So, based on this, it’s obvious why so many webmasters become nervous, especially since the Panda update a few months ago which affected sites’ rankings based on the quality of their content and various other metrics.
So for now, it’s clear that all SEO agencies and companies alike, as well as online business owners, need to direct their attention and focus towards updating their content more frequently. Not only is this often times difficult, but it requires a lot of resources. If you find yourself to be outranked by queries from fresh and new content which you use to rank for, then you’ll obviously have to think about creating new content more often.

What Google said:

“We completed our Caffeine web indexing system last year, which allows us to crawl and index the web for fresh content quickly on an enormous scale. Building upon the momentum from Caffeine, today we’re making a significant improvement to our ranking algorithm that impacts roughly 35 percent of searches and better determines when to give you more up-to-date relevant results for these varying degrees of freshness.”

Now, if you go ahead and think of that 35 percent figure again, what I’m thinking is that, potentially, Google means to say that around 1/3 of search engine related queries involve or relate to fresh and/or updated content.

Freshness ranking is not new, just apparently improved?! So, this pretty much goes to say that 35 percent of the searches in Google are impacted by this. That is larger than the Panda update which impacted 12 percent of the searches conducted.

What type of searches does it impact? Google said:

• Recent events or hot topics.
• Regularly recurring events.
• Frequent updates.

Well here is my concern and my two cents on this situation:

Has competition and online user activity increased so much that there is not enough room for everyone to compete on only one search engine?
If this is true then that means Google obviously has to find a way to create enough virtual business and information trading space by installing a system whereby being found online and making sales comes down to how active and relevant you are.

This definitely takes the field of SEO so much further and directly creates more work for us SEO’s but, for how long and is this also not going to be responsible for creating a lot of potential spammy results through Google cause, let’s face it, it doesn’t take a genius to update your blog or website and there are numerous plugins that you can install on your blogs that pull in data from various feeds etc.

This situation will inevitably spur on software developers to create even more auto content generating tools to automatically update the content on your site. These days it seems that Google is playing the money game and potentially rigging the system to its advantage. Have a look at the posts below and make up your own minds.

Brand VS Affiliate Spam
Google enters Make Money Online Niche

Other factors that have also created concern are the fact that Google has implemented ads at the bottom of search results, (read more here) which, combined with video & image results on the first page of Google, basically means that we are now competing for the first five of the ten spots available on the first page of Google seeing that most users only click on the results in the top fold of their screen which happens to display only between four or five results unless you scroll down of course. Some of this is old news to some but for the uninformed, this stresses a huge area of concern which has pros and cons for online users from all walks of life.

Resources:

http://searchengineland.com/google-search-algorithm-change-for-freshness-to-impact-35-of-searches-99856

http://www.webpronews.com/google-algorithm-update-focuses-on-freshness-and-recency-2011-11

http://socialmediatoday.com/jamesamartin/384642/google-algorithm-update-freshness-counts-even-more-now

http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/8244-google-s-freshness-update-what-s-the-effect-on-websites

This is done now and will not be rolled back and long tail searches are now serving higher quality sites in the SERP’s. But, this post isn’t just about the Mayday occurrence, I simply wanted to illustrate that, if Google is still making such huge changes to its algorithm (which involve content evaluation) you should always be analysing your content reports within Google Analytics. Your content might be screaming out for help and you would not even know it. You need to go and actually “listen” to what it is trying to tell you. I will be touching on a few helpful elements, which I always look out for in these content reports.

Top Content Report

The Top Content report is based on PageViews (PV) and basically showcases which of your pages are the most popular. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, a PV is registered every time a browser / user loads a page. One user can therefore register multiple PV’s on any given page. This actually says it all.  If a user decides to view a single page multiple times, you can be assured that they are finding the page quite interesting. Sometimes we think a particular page we worked on really hard will be extremely popular, but then it is not and a page which you put little effort into outperforms this page. This is vital feedback which you should be analysing to ensure you are focusing your content efforts in an area which will bring about tangible rewards.

Top Exit Pages Report

In this report I will always check whether the ‘contact us’ page and ‘thank you’ pages are within the top five (ideal) or top 10. If they are not, you should be highly concerned. The reasoning behind this is that if a very low number of people exit from these pages, you can be assured that your content pages are not enticing enough for users to be satisfied. Users will generally scan through your site and see what you have to offer by reading your content, and if they like what they see (conversion elements obviously also play a part) and read they will most likely want to contact you through your ‘contact us’ mediums. They will go off a satisfied user and it’ll be up to you to entice them some more.

