Make Money Online w/ Court

How The Keyword Academy Will Survive and Thrive in a Post-Panda World

Posted: 01 Sep 2011 08:30 AM PDT

Lissie told me during a recent webinar that I need to do a better job communicating where The Keyword Academy stands in a post-Panda world (Panda being the series of algorithm updates Google has rolled out over the last few months, causing total chaos and panic in the internet marketing world).

Well, here's where I stand:

I'm sick of seeing my members, who've worked their tails off and shown extraordinary persistence in creating their online income, lose that income overnight for reasons they don't understand. I'd do just about anything (including turning my whole method on its head) to see more of my members secure their hard fought gains and enjoy a stable income for the long term.

So I have to ask myself: What can I teach people that will (hopefully) protect them from future algorithmic upheaval?

Which leads to another, simple question:

Is Google glad my members’ websites and pages are ranking well?

If I can honestly say that Google would be glad to know my content ranks well, I have very little to fear from any future updates to the algorithm.

If I can't say they'd be glad, the reality is my business (and hard-earned income) is exposed.

But how do you know if Google would be "glad" you're ranking well for your keywords?

Think about Google's customer, the searcher. Imagine the searcher typing your keywords into the search bar and clicking through to your site. What's her reaction going to be?

Will she say "Oh, cool – this is exactly what I was looking for."

Or… "Ugh, what's the point of this article? I'm getting sick of the crap I see when I'm trying to find something in Google."

Google is fully aware that people are giving the second response much more often than they'r giving the first. They're not happy about it, and they're pouring billions (with a 'b') of dollars into figuring out how to wow their customer.

Who cares? Has Google perfected their search results yet?

Not even close. Take a short walk through the search results and you'll find them riddled with thin article sites (quite a few of which could call me Grandpa) and scraper sites.

So if Google still hasn't figured out how to clean the junk out of their results, why would we waste any energy trying to clean up our content and help Google "wow" their users?

Pick one of these two teams:

Google, with their multi-billion dollar R&D department and hoard of quality raters.
Stubborn internet marketers, who dig their heels and say "the current junky search results are proof I don't need to evolve."

Who are you going to bet on?

The Keyword Academy "2.0" is me putting my money on the fact that Google is going to get where they want to go. I might as well be waiting for them when they arrive instead of having to sprint to catch up later.

What does that mean to my method? It means doing what I can to impress the searcher (and make Google look good).

Over the next days and weeks I'll talk about how this affects my approach, including:

Choosing keywords with more focus on my ability to deliver great content (and less focus on the strict search volume/profit potential/competitiveness metrics).
Developing authentic, insightful content based on my interests and experiences.
Promoting my content through social interaction (in addition to traditional link building – although I've changed my link building approach quite a bit, too).
Using my new and improved content development and promotion techniques to increase my revenue per visitor.

Change is scary. Changing my approach (and asking my members to follow me) isn't the most comfortable thing I've done. But it IS exciting.

Rather than swimming upstream, constantly asking ourselves if/when Google is going to "slap" our sites down, why not use methods that Google loves?

Instead of a house of cards, we'll end up in a fortress, with a big stone wall around it (and a deep moat around the wall).

Make sure you check back over the next few days to see exactly what our "2.0" approach is all about.

- Mark

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