New and ready to learn

**Miker** · August 7th, 2012, 12:46 PM

Little bit about me I am from WI in the USA. I have owned a few websites in my time but I started getting into websites in 2010. Each year websites evolve faster and faster but I always want to be 2 years ahead of everyone else in design. Some of my designs are what people say is awesome and others say wow or its annoying. I know SEO like the back of my hand I was a intern for a web tool kit company for two years. I cheated and I clawed till I found everything I could on other peoples computers about SEO tips.

I like to be very different and when I find something that turns the tide or needs a new home to complete because I am working on one single project then so be it.

Thanks,

Miker

**Slowdive** · August 7th, 2012, 6:26 PM

Welcome Miker.
Sounds like you have had some interesting experience and I look forward to learning from or with you as we get to know each other. In that spirit what would you say the most important aspect of SEO is in our post panda/penguin climate. Its one of my favorite questions and not asked to put you on the spot. Generally I find peoples answers are varied and often spark interesting discussion.
looking forward to future discussions

**Miker** · August 7th, 2012, 9:51 PM

Yeah the new panada and penguin update flipped the lid on the links, content and traffic for all these black hats. First things first if your site is another template I dont care if its on a CMS etc your pagerank and even position is affected forever. Any links/backlinks that expire within six months are going to push your position back. Dramatic increases and then decreases within a month can effect your position (5 dollar traffic). You want 100% unique content now and around 500 words no less. Get out all the blog links that are not relevant to your site unless they are .gov. Any other clients links that show up on your blog get rid of it.

Dedicated Blog Posting Packages should be checked for all of this before you want to boost SEO and SERP.

**Slowdive** · August 8th, 2012, 5:57 AM

Thats a very interesting point about templates, many of my sites that are prospering under the latest update are custom built. Where as templates are proving slightly harder to rank. Now it seems unlikely that google is penalizing the use of templates but is it possible the new algorithm is taking original or unique design into account? I cannot comment on links as even when I use a template I ensure its entirely scrubbed down with no out bound links I did not choose myself. However its also a valid point as lot of sites are getting burnt by linking out from the footer or via plugins.
Its also very interesting that bought traffic may be having a negative impact, it makes sense though as a spike and dip in traffic over time would send google a rather clear signal something was not organic about the site in question.
Thanks for the input and once again welcome