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If you don’t follow the worlds of SEO (search engine optimization) or content creation then you might not have heard about a change done late last month to Google’s search engine. Since it performs hundreds of tweaks to its algorithm each year, the fact that Google made a change wasn’t important. Instead, it was the sizeable change to how search engines show their results to people that shook things up and is forcing many people to reevaluate what kind of quality the content is on their websites.

Google’s algorithm change was called Penguin and it rolled out in late April. Within a few days site owners and SEOs began to comment on the results that they were seeing in the search results. The Penguin update was meant to lower the rankings for content that seemed “spammy” on websites, that had too many backlinks coming from what looked like poor quality websites, or were stuffed with too many keywords (the words that a business owner wants people to search for to find their website, like the words “buy coffee” or “coffee beans for sale” for a coffee website.

Why this Penguin is Dangerous

Until now it’s been easy for SEOs and content writers to build authority for websites simply by spinning out poor quality content, paying for thousands of backlinks and posting links on forms that point people back to their website. There are hundreds of companies that offer these services at very low prices. The business has been booming for a while now, but Google is finally trying to put a stop to it.

Google has been advocating a quality over quantity approach to your site’s content for years. Paying for quick and fast links, or poor content for your company’s blog or social media updates isn’t going to work anymore. The businesses that treat their content as important and worthy of a reader’s attention are going to see more traffic which does lead to more visitors converting into new customers.

Penguin was the second major update to remove authority from these low quality websites. Last year the first of these major changes, a Google algorithm change codenamed Panda, rolled out at around the same time. Furthermore Google’s SEO spokesperson Matt Cutts has said that people can expect to see more algorithm changes to come.

What Can You Do?

Invest in good quality content and offer value to people that visit your website. Create fresh, original stories that attract interest from your target audience. People will share this information on their social media networks and on their blogs and websites. Google will notice these links and consider them endorsements for your website, and in turn increase the ranking of your website in search results. That will send you more traffic to your website.

Having someone map out a content strategy that aligns with your company’s goals on the Internet has always been important. With the recent Penguin updates and Google’s promise that more is to come, now is the time to get serious about having a content strategy for your business before the problem becomes larger.