Keep Your On-Site Traffic

by Alyssa Ast

A great way to decrease your on-site traffic and lose repeat site visitors is with the use of numerous site redirects. I will avoid a site at all cost if I'm constantly redirected to another site or web page for information. Once or twice is ok, but if every time I want information I'm sent somewhere else will cause me to stop using that site and find another one that fits my needs. Redirects may be good for link building, if done correctly, but they can hurt your site traffic because it makes your site difficult to navigate. People like things to be easy and a flood of redirects isn't easy and is simply annoying.

Avoiding the Redirects
When you develop a niche specific website, you want to it include all of the information your readers want and need all in one place. The design of your site needs to be simple and contain the information your readers want, without having to be redirected to another site. While it isn't always possible to have all of the information in one spot and redirects are sometimes needed, the number of redirects certainly needs to be limited.

The information on your site should be well organized so you can easily link the information on your site internally, without the need to redirect readers to another site. However, the number of internal links need to be limited as well because too many will hurt your SERP ranking.

If you must redirect readers to another site, it's essential you only link to quality sites that offer relevant and valuable information. Limit the number of redirects to as few as possible, and always have the redirects open to a new page. This will prevent your website from becoming lost to your reader and will help you maintain your on-site traffic.

Google's Panda and the Keyword Confusion

by Alyssa Ast

Even though Google's new Panda platform has been in place for a while now, there's still a lot of confusion surrounding the changes and new requirements. Recently, I was asked if the new Panda platform changed how keywords are used? In short, no. Well, basically no if you're already optimizing content correctly. However, if your optimization skills aren't too sharp you'll need to refine them the ensure you achieve a high SERP ranking.

Panda and Keyword Use
Because the Panda changes enforce the quality of content, it's essential proper optimization is used. This means your content will be indexed lower if you keyword stuff, which means you want to be sure your using the correct keyword density. Plus, they are now looking at URL's and how Meta descriptions are used more so than they were, so those areas need to be correctly optimized as well. So really, the new platform shouldn't change the way you're using your keywords as long as your optimizing correctly.

Panda and SEM
This biggest area I see where change might occur is if you use search engine marketing (SEM). One area that's now being enforced more than ever is how and where you use links. The number and types of links you use now plays a large role when Google indexes content and websites. Google is looking at how relevant inbound, outbound and internal links are. This means you need to make sure the links you use are authoritative and relevant. Don't overdue it with the links either. General rule of thumb is, for every 400 words you should have 2-3 links. The links should be correctly used as an anchor link, preferably to a relevant keyword/phrase that accurately describes where the link is directing a reader.

So to cut the keyword confusion, chances are you don't need to change anything with the new Panda platform if you're already optimizing correctly. If you aren't sure how well you're doing, don't forget I offer a free SEO review service.