SEO, Expert Content and the Panda Change

I must confess, I’m a writer. Actually, I’ve been a writer for a number of years; 17 of them to be more specific. Until last year, I basically wrote for myself, writing books (55 of them) and web content for my own website (500+ pages). I didn’t even know what SEO (Search Engine Optimizing) was, and really didn’t care to know.

All that changed last fall, when the need arose for me to start freelance writing. All of a sudden, I was faced with the reality of having to learn about strange terms like SEO, keywords, and that I really had to write to make Google’s search engine happy. It was a real eye opener for me.

Anyone who follows SEO is aware of Google’s latest change to their search engine ranking software, called the Panda Change. Like many others, I’ve scoured the Internet, reading articles by the experts and trying to understand what Google’s been up to. My best understanding is that Google’s doing what Google always does, trying to insure that the “Top 10” web sites for any search are providing true expert content to their customers.

I just stumbled over some clear proof that Google, and even more clearly, the Panda change is all about expert content. My personal web site is www.MaranathaLife.com . It’s a Christian ministry web site, that’s basically a few hundred Christian Biblical teachings that I’ve written, over a variety of topics. In other words, it’s a site that’s all about content. In fact, I can personally guarantee you that the content is 0% SEO, because I didn’t even know what SEO was, when I wrote most of it.

Not only that, but I’ve never had the time to go back and try and change my site to make it more SEO friendly. Nothing has ever been written with keywords in mind and I’ve never done a keyword check. However, the site does show up in the “Top 10” for various long-tail keyword searches that I’ve done, just out of curiosity.

Speaking of curiosity, just before writing this, I decided to check my web site’s statistics; something I do every six months or so, whether I need to or not. According to the access logs, I was running an average of 25,000 visits per month, all through last year and through February of this year. Starting in March of this year, I’ve had over 34,000 visits per month, with a high of over 38,000 visits. For those of you that don’t have a calculator handy, that’s a 40% increase in web traffic.

I realize that for a commercial site, those aren’t very impressive statistics; but for a personal site, run part time by one guy who really doesn’t have time to take care of it, that’s a lot.

The point I want to bring up is the increase that the Panda change has given me in web traffic. This is a pure “expert content” site. Like I said, it’s been 0% SEO optimized. In fact, I haven’t had time to do any updates since the Panda change took effect, yet I’m getting that kind of results. Why? Because the Panda change really is about expert content.

Since I know there are a large number of other SEO writers, SEO marketers and web site owners out there who are still struggling with the Panda change, I thought I’d pass this along. It seems that content really is king, at least as far as Google is concerned.