What most of those tools do is look at the top 10 ranking sites for a specific keyword phrase and then take averages of how many words they have in the Title tags, within the content, etc. Which to me is just silly. An average doesn’t tell you anything. One page might have 1,000 words and another might have 50, but the average is then in the 500 range. That certainly doesn’t mean that if you create your page to have 500 words it will somehow magically rank well.

SEO is more about fixing technical issues (which some tools can certainly help with), and it’s about being sure you’re using words that your target audience uses. And these days, in the wake of Panda and Penguin, it’s also about diagnosing bad links and other things that may be bringing your site rankings down. Online tools can certainly help with all those things.

Keep in mind that I generally only do SEO site audit reports, and high-level SEO consulting and training (as opposed to rolling up my sleeves and actually doing the SEO for clients). So I may be missing some that I previously used. Please note that while I assume that the Google tools I’m mentioning are obvious, they’re so integral to my work that I’d be remiss not to mention them.

Here are the tools I use regularly to help with my SEO consulting services:

Google Analytics

Most critical tool at all, it diagnoses lost traffic for site audits, and of course is used to measure success. Especially helpful when combined with custom reports, dashboards, and advanced segments.

Google Webmaster Tools

Everyone with a website today needs to be signed up here. It offers tons of useful information, but basically it helps diagnose website problems and provides messages directly from Google if a site has a major issue or penalty.

Screaming Frog

This tool sends a spider out to sites and compiles a nice spreadsheet report on the pages. It shows you Title tags, URLs, Meta Descriptions, Canonical tags, etc. Plus, it tells you about pages that may have 404 errors, redirects, and lots of other things. I usually use this when I’m starting a new site review because it helps me get an overall feel for the site and quickly shows me any major technical issues. (And I just love the tool’s name.)

Rex Swain’s HTTP Header Viewer

This one is good for seeing what sort of redirect any page may have. For SEO purposes we like to see 301 redirects rather than 302s or any other kind. It will also show if there are multiple redirects for any URL.

Ahrefs

This is a great tool for learning about any website’s backlinks. You can get a lot of that also from Google Webmaster Tools these days, but I often find different ones showing up in Ahrefs that I may not have seen in GWT. Plus, you can learn about the backlinks of competitor sites. I mainly use it to see if the website I’m reviewing has a lot of spammy links. It’s especially helpful if the site has received an unnatural links warning in the GWT account. It’s a great way to see the distribution of anchor text as well. This tool also has a spidering component similar to ScreamingFrog mentioned above.

Google Keywords Tool

This is pretty much the only tool I use or recommend for doing keyword research. Use it to learn about the types of phrases your target audience uses at Google when they’re looking for what you offer on your website.

Google Drive

This is not so much an SEO tool as it is a way to have all my files synced across all of my computers and devices. Drive makes it easy for me to review a website and have my report in progress anytime and anywhere I need it. It also enabled me to buy an inexpensive Chromebook as my traveling laptop. All the tools and programs I use are online, so with my documents and files safely tucked away in Google Drive I’m totally in the cloud.

Toogl

This is a project timer that I’ve been using lately. I like to keep track of how much time I spend on any client work so that I have a good idea of how to price similar jobs in the future. I’ve used a variety of timers in the past, but this one has become a favorite because it syncs up “in the cloud” so I can access it using any device.

Chrome Extensions (Most if not all of these are likely available as Firefox extensions as well):

NoFollow

This is the BEST extension ever if you’re an SEO! It outlines all links on a page that have the Nofollow attribute on them. But even better is that it pops up a little window if the page you’re looking at has the Noindex tag on it. You wouldn’t believe how many websites I find through this extension that are inadvertently blocking all search engines from being able to index them.

PageRank Status

This tool teaches you lots of things about a page, such as its Google Toolbar PageRank, the number of pages from the site that are indexed, a link to the page in the Wayback Machine (archive.org) and many other things. (This one will also highlight nofollow links.)

TagAssistant (by Google)

This one shows if there are any Google Analytics code errors on any given page. It can come in handy if a site appears to have lost traffic because sometimes traffic wasn’t actually lost, but the Google Analytics code is missing from certain pages, or it’s used incorrectly.

