What You Need to Know About SEO August 2012

How to Avoid 5 Common Web Design Mistakes that Hurt SEO

Even if your website looks great, some web design factors can really cause problems with Search Engine Optimization.

Did you select the right keywords?
How’s your semantic markup?
Does your site load fast enough?
Did you put the right words in the right places?
Who really owns your website and you data?

This and much, much more can impact your SEO.

Read more about how to avoid these common web design mistakes.

New Google Penguin Penalty

Google hit alot of websites hard in April 2012 with the Penguin update. Penguin primarily focused on websites that had acquired large quantities of links from low quality websites such as free directories and blog comments.

There are indications that the next version of the Penguin penalty is getting close. Google’s Matt Cutts said that the Google “engineers have been working hard” on the new Penguin update. Matt went on to say that the next few updates will be “jarring and jolting” for many webmasters and SEOs.

If your site has used risky link building or overly aggressive SEO in the past, be prepared to get penalized. Don’t know if you’re in danger or don’t know what to do? Contact 2theTop for a full SEO Audit of your situation.

Read more about the Penguin 2.0 Penalty at Search Engine Roundtable.

Google Pirate Penalty

Copyright infringement is rampant on the web. Google is taking action.

By lowering the ranking of sites that have accusations of copyright infringement – and other reasons deemed within Google’s algorithms – Google is adjusting its own behavior to comply with the millions and millions of monthly copyright removal requests.

They aren’t removing these sites from their database, only lowering their rankings to make it much more difficult to find them. It’s one more step to a web full of relevant and authoritative content.

Read more about this new penalty:
http://searchengineland.com/dmca-requests-now-used-in-googles-ranking-algorithm-130118

How will Google’s You Tube be affected? Read more here:
http://searchengineland.com/google-many-popular-sites-will-escape-pirate-penalty-130289

Official Google Announcement
http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/08/an-update-to-our-search-algorithms.html

To learn more about the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) click here:
https://www.eff.org/issues/dmca

WordPress and SEO Training Class

On Thursday, September 20, join us for an exclusive WordPress development and SEO class.

This is an intense, 4 hour class with expert advice on how best setup a WordPress website and promote it with the right SEO practices.

Led by John Housholder of AhSo Designs and Ross Jones of 2 the Top Design, you’ll learn the essentials of getting the most out of a WordPress setup.

Click here for more information and to sign up!

Photo Credits:
Penguin
Pirate

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