How to Recover From a Google Penalty

If your website got hit with a Google penalty, you are probably fully aware of the lack of leads.  While the tumble weeds roll by your desk, you are desperately trying to figure out a way to attract clients again.  Your website might be penalized, but it can be fixed.  However, it will take some time and patience on your part.  And it will take a lot of hard work and research on the part of your new SEO company.

Removing and Disavowing Bad Links

Your new SEO team should be able to pinpoint the reasons for your website’s penalty, although they will have to do a little trial and error to find the cause.  Removing low quality links pointing to your website is a good start, but the process is grueling and time consuming.  If there are bad links pointing to your site that your SEO team cannot get removed, there is now a way to deal with those pesky skeletons in the closet.  Google has a new disavow tool that makes it possible to request that search engines ignore these bad links.   However, Google takes the links you want to disavow as a suggestion, and does not always discredit them.

Use Keywords Naturally

In addition, your SEO team will need to clean up the links on your website’s pages.  Removing keyword spam from your website is also on the list.  The amount of time necessary to get your website back up in the search results varies by the reason for the penalty, and the degree to which your site is in violation of the rules. The legal industry is extremely competitive, and many websites have suffered penalties because of webmasters stuffing too many keywords into websites.

Use Social Media

Waiting for your website to start bringing in traffic again is frustrating to say the least.   However, here are other means of attracting leads website gets an overhaul.  Former clients usually refer friends and family to businesses that they have used before (if they had a good experience that is).  This is why it’s also important to keep a relationship with former customers if possible. Simply keeping in touch with your clients using Facebook and Twitter, or sending a calendar during the holiday season can help maintain trust and loyalty that keep the referrals coming.

Stay Positive

Unfortunately, many smaller businesses do not have the luxury of getting referrals
from former clients. And if they do, PNCs are going to go straight to the Internet to research them before they contact the business.  If your website has suffered a ban or penalty, a reputable legal SEO team should be contacted right away to start the re-inclusion process.  It can take some time to recover from a penalty, but calls will be worth it in the long run.   Try to stay optimistic.

Paid Advertising as an Alternative

While your website is undergoing some much needed tuning up, a good option to bring in Internet referrals until your website starts ranking again is paid search advertising.  Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns through Google can be a highly lucrative investment.  Most Internet marketing firms manage PPC accounts for their clients.  You might even find that you are getting more referrals than through organic search results, because your website appears before the regular search listings.  What’s more, your website will start showing up in search results within hours.

Moving Forward

If your website suffered a penalty or ban, you need to start shopping around for a new SEO company.  Look for companies that are “white hat”; this means that they follow the best practices guidelines of Google and other search engines.  Ask to see their current clients’ websites and do some searches to see if they are ranking well.  Also, ask if any of their clients have suffered from penalties and bans.  However, they may not tell you the truth so make sure you research the company thoroughly.  Be extremely careful hiring an SEO firm; many clients of the best known SEO firms have suffered penalties and bans from Google’s algorithm updates.

Author: Jennifer Long