Awesome Screenshot (combined with Evernote)

I use Awesome Screenshot nearly every day while doing SEO site audits to quickly and easily show what’s wrong with pages on a site. You can add arrows and words, draw circles around items, etc. I basically paste them all into Evernote along with my other notes of what’s wrong with a site. Then I use those notes to compile my report.

The post SEO Tools and Extensions appeared first on ISEdb.COM.

Why SEOs Are Embracing Content Marketing

The bottom line is that when you add great content to your website on a regular basis and get the word out about it to your target audience, you’ll gain more rankings, traffic, conversions, leads and sales.

The key, of course, is that word “great.” Adding just any content won’t provide the results you’re looking for. But how do you know if your content is great? That’s where having some definitive content marketing metrics in place will help. And we’re lucky today to have gazillions of tools to help with this. You’ll know if your content is resonating with your target market by reviewing some very specific metrics on a regular basis.

Google Analytics to the Rescue!

You all know by now that I’m a Google Analytics junky. I’ve showed you in the past the bare minimum metrics you should be looking at when doing any sort of SEO for a website. Today I’m going to take you one step further by showing you the metrics you should be looking at for each individual piece of content that you publish on your website. (And if you stick with me, I’ll provide you with a bonus Content Marketing Metrics Dashboard that you can use for your own measurements.)

PageViews

I’m typically not a big fan of PageViews as a measure of success. But with content marketing, especially when any piece is newly published, it’s worth a look. Don’t be surprised if a lot of your PageView data for your content looks like this:

It’s normal to get a spike in PageViews when the content is new and being promoted via various channels, and then for it to die down. It’s worth looking at because you want to find the content that continues to be viewed after the initial spike.

When you see consistent PageViews month after month, you know you’re on to something! You can use that information when deciding on future content topics.

Organic Keywords and Rankings

Ha! I bet you’re surprised to see me mention rankings given that I recently wrote that running ranking reports is a fool’s errand. They still are, BUT…as I stated in that article, there’s an obvious correlation between rankings and getting organic search traffic to your site. So knowing which keywords bring traffic and where your content ranked when someone clicked on it in Google provides you with interesting and useful data. Unfortunately, there are no out-of-the-box ranking reports within Google Analytics. But if you can add a bit of code to the pages of your site, there is a new method of gaining this valuable insight within Google Analytics.

See GA Evangelist Justin Cutroni’s post on how to set the Rank Tracker up here.

I’ve had the Rank Tracker code on my site since the middle of January this year and am excited by the information it provides. To finally have a way to know the approximate rankings for phrases that actually bring traffic to my site is pretty amazing! For instance, I now know that the average ranking for ALL organic keyword traffic to my site is 5.34.

But even more exciting is to see the average ranking for any new (or old) piece of content:

I now know that my Meta Description article (which is the most visited landing page of my site) is generally ranked between position 2 and 3 (2.65 average ranking) when it’s clicked on from Google. And if I want, I can see the average rankings for each of the 500+ different keyword phrases that brought traffic in for that article.

While not every piece of content on your site will (or should) bring organic traffic, it’s certainly something you want to look at.

Referring Traffic

Beyond search engines, you’ll definitely want to keep track of where each piece of content is getting referral traffic from. This will show you the important sites that are linking to it — that is, those that bring you visitors.

For purposes of seeing where your content is linked to, you’ll need to filter out all the referrals that come from web-based email programs, as well as social media referrals (which we’ll look at next).

Social Networks

Google Analytics has added a lot of social data over the past year. While you might get better information from your own social media tools, it’s still worth taking a look at what you’ll find in GA.

You can see which content is getting shared the most:

And you can click on the shared URLs to see which social networks bring the most visits and PageViews:

Conversions

Last but not least is the holy grail of your content marketing efforts — conversions. First, remember that you should have a variety of conversion points on your website. Also note that content marketing doesn’t always lead directly to conversions.

That said, you can pretty much assume that if some of your content is leading directly to conversions, you’re on the right track (but it is going to depend on what you’re counting as a conversion).

