A colleague sent me this article about how many sites affected by the Google Panda algorithm updates are still struggling to recover, though at this point it could arguably be phrased “have failed to recover.” He advises site owners in many situations to simply scrap all their content and start over. Fortunately I had no sites significantly affected by the Google Panda algorithm update, so it would be easy to wipe my brow and feel like I dodged a bullet and call it good. But Michael Martinez brings up a great point. He said he hadn’t created new content in years. It got me thinking about how often we search engine optimizers get stuck in a rut of just making formulaic on-page SEO changes to existing stuff on the site, do the occasional linkbuilding push, and even get lazy and just start automating or syndicating content for the sake of getting content on the site – regardless of how junky it is.

So many SEOs write content only to appease the search engines. So many website managers write content only to make sales. But they’re missing the point. What’s in it for the visitor? If we all took a minute to really think about what the visitors are looking for, writing all new content isn’t as hard as we’re making it out to be in our heads. We’re just procrastinating. You know better than anyone what you’re writing about, so just sit down and do it. And make it valuable. And make it interesting. Maybe I’m oversimplifying the simplicity of writing great content (I have a journalism degree) but I feel that any great SEO should also be a great writer, or at least a great reader.

I can’t say that I’ve syndicated garbage content, but I can say that I am guilty of letting slide the creation of new, evergreen content (not just fleeting blog articles) with the intention of being useful, relevant content with serious longevity. I get used to tweaking and pushing the old stuff, which is great and all, but I get hung up on it because it’s easier to do than to plop down and start researching and writing something new. There are so many benefits to adding legitimate new content to your sites, including providing a more relevant and useful resource to your visitors and potential visitors, but also expanding into new key terms you may not have ranked for before. So my conversations this week will center not around modifying old stuff or trying to capture and comment on fleeting trends for our blogs, but instead on how we can start writing incremental new content I’ll call it. Surely there are some folks’ fresh questions we’re not answering if we haven’t added any legitimately new content in years. What areas have we not thought of that we can reach into? What are entirely new areas of coverage we’re missing?

So I will be going through each of my sites and my clients’ sites this week and looking for those areas of opportunity for incremental new content. Each of these sites can speak from a position of very niche expertise, and there are countless good, valuable, new content pages to be had. There are resources out there that we can provide that others aren’t yet, or that no one’s organized into a usable medium yet. It’ll take real thought and legwork, but new new content on our sites is worth it – and not just for SEO.

Tags: algorithm updates, content, evergreen content, Google, Google algorithm, Michael Martinez, Panda, SEO Theory

Via BeautySchool.com Beauty Jobs Outlook

An article from July in covering a new Pew Internet study called “Social Networking Sites and Our Lives” suggested that Twitter and Facebook users are “dumb” compared to LinkedIn users. I get what they’re trying to say, but I take two issues with this article in Media Bistro.

First, and not to go all PC on you, but this study by no means suggests that less educated means “dumb.”  Just because someone has less education than another individual does not necessarily indicate that they are “dumber.” That’s just bad data and bad presumption. This study didn’t evaluate IQ factors, it only evaluated level of education. It also doesn’t take into account socioeconomic status, which could affect the likelihood that the study participants either had access to a quality education in the past, or have access to a regular computer or other web-enabled device and the Internet. Interesting demographic data about users, yes, but the data is just incomplete and the Media Bistro report is half-cocked.

Second, I take issue with the fact that they lumped trade/vocational school with some college. The demographic who chooses to attend a trade school or vocational college tends to be very different than those who choose to attend community college or do not complete their term at a traditional four-year university. The way that it’s ranked also implies that trade school or vo-tech graduates are less educated than those with traditional college degrees, and according to this article … “dumber.”

In short, I’m not impressed.

Tags: education, Facebook, IQ, LinkedIn, MySpace, Pew Internet study, social media, trade school, Twitter

I am 100% pro non-Google search engines. I am pro competition, I am pro options, I am pro a constant struggle by all major search engines to improve their algorithms and the user experience. For that reason, I am pro Bing success. I truly want them to gain market share and become profitable and be a viable competitor to Google. But according to this TechCrunch article, that’s going to be harder than it sounds.

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Tags: Bing, Bing and Decide, competition, Cure for Search Overload, Google, Qi Lu, search engines, Stefan Weitz, TechCrunch

Short Answer: No way.

(I originally tried to post this comment in response to this article on Search Engine Land but it didn’t display, so here it is. Some of this might not make sense unless you’ve read their article first.)

An impact on the country? A little stretchy there. The only impact I see on the country is a positive one. It shows that voters even in a minority segment (LBGT) can have a voice and can’t be censored just because boohoo some politician doesn’t like what’s being said about him. (Good for him for finally coming around and accepting it in the end.) Censoring this particular act of political speech would be an abomination. Google is an American company and this is an American politician, for the sake of brevity I’ll reference the U.S. Constitution where the First Amendment guarantees the right to free speech. And of all the kinds of speech there can be, political is the most important and highly protected form of free speech – as it should be. And this is a clear form of political speech – including the redefinition of the name and especially the internal parts of the site – even it is uncouth and makes people uncomfortable.

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Tags: algorithm manipulation white hat SEO, Google, Google algorithm, Google Bomb, linkbuilding, MozCon, mozcon 2011, politics, reputation management, Rick Santorum, SafeSearch, Search Engine Land, Sergei Brin, wil reynolds