Panda update forces evolution in the SEO's job description

The Panda update forces SEOs to evolve into Business Analysts….

If you have the chance watch this great video on the replication of the Google Panda update video from the guys over at SEOmoz.

If you don't have time here is a quick synopsis:

How did the Panda update actually work?

The Panda 1.0 update was an exercise in replicating the results for a ranking questionnaire tested on a set of students.  The factors that made the students respond positively about the factors that would affect the perceived quality of a site were replicated with a computer algorithm.

What are the sorts of questions that the Panda update actually asks?

Page Questions
1.  Would you trust this content?
2.  Do you think that this article was written by an expert?
3.  Does this page contain any obvious errors?
4.  Does this article have original content or information?
5.  Does this article contain insightful analysis?
6..Would you consider book marking this page?
7.  Are there too many adverts?
8.  Would you expect to see this article in print?

Domain Questions
1.  Would you trust this site with your credit card?
2.  Would you trust specialist information from this site?
3.  Would you recognise this site as an authority on this subject?


A lot of these questions can be altered by more than just the sites content.  (I am not devaluing content at all)  But great content that has been wrapped in a spammy site can lead to a number of the questions above being answered no.

Online strategy is the new SEO.  No longer can social, mobile, development, design and UX all sit in different camps, they all need to be integrated into the companies online strategy, all pushing in the same direction all trying to obtain the same result.

What to do if you are working on a new site

If you are in the position where you are setting out on a new site build you need to build your on-line strategy around these new Google Panda Questions, but why not take this a stage further.  I propose at the start of any project you now need to ask:

1.  Why do we have a website?

2.  Why would people really come to our site?

3.  What can you do to make your site more valuable than your competitors.

For question two and three don’t rely on your answers, go out and ask people.  Ask your key demographics what information are you looking for, what are we missing, what are other sites doing better? This is the single most important question you will ever ask of your website, everything hinges of this answer.  Bad strategy can mean bad results.

Eg/  Organic Cleaning Products site

Example site / It is mostly women ages 16-75 who come to our site, they are interesting in our products because they are organic, locally sourced and contain no chemicals.  We also have a number of visitors who are not in our core demographic who are buying presents for our core demographic.  (This is starting to sound more like a business plan isnt it?).

So what approach could this company take?

• Write content that features local land marks, maybe has the names of local farmers, bee keepers etc (trust worthy 1).  
• Use the knowledge of these people in the creation of the content and product descriptions (written by an expert 2).  
• Double check your spelling (3) 
• Talk about the actual ingredients and the way the products are made (original 4).  
• Talk about why your products are better than the non-organic chemical equivalent (insightful 5, suitable for print 8).

This knowledge when associated with knowledge of existing keyword traffic will help to form an well structured IA and if you can keep from having too many faceted searches you will be on to a winner.

Approach to take if you are working on an existing site:

If your site is focused on the US and you have had a serious drop in traffic since 24^th Febuary 2011, or every where else from 11^th April 2011 you may have Panda issues.  So what to do now?

I would start by honestly going through the Panda influence questions, if you are getting lots of no’s you know what most probably needs changed. 
If however you are answering yes to all of the questions do a bit of user testing, I am guessing their opinions may possibly be different to yours.

Remember not all drops in SEO visibility can be put down to the Panda update, all of the normal SEO rules still apply:

• if you have been link buying - you can still get penalised,
• if you have not been updating your site - your authority can still drop, 
• if your competitors are working harder than you they may be producing a site that is perceived as more relevant to search queries than yours.

The Panda update should not be looked upon as a bad thing, it just means that your website needs to closer reflect your companies business plan.  Unfortunately if your company has a poor business plan you site is going to have little value.  The big change is SEOs need to evolve their knowledge into business analysts not just keyword analysts.

Written by Martin McAndrew

Twitter: @MartinMcAndrew