Your Content Marketing Metrics Dashboard

While you can look up all of the above separately in your Google Analytics, I’ve found it most helpful to have a specific content dashboard for each URL. In other words, every time I publish something to my website, I create a dashboard which shows me all of the information I talked about above (and more) all in one place.

The above image shows only a portion of the dashboard, but you get the idea.

Want your own Content Marketing Metrics Dashboard? You’re welcome to use mine! Here’s how:

While logged into your Google Analytics, click this link, and then choose the profile you want to associate it with. The dashboard will automatically be created for you. But wait — it won’t work yet because you have to assign some content to it.

Here are the steps to make it work with each of your own articles:

1. Make a copy of the generic dashboard so that you can keep that one handy when you create new content.

2. Hover over the top right corner of each widget on the dashboard to find the Edit button.

3. Replace “/your-article-url” and “Your Article Name” with your own, and do this for every widget on the dashboard. While this sounds like a lot of work, it should take less than 5 minutes. Be careful not to change anything else unless you know what you’re doing. The filters should all be set to work with almost everyone’s content. (However, the RankTracking widgets will work only if you’ve installed the additional code on your site.)

That’s it! You can use the same dashboard template and change it accordingly for each piece of content. Unfortunately, you can only have 20 dashboards per profile. After you use yours up you can delete old dashboards that you no longer use or better yet, just create additional profiles.

The post Content Marketing Metrics Fun With Google Analytics appeared first on ISEdb.COM.

Poor design
In most cases the way the site looks is a good indicator of how valuable it is. If the site has little or no design or visual elements to it it’s a red flag. Owners of legitimate websites are willing to spend the time and money necessary to make the site look good. A website that uses a free theme and no branding elements could be a spam site.

No contact information
A website should be easily associated with a business, organization, person, association, etc. If there is nothing listed on the site that confirms who owns it and you can’t find any contact information there’s a good chance that it’s just part of a link farm network.

Content covers a variety of topics
This doesn’t necessarily mean that the site is bad or spammy, but a site that appeals to a very wide audience and covers lots of different topics isn’t going to be a strong link for link building purposes. For SEO, a link should in some way tell the search spiders what the site is about. A link from a broad site that isn’t relevant might actually confuse the search spider. Look for links that are in some way related to your niche and there is a better chance that it will also generate traffic from target audience members.

No social media
Social media isn’t just for communicating with friends and family and smart businesses understand that and are actively building up their social media presence. If a website doesn’t have any social elements whatsoever it could be a red flag. A link on a blog or website that isn’t active in social media won’t be promoted as well as it could be.

Too many keywords
Related keywords on the site are a good thing. Maybe that’s how you came across the site in the first place. However, look a little bit deeper. Are the keywords on the page too many times? Sites that are stuffed with keywords don’t care about the website visitor and it’s likely that the site will incur some sort of penalty at some point.

Use common sense when deciding on where to build links. Make sure that the site looks legitimate, has a similar target audience, and generates traffic before getting a link.

The post Link Building Opportunity Red Flags appeared first on ISEdb.COM.

Below are some important initial considerations that are often missing from the PPC campaigns our company encounters.

What is your Point-of-Action (POA)?

This seems simple enough. What is it that you want people to do when they arrive at your site or your dedicated landing pages?  Do you want them to fill out a contact form or would you prefer they pick up the phone and call your business?  Do you have an online demo that you’d like people to try? POAs can take many forms, and there can be more than one desirable action that people can take once you have their attention. But which is the most desirable? Which is the most likely to lead to a sale?

A recent client of ours was sending PPC traffic to their website hoping to increase business, but the most prominent POA on their website steered visitors to sign up for their newsletter. Upon investigation, we discovered that this was actually only the fourth most desirable action – less important than persuading visitors to complete a contact form, call the business and download product specifications. Addressing these simple changes had a huge positive impact on the client’s PPC campaigns; however, thousands of dollars were wasted in the meantime.

Know Your Acceptable Cost-Per-Action (CPA)

A PPC management company is often asked to “rescue” PPC campaigns that have not established an acceptable cost-per-action. This is extremely difficult to do, except in the most basic “branding”-style campaigns.  People are often deterred from coming up with an acceptable cost-per-action because the formula to determine it can be so complex and requires a great deal of data. What is the average sale?  What is the internal sales conversion rate? What is the internal cost of the product or service?  What is the desired profit margin?

