they have the same target audience as you.
3 – Anchor text is supposed to tell the search engine about the linked web page
When you create anchor text for your websites internal links and for its backlinks it is supposed to have keywords in it. This is because it is search engine friendly, and because it gives Google a clue as to what your website is all about. This sort of web content clue is going to be a ranking factor for a long time and is unlikely to change, so you should stick with it.
When you create your anchor text atop your links you need to make sure it is descriptive without being too long. It should be convenient but also concise. This does not mean filling it full of keywords or just having keywords. It is all about striking a happy middle ground so that it is usable for the search engines and for the users.
4 – Usability for the reader is of paramount importance
Google is always going to want to have very useable Internet search engine results. The websites they present should be highly usable so that people keep coming back to their search engine.
This means that if you strive to make your website highly usable for the reader then you are going to avoid any nasty sides of Google updates. Usability should run from the navigation all the way to the website content and its actual use. If your website does not seem to have a use then ask yourself how you expect to rise up through the search engine results pages.
5 – Do not follow the latest search engine trends that you read about
This seems to be a common pattern that people fall foul of. Every now and then a certain search engine secret comes out in the online community. For example, when people went a bit nutty about guest posting it seemed that guest posts were more search engine friendly than adding articles to article websites.
All of a sudden there are thousands of people scrambling to get on the bandwagon and before you know it Google have released an update that makes the method no longer as effective. Even these days writing guest posts is now as effective as writing for article websites; this was not the case earlier in 2013 when article websites were not as effective (they are now as search engine friendly as guest posts).
All you have to do is not take current SEO trends too seriously because before you know it Google will create an update that will change the goalpost.
Kate Funk is an essay writing specialist at Aussiessay.com. She is the author of numerous essays on SEO, internet, marketing.