With many restaurants and hotels promoting their business online, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), has now become one of the strongest pillars of digital marketing. With the introduction of the Google Penguin algorithm in April 2012 and the various updates since, search tactics must adapt to survive Google Penguin.
Although our team could go on all day about the specifics of Google Penguin, we will not bore you! In short, Penguin 4.0 was rolled out in October 2016 and was first set up in 2012 to target web spam in search results. Google wanted to make sure we land on trustworthy sites with valued information. They created this update to catch and penalise websites trying to rank higher using black-hat link schemes. The update removed results that did not relate to the specific webpage, links that were ‘stuffed’ with keywords, duplicate content, and low quality backlinks.
The recent Penguin 4.0 update is now real time and part of Google’s core ranking algorithm – as soon as you make a change to your website, Google will evaluate and adjust the impact of any incoming links and spam immediately. This means that you could potentially get a penalty very quickly but could also recover just as quick.4.0 also has a more granular approach which means Google will not necessarily penalise whole domains, instead penalties will be applied to specific pages, giving you a chance to amend your website without your whole domain ranking low.Everyone trusts Google, so it is vital that search results for your restaurant or hotel are still standing after the latest update.
How your SEO can survive Google Penguin?
As Penguin primarily looks at the links to your website to decipher whether it may be harmful, the best thing to do is clean up your links. You should also continually work on removing as many bad links as you possibly can as refreshes will be continuous. Captivate Hospitality’s five easy SEO tips will help you be sure your website can survive Google Penguin.
Keep it simple When blogging and writing copy for your site, do not produce over-optimised text. Keeping your keywords natural and writing style easy to read will result in more attention. Long tail keywords are infrequently searched for but are vast.
Keep it relevant If your content has nothing to do with your restaurant or hotel, do not use it! We cannot stress this enough. Click bait may get more buzz but it will not get you returning customers.
Keep it current One of the main purposes of SEO is to keep your restaurant or hotel related to current trends in the food industry. Copy revolving around current stories leads to more organic searches and further link-building. Link past blogs and articles and tweak them to fit in with popular searches now.
Keep it local If your restaurant or hotel location changes and your chain grows to different markets around the world, make sure you always update this information. If you brag about having the best food in Marylebone but now you only operate in Brixton, this will only confuse potential customers. Update quickly and your posts will survive Google Penguin 4.0.
Keep it clean If you are really worried about past links, you can use Google’s Disavowal Tool. Disavowing means telling Google not to include any low quality links in your company’s ranking. Proceed with caution. Our team know this is normally used as a last resort!
We understand that keeping your SEO techniques fresh whilst Google Penguin is always updating may sound impossible. To utilise 4.0 and get ahead of your competitors, please contact Captivate Hospitality and we can help you survive Google Penguin straight away.