However, it doesn’t have to be so complicated. If these numbers are not readily available, a quality PPC management company can help you come up with reasonable approximations that should give you a starting point.  At this point, you can begin to collect the actual data required for a sophisticated analysis while knowing that your cost-per-action will not go through the roof.  As the data begins to pour in, the cost-per-action figure can be honed according to the realities of the campaign, and you will save a great deal of money in the process.

Know Your Differentiators

Any quality PPC management company makes it a point to ask every new client this question prior to working on their campaigns: If you don’t know why people should choose your company, how will they know why they should choose your company?  Whether you are sending people to your website or (often preferably) designated landing pages, you have a very short window of opportunity to explain to people why they should do business with you and not your competitors, who are only a few clicks away.

And when you are considering your differentiators, it’s important to consider what actually resonates with your clients, not what you assume should resonate with them.  Our company recently held a discovery meeting with a new client, and we noted that the primary differentiator emphasized on the client’s landing pages and website was the fact that they had been in business for more than 25 years. When we asked if this was what really “sold” the company to potential clients, our client sat back and said, “You know, come to think of it – I don’t think our clients care about that at all. What really sells them is the ease of integration with our product.” Again, a few simple changes in approach paid huge dividends in their PPC campaigns.

Establish Your Budget

This tip seems like a no-brainer, but a good PPC management company will always ask you whether your goal is to get as many people to take the point-of-action using a fixed budget or if the budget is flexible as long as you are achieving a specific cost-per-action. The importance of this question cannot be overstated, because it calls for two distinct approaches in managing your PPC campaigns.

For instance, Client A may have a fixed budget of $10,000 per month, and this budget will not change in the foreseeable future.  In this case, our company will try to get as many prospects as possible to take the POA at an increasingly lower cost for each – in other words, to “squeeze” as much out of that budget as possible. On the other hand, Client B may have a starting budget of $10,000 per month, but is willing to increase that budget substantially, as long as they are achieving their acceptable cost-per-action. The approach to these types of PPC campaigns is decidedly different – we are trying to dramatically increase the volume of prospects while maintaining an acceptable cost-per-action for each.

The common thread with each of the discussion points above is that they should all be considered and resolved before your company spends a single dime on its PPC campaigns.  They will fundamentally shape your campaign and set it on a solid foundation geared for long-term success. This approach may take a bit longer to get the ball rolling, but when it starts rolling, it will almost certainly be in the right direction.

The post Prepare for Successful PPC Campaigns Before You Pay for a Single Click appeared first on ISEdb.COM.

This was part of Google spring cleaning that began in 2001 and was posted on their blog yesterday:

“We’re living in a new kind of computing environment. Everyone has a device, sometimes multiple devices. It’s been a long time since we have had this rate of change—it probably hasn’t happened since the birth of personal computing 40 years ago. To make the most of these opportunities, we need to focus—otherwise we spread ourselves too thin and lack impact. So today we’re announcing some more closures, bringing the total to 70 features or services closed since our spring cleaning began in 2011″

“We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined. So, on July 1, 2013, we will retire Google Reader. Users and developers interested in RSS alternatives can export their data, including their subscriptions, with Google Takeout over the course of the next four months.”

There is a new help area about the closure to help users migrate their data.

The post Google Reader Is Shutting Down July 1st appeared first on ISEdb.COM.

According to the anonymous source, the service will be called “Google Shopping Express” and will be $10 to $15 cheaper than Amazon Prime and offer  same-day delivery from brick-and-mortar stores like Target, Walmart, Walgreens and Safeway.

According to the report:

If the Google Shopping Express service debuts publicly, and we have no reason to think that it won’t, this would mean that the company could capitalize on its recent acquisitions of both BufferBox and Channel Intelligence to dominate the online-to-offline retail market. Google could possibly use its BufferBox delivery lockers to facilitate the ease of shipment — like what Amazon has been testing in Seattle, New York and the UK. It could use Channel Intelligence’s data-management platform to coordinate sales and delivery.

