Vol. 59: Eminent SEO’s 7th Anniversary; Google Penguin 4.0 Rolls Out, Makes Minimal Impact

Eminent SEO News: It’s Our 7th Anniversary

Go shorty, it’s our birthday …

Eminent SEO was formed in October 2009 as a three-person team, but we have consistently grown since then and we are celebrating seven years in business this month! In the past year, we stretched our legs and moved into a bigger office in Mesa, Arizona, and we’ve added key new members to our team as well as a diverse lineup of new clients.

Thank you to all of our followers, clients and partners for helping us grow over the past seven years! Here’s to many more years of serving you!

More Eminent SEO News: We’ve Added a New Help Desk Feature

Already a client of Eminent SEO? Now you can reach us any time you want with our new online help desk feature!

Now, instead of trying to track down individual tasks or figure out which person in our office to email, you can just send us your questions or requests through this new online portal that branches off our website. In most cases, we will respond to your submission within one business day.

Click on the screenshot below if you’d like to be taken to our help desk right now:

What’s New in SEO: Google Penguin 4.0 Is Here

According to many reports, the Google Penguin 4.0 update began rolling out on Sept. 23. According to Search Engine Roundtable, not many websites saw a huge difference in their search rankings that first weekend. In fact, nearly 600 people responded to a poll on Search Engine Roundtable and 73 percent of them said they saw no changes in rankings around the time the Penguin 4.0 rollout began.

According to Search Engine Land, these are the attributes of the Google Penguin 4.0 update:

• The Penguin filter is now supposed to run in real time with the Google search algorithm, rather than updating and taking effect periodically.
• Penguin now is more page-focused instead of site-focused. So now, if you have a page that is flagged for having too many poor or spammy backlinks, it shouldn’t pull your entire website down in the search rankings.
• Since Penguin is now supposed to run in real time, you won’t see a Penguin 5.0, 6.0, etc. Google won’t have to confirm future Penguin updates from here on out. Penguin will just run consistently now.
• Penguin 4.0 is potentially still rolling out. Each major update like this is usually a multi-day process. Just don’t expect Google to confirm when the rollout is complete: SEO reporters usually have to pull teeth to find out answers such as that.

Google Says ‘I Release You’ to Websites with a Penguin Penalty

Search Engine Land also reported Google started releasing websites with a Penguin 3.0 penalty the week after Penguin 4.0 began rolling out.

Google authority Gary Illyes made it sound as if Google would remove the penalties in a matter of days:

@atmoore81 it’s happening as we speak. or tweet. it will take a few more days to finish that part

— Gary Illyes (@methode) September 28, 2016

Penguin 3.0 rolled out in October 2014. That means some websites have waited nearly two years for their Penguin penalty to be removed.

As a reminder, the Penguin filter targets websites that have received a high volume of unnatural, low-quality and/or spammy backlinks. In the past, SEO specialists would try to boost the search rankings of a website by focusing on the sheer volume of backlinks it boasted. Now, thanks to Penguin, the name of the game is high-quality backlinks.

If you need some tips on how to review your backlink profile and adjust your site so it doesn’t get hit by Penguin, read this post we wrote back in January after many SEOs speculated that Penguin 4.0 was underway (which, as you can now see, was not the case).

September Social Media Roundup

If you missed our social posts in September, get caught up here. We were particularly active on Instagram last month, sharing motivational business quotes and eye-catching photos. If you haven’t followed us yet on Instagram, check out our profile. For the best of all of our September social media shares, see below.

So, unless you want to be a robot, it’s okay to take some risks, fail sometimes even. Just fail forward quickly. https://t.co/BnrlG9JrT6

— Eminent SEO (@EminentSEO) September 5, 2016

You were born with all of the answers already inside of you. You have an intuition for a reason, use it. #instict https://t.co/sYhsegmCHV

— Eminent SEO (@EminentSEO) September 19, 2016

Always. Our motto. https://t.co/x5C07RQAXy

— Eminent SEO (@EminentSEO) October 1, 2016

September Blog Roundup

In September, our blog was highly focused on SEO topics, such as keyword research and organic search results. Google frequently updates and changes its search engine algorithm, so it’s important to stay up on best SEO practices if you want your website to rank well. You can head over to our whole blog by clicking here, or you can see an overview of our September posts by reading below.

Your Guide to Keyword Research in 2016 Going into the New Year

Google’s search algorithm is much smarter about keyword usage than it used to be. You no longer have to keyword stuff a page and use the exact phrase verbatim every time. Modern keyword research is all about who is searching these terms and what their intentions are once a search engine delivers their results. Here’s how to approach keyword research heading into 2017.

It’s Indisputable: Organic Search Results Are Better than Paid Spots

Did you know that organic search results deliver better, more consistent results than paid online ads, social media, email, etc.? Therefore, it’s a must that you use your website to try to aim for some page 1 results on Google and other search engines. Here’s how to approach and develop your team’s organic search results strategy.

How to Survive in the Current Organic Search Results Landscape

This post builds on the previous entry in giving you advice on how to compete in the organic search rankings world. Additionally, we particularly focused on how to shoot for high rankings in the face of all of the changes Google has made to the layout of its search engine results pages in the past year. So, enhance your organic search strategy by reading here.

Featured Service: Pay Per Click Management

Although we’re adamant about the power of high organic search rankings, as you just read, the reality is it can take a long time to achieve them. In the interim, it helps to try your hand at pay per click advertising as a way to draw users to your website.

Pay per click (PPC) is a short-term strategy that can hold you over until you start seeing your website’s organic search rankings rising. If you do decide to dip your toes into this form of online marketing, you need to be strategic about which keywords you target, lest you can blow through your marketing budget. It also helps to run several individual PPC campaigns, targeting a few different keywords that are relevant to the offer you’re promoting.

If you enlist Eminent SEO to manage your pay per click advertising, we can set you up with several different campaigns, not only targeting multiple keywords, but on different channels as well, such as Google AdWords and Bing Ads. Once your campaigns are up and running, Eminent SEO can deeply analyze which ones are returning a high ROI and which ones we either need to address or abandon.

If there is a particular campaign that is paying dividends, we usually recommend pulling money from a struggling campaign and redirecting it toward “the winner.” And once we see your organic search rankings rising to prominence, that’s the time when we can draw down your PPC advertising and redirect more budget toward your organic search marketing and other areas.

Click to learn more about our Pay Per Click Management Services, or call us today at 800.871.4130 to get help on running strategic, ROI-driven PPC campaigns.