Important Google ranking algorithm changes in 2011

With the new Google algorithm changes the following will be noticed in SEO practices and applications:

1. Low quality websites are now being filtered Google released several ranking algorithm updates in 2011 that tried to filter low quality websites from the search results. Scraper websites or websites with low quality content don't get high rankings anymore and owing to these changes in Google's algorithm, some websites saw a traffic drop of 75% or more. Must do: Do not try to promote your website with quick-fix solutions. Quality is more important than quantity and that is exactly what fruitful SEO techniques swear by.

2. Search has become social Social signals such as the number of Google +1 clicks, Facebook mentions and tweets now influence the position of your website on Google's result pages. Must do: Add social sharing buttons to your website and encourage your website visitors to mention your website on social networks.

3. Search results are more than just links now Most result pages on Google show much more than a list of 10 web pages. Search results now include images, videos, news, local results, etc. Hence optimizing search engines using SEO helps in better SEO results and rank. Must do: use a holistic approach to promote your website: optimize the content of your web pages, get good backlinks to your website, offer local services, submit videos about your business to Google to make sure that your website gets listed in all possible places on Google's result page.

4. Page speed has become a ranking signal Searchers tend to be happier if they get what they want as quickly as possible. Although site speed is only a minor factor in Google's ranking algorithm, it makes sense to optimize the performance of your pages. Must do: make sure that your web pages load as quickly as possible.

5. Its not just Google: Yahoo/Bing is getting more important with time now. Although Google has the biggest market share, Yahoo and Bing now have a combined market share of about 33%. If you're not getting 33% of your traffic from Yahoo/Bing than you should start to optimize some of your pages for Bing and Yahoo immediately.

For more help with regards to this contact SEO Junkies for assistance and get your website and online portfolio ready to face the changes of 2011 and the possible change effects in 2012.