We believe Google employees may already be dogfooding the service, but we have little information as to how partnerships are handled and how subscribing works.

If launched, Google will be directly competing against Amazon Prime, eBay Now, Postmates’ “Get It Now” and Instacart.

The post Google Building Amazon Prime Competitor appeared first on ISEdb.COM.

This was my first experience shopping for a wedding dress because I had worn my mother’s when I got married nearly 30 years ago. I had always envisioned my daughters wearing the same dress at their weddings, but alas, that’s not going to happen with Corie. I’m not a shopper, nor do I care about clothes and dresses. So already having a dress meant “Yay! I don’t have to go dress shopping!”

But for Corie, shopping for and choosing her own dress was non-negotiable. She did humor me by taking a look at my 1957 Priscilla of Boston wedding gown and even tried it on, but it was not the dress she had dreamed of. Or should I say, it wasn’t one of the dresses she had pinned on Pinterest!

The Shopping Starts Online

Most young brides-to-be start their wedding gown search online these days. They browse through designer websites and pin the styles they like to their Pinterest boards. With the help of the Internet and her iPhone, Corie was well prepared for our shopping excursions. She called wedding boutiques in the area to see if they had the specific dresses she already knew she wanted to try on. While none of them had all of the exact dresses she was interested in, they all told her that they likely had some very similar ones, so she made some appointments.

Online Meets Brick and Mortar

Our first stop was a small boutique only a short ride from our house. My job was going to be to take photos of her wearing the dresses and keeping track of which was which on my smartphone by noting the designer and product number. (I had a system all prepared using the Evernote app, but unfortunately my phone decided not to cooperate, so I did it the old-fashioned way with paper and pen!) At the store we were greeted by a couple of youngish women who escorted us to the back room. We asked if it was okay to take photos and they said of course it was. To me, all the dresses looked amazing on her, but Corie usually found something she didn’t like. (It took me awhile to even be able to tell the differences between the various styles, because I hadn’t been stalking Pinterest the way she had been!) She did end up liking one as a strong contender that was within our budget.

When we got back home she reviewed our photos and also looked up the model product numbers online to see how they looked on the designer’s website. Corie wears a very small size so she tends to swim in the sample sizes at stores, which makes it difficult to see exactly how they’ll look on her. Still not ready to say yes to the dress at the first shop, we went to another boutique in a different town.

When we arrived, we were welcomed by a prominently placed sign that read “NO PHOTOS OR VIDEOS ALLOWED.” Huh? We just assumed after the last place that it was common practice to take them, and it had also been extremely helpful. The owner (who was around my age) explained that the designers didn’t allow them to let people take photos because people could then just copy their designs. This of course didn’t make any sense because the designers themselves have photos of all their dresses on their own websites. So we started our visit with a feeling of distrust for the owner.

Controlling the Information

At this point we were all pretty annoyed and even felt like walking out, but we had driven some distance to get there so it seemed silly to leave. Corie chose a few dresses to try on, but when we asked for the product numbers of the ones she liked, the owner said she doesn’t give those out. She didn’t want people to look online and find them cheaper somewhere else. In other words, she was going to try to force us to buy from her.

While we found that pretty offensive, the next place we went to was even worse. This owner (slightly older than I) didn’t allow photos or videos, nor did she provide product numbers. But she took things even one step further by not even letting us know who the designer of the dresses were!

I managed to sneak in a few photos when the owners of these two boutiques weren’t paying attention (Corie didn’t even know). I didn’t agree with their rules and if they weren’t going to provide us with any information, I was darn sure going to at least get some photos of the dresses that were possible contenders. In fact, I think I wanted to take them more out of spite than anything else.

Adapt or Die

I understand that these boutique owners feel they’re getting squeezed out by the Internet and they’re scared of losing their businesses. But they’re also getting a lot of their business through the Internet. In other words, it’s a two-way street. They will in fact lose their businesses if they don’t adapt. There is simply no way you can continue to try to control your customers’ experiences in today’s online world.