Top Landing Pages Report

If you would like users to find you through search, which I sincerely hope you do, you should be very interested in this report. This report will mostly show which users landed directly on any given page on your website from Search Engines. Here, in most cases, you will find your homepage as the most dominant landing page but, if you are seeing a substantial amount of visitors landing on your homepage alone the you could have a problem. It’s likely that you either have very few pages on your site, your site structure might be at fault or your online marketing efforts are not gaining momentum. You need to see a good spread of pages here, and the pages which you are focusing on the most (or your main services / products) in your online marketing efforts should be your  top performing pages. If they are not then you need to relook your strategies, or you will need to raise some serious questions with your online marketing firm.

I believe unique, well written copy will always form a massive part I.T.O – Google’s ranking factors. You should, therefore, analyse your content reports on a regular basis and continue to place a great deal of your resources into creating outstanding content.

Although these are not necessarily boring, it was exciting for me to venture into uncharted territory. It was time for me to understand, and possibly master, the thing that my mom calls: “The Google”.

It was a slow process at first, with more tech jargon than I had ever heard in my life, but slowly I started to understand the bigger picture. In my early days, one of the guys in the SEO department gave me a gift I’ll always remember. It was a simple link, but it opened up a whole new world of possibility – it was the Google Wonder Wheel. “What is it?” I said with gleaming wide eyes and my hair flapping in the breeze – which was caused by his face being too close to the top of my head while breathing heavily. “It’s the wonder wheel…” he said plainly, with a patronising look in his eyes. “Put your keywords in, and you can see what Google spiders deem to be associated with that phrase.” So, I did just that – AND IT WAS GLORIOUS!

From that day forward, the Wonder Wheel provided a few relished moments of entertainment every week – as I went from serious keywords to ridiculous phrases just to see what the outcome would be. That was until the start of this month, when my fun ride disappeared. Yes, Google continues to improve its overall awesomeness, and Google+ is just one of the new toys that this search behemoth has provided me – for free. But their official announcement that the Wonder Wheel had been taken offline, and failure to comment on whether it would ever return, made me a little sad. I can’t help the urge to want to give it a spin… JUST ONE LAST TIME! Unfortunately, this may never be possible.

I have written this article so that people of the future never forget this noble online tool – as nowadays we are too quick to forget where things started due to the way new technology is constantly progressing. We get distracted too easily and never give something the respect it… ooooh, Google+ has a -1 button. Nice!

That’s all very mathematical as it’s based on numbers, systems and charts – or some such. How then does great on-site content fit in to all of this and how do you know how to best serve your client? Other people can claim whatever they like, but I’m the one typing here (which is the digital equivalent of holding the mic or a Desert Eagle) and I assure you that writing is an art – not a science. There is no perfect formula which will serve you flawlessly in every situation, you have to feel out the needs of both your client and their target market.

As a professional SEO content writer, you can’t wait around for inspiration to hit you either, you have to go out, offer it candy and hog tie it – a good clubbing also goes a long way to ensure best results. This means that having a natural instinct for it is pretty hard to overestimate since you have to act semi-intuitively and you have to do it on a schedule. Certainly there are aspects of science and order to it, after all the English language is your canvas and it has rules. Should you breach these rules you automatically forfeit huge amounts of credibility, and people may randomly come up to you and slap you in the street.

It still amazes me when I see a typo or a grammatical error on a website – it is a fact that a single error of that nature immediately conjures an image of gross incompetence. After all if you can’t communicate properly in your own mother tongue, how could you possibly do anything right? That’s the reaction and no one who expects to make it anywhere within telescopic view of the top can afford to inspire it. These are merely rules though and they’re simple to learn; what we’re talking about here is the ability to inspire readers.

At the end of the day your writing needs to flow fluently and draw your readers in by either being very informative, or interesting and humorous. The most successful ads on TV are the ones that make people laugh and tell their friends about them – this is exactly the same on the net. You have to determine when this is appropriate though, or that accounting firm you were representing might not appreciate it – no one wants a funny accountant.

There are general tips which are always important as guidelines, such as producing unique content which is relevant, catchy, coherent, engaging, stimulating and entertaining. I stipulate again though that writing is an art form which you feel your way through – or else even Pamela Anderson could publish a novel!
ROI combines the science and expertise of SEO, PPC and social marketing with the magnetic properties of content – a partnership which spells victory in any campaign.

You can’t copy a great artist either. One of the biggest crimes for any website (SEO-wise) is to include duplicate content on your site. This includes stealing two fabulous lines from one site. Plagiarism in any form must be avoided, or risk your work sinking to the bottom of the rankings faster than Jennifer Lopez’s film career.

You can’t put a price on fame – so research the very best keywords before you begin ranking for arbitrary keywords that make little sense. If you own a car rental site, look towards the holy union of ‘car rental’ plus whatever city you live in. In time, your understanding of the keywords in correlation to your websites will improve – this is a priceless skill; for everything else, there’s Google AdWords Keyword tool. Keep your writing to the point, filled with the correct amount of keywords and relish in improved rankings and a steady growth. Your personal fame is a measurement of your creativity; continue writing and find success in your growth as an SEO writer.

