“No website can stand without a strong backbone. And that backbone is technical SEO” – Neil Patel
Internet users in Singapore have grown exponentially from 4,179.6 in 2014, to 4,892.5 million in 2019 (Euromonitor International 2020). This equates to 84% of Singaporeans who use the internet!
While many businesses used to abuse ‘black hat techniques’ such as adding hidden comment tags, meta keyword stuffing, and link selling to boost their site rankings, Google’s algorithm changes; implementation of the Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird algorithms, have successfully oppressed these SEO malpractices. However, these changes also have drastic implications on law-abiding businesses. The Panda algorithm implemented in 2011, demotes sites that Google deems to be of lower quality, and vice versa. According to insider information from Google employee Amit Singhal, the prominent criteria for high-quality sites are insightful relevant information, along with the originality and credibility of content (Marie Haynes 2014). The Penguin algorithm introduced in 2012, guards against sites that had bypass Google’s algorithms by creating unnatural backlinks (E.g. self-made anchor texts), to increase their search rankings. In contrast to the Panda and Penguin algorithms, which is to filter out low-quality and untrustworthy sites respectively, the Hummingbird is in fact a completely new Google engine with a goal to better understand a user’s query.
It is inevitable to have sites on similar topics with slight keyword variations, while we are marketing products in the same product category. Unless we have a monopoly in the industry, repeated information will be present in the promotion of our products. These undesirable implications – lack of originality and insights, will undoubtedly affect the quality of our sites. In handling the aforementioned issues, we can make use Canonical Tags to solve the issue on duplicate content. To overcome the lack of content originality, it is imperative for us to comprehend and leverage on Google’s search engine. Furthermore, we have to integrate our understanding on the SEO – Keywords and technical optimization, with market research, such as our target customers, their goals and motivations, to effectively devise a SEO strategy.
On a final note, it is advisable to follow conventional SEO practices, given the strict regulations put in place by Google. To avoid being marked as a dishonest site, we have to proactively identify and remove untrustworthy links that point to our sites. Alternatively, we can utilize a disavow tool to alienate from untrustworthy foreign links.
Do let me know your comments below!
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Hao Zhen's Digital Marketing Journey 
Hi Haozhen,
Good read! I agree with you that companies should not even think of using the ‘black hat’ strategy as in long run it will only damage their reputation. However, I felt that companies that are using ‘black hat’ strategy are start-up companies that want to save cost etc, so what are you point of view of start up company for using per-per-click advertisement?
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Algorithms play a big parttt! For a start up business would you recommend them to use the PPC technique? If so what are your views on PPC?
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Thanks for the question Rachel! Startup businesses often have monetary constraints and can afford to only run a budget marketing campaign. The use of traditional media vehicles like television advertisements and 6-sheet billboards might not be feasible. As such, the PPC is a viable and effective option to reach out to the audience, given that are plausibly more touchpoints for an SEO marketing compared to other media vehicles. To utilize PPC marketing cost-efficiently on Google Adwords, it is mandatory for any companies to consider their keyword relevancy and landing page quality as they are determinants of the quality score.
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