Before the Internet, brides-to-be might have gone to one or two bridal boutiques and chosen from the selection offered at whatever price they were quoted. But that’s not going to fly with today’s Pinterest brides. You can try to control them all you want, but all you’re going to do is piss them off. My daughter said she’d never buy from either of those boutiques that refused to be transparent. To her they came off as mean and controlling.

On the other hand, she (and I) would happily go back to the boutiques that encouraged her to look online and gladly provided all the information she needed to make an informed decision. This would be true even if the prices were slightly higher. (And brick-and-mortar store owners should emphasize the personal services they can provide that you can’t get online.) Store owners who understand that ultimately it’s the customer who is in control, and don’t try to tie their hands, will be the ones who end up winning in the end. Those who refuse to adapt will go the way of the dinosaurs.

The post Adapt or Die – Stop Trying to Control Your Customers! appeared first on ISEdb.COM.

As interest in Twitter has grown, our focus has been on delivering better ads for users, not more ads. We believe our system is working well because users like the ads experience on Twitter. Our system rewards marketers for being good, not for being loud. And this approach encourages ads that are engaging, relevant and useful.

Twitter has been testing the API since last month with its launch partners, which include Salesforce, Adobe, TBG Digital, HootSuite and SHIFT.

With API, marketers can run a lot more ads and quicker through the Twitter stream which might lead to increase numbers of promopted tweets. However Twitter’s product manager for revenue April Underwood said that won’t be the case. “The ads API is not focused on bringing more ads to users. The genesis of why we’re building it is focused on simplifying the ads-buying experience for marketers,” Underwood said, emphasizing that it will have “no bearing on the volume of ads users will see.” Translation: If Twitter sees an ad isn’t performing, it will pull it just as has historically been the case.

The post Twitter Announces Ads API appeared first on ISEdb.COM.

Duplicating content is a big search engine “no no” today, however many website owners are still doing it, sometimes without even realizing it. Content duplication is sometimes something that happens during the web development process. Since the website still looks good and functions properly, the site owner may be unaware.

Here are a few things to be on the look out for to ensure that you aren’t duplicating content:

Multiple versions of the homepage
A standard homepage should look like this: http://www.yourwebsite.com, or this: http://yourwebsite.com. However, it’s common to see versions of the homepage that look like these: “http://www.yourwebsite.com/index.html”, “http://www.yourwebsite.com/default.html”, and “http://www.yourwebsite.com/home.html”. Visitors typically land on these versions of the homepage when they are clicking back to the homepage from an interior page of the site. The page is exactly the same as the main version of the homepage so it doesn’t impact the usability of the site at all, but what it is doing is duplicating it, since it is viewed as an entirely different URL to the search engines.

Extra characters in the URL
Duplications don’t just happen on the homepage. On some sites an interior page may look like this: “http://www.yourwebsite.com/interior-page” and like this, “http://www.yourwebsite.com/interior-page/”. The extra character of the slash at the end could result in it being viewed as a different page and could get it indexed twice, resulting in a duplicate content issue.

Creating multiple domains
What some business/website owners do is purchase multiple domains because they are easier to remember or may serve a unique purpose even though these domains are all meant to support the same content. Your best bet is just to stick with one domain but if you are using this approach, make sure that each domain redirects to a main domain instead of having the same content across multiple domains.

If it appears as if you may be guilty of duplicating your website content in some form or another, it’s advisable to remedy the situation as soon as possible. Even if you haven’t been penalized that doesn’t mean that you won’t be in the future. Duplicate content also hurts your SEO because it means that your inbound links are being spread across multiple URLs. If people are linking to a /default version of your homepage, it isn’t passing trust to the original version of the homepage. When correcting the duplicate content error, be sure to 301 redirect in order to preserve as much link trust as possible.

The post Could You Be Duplicating Content? appeared first on ISEdb.COM.

With the introduction of the Panda filter by Google (originally dubbed “Farmer”) in February 2011, one commonality of sites that were hit was what I called merry-go-round sites.

Here’s how I described it at the time:

You get to a page that uses the keywords you typed into Google, only to find that you need to click a link on that page to really get the information. But when you click that page, you either end up at another site or on another page on the same site — and you still don’t quite have the info you wanted. It seems that you could keep clicking that way forever and never find what you were looking for.

