How Google’s panda update combined with user dynamics should affect your choice of SEO content for your website
Virtually every online entrepreneur knows about Google’s Panda update. However, if you have been meditating in some remote corner of the world to resolve all theological disputes for mankind then we shall explain what the Google Panda update is.
The Panda update which rolled out of the assembly line way back on February 26, 2011 is Google’s effort to deal with the increasingly competitive nature of Bing. The Panda update’s prime purpose was for Google to provide its users with significantly improved search results in terms of quality. As Google has become quite efficient at achieving what it wants on the internet, its Panda update achieved what it set out to do and, in the process, around 12% of all the search results were transformed.
Analyzing How Google’s Panda Update Affected Websites
If we consider the type of websites that were impacted we would be able to see which type of content for the web portal is frowned upon by the Panda update and which gets its support. According to a research done by Sistrix, of the 25 domain names which got affected the most due to the launching of Google’s Panda update, around 12 were websites that published content on a wide variety of subjects and 3 were websites that answered commonly asked questions by the people.
This means that 60% of the 25 websites that Google’s Panda update affected the most used generic content for the websites as against niche content. It is still worth mentioning that the majority of the balance 40% consisted of merchant, trader and B2B websites. Here is a list of this 60%.
Varied content websites
- ezinearticles.com
- suite101.com
- hubpages.com
- buzzle.com
- associatedcontent.com
- essortment.com
- lovetoknow.com
- articlesbase.com
- howtodothings.com
- mahalo.com
- doityourself.com
- findarticles.com
Question – answer websites
- wisegeek.com
- fixya.com
- faqs.org
Behavioral Patterns of People with Content for the Websites
As is evident from the list, Google through its Panda update is telling all the online entrepreneurs, affiliate marketers, internet marketers and, most importantly, people who expertise in writing content for SEO that it will not accept generic content for the websites or content that does not help the websites’ visitors. There is a reason why Google has taken this path and this reason is simply the behavior of the online community with regards to content.
Let’s set the scene to understand how people behave in terms of the content that they encounter by happenstance or go out looking for. All the following statistics are drawn from the much appreciated report from AOL and Nielsen titled ‘content is the fuel of social web’.
- 23% of social media updates and messages include links to content. (this could be SEO content or otherwise)
- It is worth mentioning that this means that people share around 27,000,000 pieces of content on a daily basis.
As is visible here, a large chunk of what people do online is read written content for the websites, watch videos on websites and, possibly, even look at multimedia a lot. However, something that you may miss out on is the fact that the statistics above are only showing the initiation of the conversation. In other words each of those 27,000,000 updates may spawn its whole and independent conversation string.
The Link (Pardon the Pun) Between Niche Content and Social Media
Now, we shall look at the best argument for niche and high quality content for the websites.
- 43% of industry specific social media messages contain links to varying types of content.
- 60% of the industry specific social media messages with content even include the mention of a brand name or even a product.
In other words, this means that when social media messages are related to a specific industry, the percentage of messages that contain links to content increases. Hence, it can be said that niche content for the websites is much more likely to be shared much more than generic content.
Taking into account the second statistic mentioned above, it can be deduced that people who are sharing links to content along with a brand or product name are bound to have already made a purchase or on the verge of making one. After all, why would someone have a status update for a product or brand name with a link unless he wanted opinions of his circle of people?
Niche Content Is the Master in This Brave New World
In effect, by posting high quality niche content that draws enough attention to be shared on social media with your product or brand name, you would actually be improving your conversion and sales rates. Consequently, when it comes to content for the websites, you should ideally be advised by a good internet marketer, a SEO professional or an expert on writing content for SEO to use niche content that is extremely well written and worthy enough to compel people to share.
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