Low Quality Thin Content Will Destroy Your Blog

When Google rolled out their Panda update in 2011 it was aimed at websites with thin content, including duplicate content and having a high ratio of ads to content. The update was designed to prevent low quality websites from showing up high in the search rankings. Remember, Google’s objective with organic search is to provide their users with the best search results.

The Google Panda update was a huge wake up call. It was a big reminder that content should be written for the users, and not for the search engine. Low quality content doesn’t impress or convert website visitors and it won’t help your website get exposure in the organic search results. The Panda update really shook up the search results and really emphasized the “quality” factor when it comes to website content.

Even with the Google Panda update being common knowledge (and around for a few years) many business blogs still produce low quality and thin content. Here are four blogging tips to help you avoid potential problems in the future.

1. Only Publish Original Content

Google Panda went after websites that were publishing duplicate content, and essentially stealing content from other websites. Some businesses outsource their blog content overseas and unfortunately some of these companies simply steal content form other blogs and pass it off as original content. The unsuspecting business is then penalized when Google notices that they are doing this.

Only publish 100% original content, and if you are outsourcing your content make sure that you are receiving truly original content. It is always a good idea to keep your blog content creation in-house. Not only will you avoid possible issues, but also your blog team can brainstorm ideas and you can pull topics from within the company. This will often result in the most beneficial content for your readers.

2. Have a Tight Leash Around Your Bloggers

It is important that you treat your blog as a valuable asset, and take precautions to protect that asset. Limit the people that write for your blog to a number that you can easily manage. Many blogs will allow anyone to blog for them and it ends up backfiring big time. In their eyes they are getting free content, and lots of it! On the downside it becomes so hard to manage that regular post scheduling falls apart and the quality declines over time. It is good to only allow employees of your company blog. This allows you to easily manage them, and it also keeps your blog topics really authentic to your brand. Your blog can produce long term revenue so make sure to think long term when deciding who you will let contribute content.

3. Keep Your Topics on Track

One of the reasons the Google Panda update was rolled out was to take down content farms. These content farms were websites that featured a bunch of random topics all thrown together without any direction. They would have a crappy low quality article about losing weight next to a barely readable article about iPhone cases. The content on these websites was there to game search engine rankings and nothing else. The actual content provided zero in terms of value. Make sure that your blog stays on topic and doesn’t turn into a random discussion. This is another good reason to only allow select employees to blog, because when you open it up to several guest bloggers it can easily get off topic.

4. Write For Your Target Audience

Forget Google penalties for a minute and think about why your business is blogging. Why are you spending time and money to publish blog content? The purpose of blog content is to give your website visitors something interesting to read and convert them into either leads or sales for your business.

Your business should be blogging with your audience in mind, knowing that there is a possibility of people picking up their phone and calling your business, or getting in their car and visiting your business after reading your blog content. Prior to the Google Panda update content became just words thrown together to game search rankings. After the update many businesses were hit hard and some never recovered. Understand that your website content should be created for your visitors first, with search engines a distant second.

Low Quality Thin Content Will Destroy Your Blog