In 2011, the merry-go-round sites that I saw getting Pandalized were also showing lots of ads and/or were mainly aggregating other websites’ content. Since that time I’ve seen other types of sites that I would also classify as merry-go-rounds.

Directory Sites Are Often the Biggest Offenders

For instance, one site claimed to be a directory of providers of a certain type of medical service. They had previously been ranking very highly and received lots of Google traffic for keyword phrases such as “[medical service] in [city, state].” That’s a straightforward search query where, if you were typing it into Google, you would almost always be looking for specific doctors or medical establishments that offered the service within your city.

However, instead of being a directory of medical providers, the site had lots of keyword-rich content that droned on about the type of medical service. In some cases there were all sorts of ridiculous drivel about the city itself, such as where its name originated. Now why in the world would someone looking for a specific type of medical service care about any of that? They wouldn’t. It was only put there as an excuse to use the medical service keywords and the city keywords on the page. And it was a very poor user experience. Most of those top-level pages didn’t even list any providers. Just the drivel and a number to call if you wanted help finding a provider.

A Case of Poor Usability

This site did in fact have a directory of providers. However, it was buried deeply in the site and wasn’t created in a search engine-friendly manner so it wasn’t being given much credence by Google. Plus, the site owner made more money when people called their toll-free number to get a recommendation rather than clicking over to the providers’ websites in their directory. In other words, they delivered just enough information to make you think you were going to get what you were looking for, but then made it difficult to find.

And So They Got Pandalized

Another site I reviewed that had lost a lot of Google traffic was supposed to be a directory of surgeons, but in reality it was just 4 surgeons from one practice. If a person looking for a directory of surgeons ended up on that site, at first they may have thought that was what they were getting. It claimed at the top of every page to be “your best source for finding the world’s leading surgeons who offer xxx, yyy, zzz, etc.” But it was literally a bold-faced lie. Google eventually figured that out and stopped showing the site for related phrases.

Don’t Make Me Keep Clicking

Then there was the site that was a guide to hotels. While they had lots of great information on the showcased hotels, it took way too many clicks to find it all. For instance, if you clicked the “Bed and Breakfast” link on a top-level page, rather than taking you to a list of the B&Bs it took you to a page describing what bed and breakfasts were all about. And even when you clicked a particular city link within the B&B section, you still were not taken to a page that provided the lists of B&Bs in that city. Instead, you got a whole lot of information on how the site reviewed and rated the B&Bs that they were eventually going to show you.

If you didn’t leave in frustration at that point, you could then click through and find the listings and the reviews, which were great. But many users probably didn’t make it that far and Google eventually stopped ranking the site as highly for important keywords such as “[bed and breakfast] in [city, state]“.

Another variation on the merry-go-round site was one sponsored by a huge tech company, but on a separate domain. It had a forum, articles, videos and other interesting things on the surface. But upon closer inspection, much of the content already existed on the sponsor’s main website. And when you really started clicking around the site you found lots of links that never quite took you to the topic you thought it would. Instead, you were led to a page with one sentence of information and a link to the sponsor’s site for the rest.

In this case, it was difficult for the company to create great content for the site because there wasn’t really any reason for the site to exist (other than to try to gain more results in the search engines). The main company already dominated the first page of Google for the targeted keyword phrases, but I guess they wanted even more.

The Takeaway

What I learned from my reviews of merry-go-round sites is that the most important thing is to provide exactly what you say you will on every page of your site — that is, the information the searchers at Google were originally looking for. Sometimes this means turning your site inside out and featuring the “meat” more prominently.

Don’t assume that you need pages full of hundreds of words of text content in order for Google to rank them highly. If you have a directory site, the meat is the actual listings. While it may be helpful to provide additional information about the geographical area or about how you have chosen what to put in your directory, it isn’t what the typical Google searcher wants to see first. Understand that it was a mistake for Google to ever have ranked those types of pages highly pre-Panda. If your site was hit, don’t think of Google as having penalized your site so much as them having fixed their relevancy algorithm to better understand the intent of the searcher. Once you do the same, you’ll know exactly what you need on your site and where to feature it.

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