Google hates sites that stagnate and have the same old content that Google’s spiders have already crawled. What is Google’s main purpose? If you think about it logically, Google and the other search engines were created to be able to supply the user with the most accurate, interesting and current information for the search query that is used in the Search Engines.

This means that if your site becomes stagnant (content wise) and you have only your old outdated content on the site, Google and other search engines will not necessarily keep crawling your site. Adding new content to your site often ensures that SE spiders will know that they have to crawl and index your content regularly.

The more content you have on your site, the more industry related information you will have. Consequently, the more industry information you have, the more opportunity you will get to include your industry keywords in this SEO content. As a result, the more industry keywords you have in your content, the more keywords you will rank for in Google. It makes sense for overall SEO, doesn’t it.

Remember how I referred to ‘fresh’ and ‘unique’ content the whole time up there? This is a very important point to keep in mind when adding content to your site. Many site owners use the internet to keep tabs on industry news and they read up on what’s new in their industry. This is very important and will help you to keep abreast of any industry related advancements. Where many site owners make a massive mistake though, is to take this news or information and add it to their websites verbatim.

This is not a good idea!

Google has put in place something called the ‘duplicate content penalty’. This duplicate content penalty will not be used to ban your site altogether from Google; in most cases anyway. The way the duplicate penalty works in the instance of copying and pasting content from other sites is like this:
Once content has been published to the internet on whatever site, Google and the other SE’s will crawl this content and index it. Now, when you take this content from the site and place it word for word on your own site, there will now be two pages of the exact same content. Firstly, having two pages of the exact same content is of no use to anyone. Secondly, the content that was copied and pasted will be crawled by the SE spiders and it will be compared to the content already existing in the SE’s index. Once the SE sees that this content already exists elsewhere, it will ignore this content and you will probably have a hard time ranking well for the keywords and phrases used in this content.

What a waste of a page right?

Now there are many discussions on how often a site’s content should be updated, but many are of the opinion that as long as the site is being updated on a regular basis, it should be fine. This means that you can add new content to your site once a week, once a month or even once every three months, as long as it is done consistently. This way the SE spiders will know that they need to visit your site in these chosen intervals. It is of course better to have SE spiders visit your site every week rather than once every three months.

There is a very good way to make sure that your site is updated regularly – get a company Blog! Google loves blogs! Why you ask? Remember what Google’s main goal is? A blog is updated very regularly with entirely unique content; this is what Google craves.

So there you have it, update that site of yours with fresh and unique content at regular intervals. Don’t ‘scrape’ existing content from other web pages and add it to your own site. Even better, create a company blog that lives on your site’s URL and get everyone in the company to write a piece on their specific expertise within the company.

Copywriting for the web is an entirely different beast to copywriting for print media. The balance between pleasing your audience and the hidden search engine spiders (more on this later) is initially, incredibly tricky but grows to become second nature once you have discovered the skills of this trade. It is not an easy road to follow, but for any decent writer it remains a lofty challenge and a goal worth pursuing. This takes practice, endless months of practice repeating the same techniques again and again until they become second nature. So what is SEO copywriting exactly? It is a finely tuned skill which few can correctly apply to their work.

Copywriting begins with a few straightforward techniques which anyone can apply to their content in order to enhance their overall web presence.

• Know your target audience

The client will often dictate the tone which they require from your content. If your content is for ‘Car Rental’ then a thorough knowledge of rental cars is essential. If you write needless paragraphs which idle on about unnecessary information which is difficult to sift through, then your audience will instantly become disinterested and even abandon the site altogether. A good copywriter writes for both their intended audience and their client. A hard line to walk indeed.

• Stick to the SEO guidelines

This point is canon, unless you intend to keep your work hidden amongst the sea of other top ranking pages. SEO is search engine optimisation and without it, my copy would never reach the lofty heights of Google ranking number one, two or three. Keywords pertaining to the site (such as ‘top car rental’ or ‘best car hire’) are thoroughly researched and then strategically placed into my copy. This rockets any work straight into the top tiers. There are countless SEO hints and tips on the web which you can locate and implement into your work.

• Keep it readable

If your copy reads like a fifth graders essay about his holiday in Mykonos, then perhaps it’s time to take your work back to the drawing board. Stuffing in keywords for the sake of a better ranking in the major search engines is poor SEO copywriting and a guarantee that your work will never see a number one ranking. Inject your own unique personality into all of your work; this includes correct paragraph and sentence structure as well. You are writing for human beings, not the computer. Always keep this in mind.

Copywriting is more than a job; it is my life’s ambition and a skill which I will continue to fine-tune for the remainder of my days. Good luck for those who wish to develop their own writing skills. Be proud of your work and everything else will fall into place.