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You are most likely, SEO-savvy and using “white hat” SEO techniques and not losing rank because search engines are penalizing you for using “black hat” SEO techniques. And perhaps you know a little about optimization but not enough to write content that keeps you in the top rankings.

Here are 8 top reasons why your content is not making it to the top and easy remedies to fix these common mistakes.

#1. Lack of relevancy for your keyword

One of the most important factors for determining search ranking is relevancy. Is your content relevant to your keywords?
Every page must have a unique set of meta data and links that create that sense of relevancy. Many websites lack both.

Meta data relevancy – is your content relevant to the title tag and the description tag you placed on the page? The closer the tags relate to the words used by the searcher and the earlier you use them – in that same order – in the content on the page, the more relevancy your page has.
Link relevancy – are your links relevant to your content and keywords? The anchor text for links once were also key markers , but now a mix of keyword-rich anchor text and ever more general anchor text linking to still relevant content are more important.

Remedy: Improve content quality with better research, more data, using more links. No one is coming to your site to see you BS your way to a ranking. They want information. Make it your information, written in your voice, with your style and in your tone. Provide links to back up material.

#2. Low keyword use

This probably isn’t as big a problem as keyword stuffing. However, if you use the keyword only once or twice, say at the top of the page, and then ignore it thereafter, you’re probably committing this sin. Don’t over use keywords, but don’t under use them, either. They help make the page relevant.
Remedy: Make your topic clear. Mention your keyword a few times for clarity.

# 3. Irrelevant keyword use (keyword-stuffing)

This is usually a “black hat” SEO trick – stuffing the page with keywords. But sometimes it’s inadvertent. Sometimes it’s from an over abundance of caution. One writer on Technorati suggests we shouldn’t use a keyword more than three times, but search engines would suggest you use it only often enough to serve the reader well – not the search engines. And if you have a high word count, it may make more sense to use it more often than if you have a low word count. Use common sense.

Another sense of “irrelevant keyword use” also comes in the form of trying to fit in all the different varieties of a keyword, just in case someone uses them. Search engines usually differentiate various forms of a word to account for it in a search. Forcing words unnaturally into your content sets off alarms at search engines.
Remedy

Make better matches between keywords and meta data and meta data placement
better quality links
better variety of anchor text for links
Focus keyword use

#4. Low quality content

Search engines insist, “Write for the reader, not for the search engines.” What pleases the reader more than finding a treasure trove of information? Written in a format that makes it easy to pull out the data.

Poorly written, poorly spelled, poorly constructed content with little value is hard work for the reader and not at all pleasing search engines. Google Panda was also created to weed out low-quality content and that penalty will send your ranking south.
Remedy: Always, aim for high quality content, ie: content that provides value. Try to find topics that have not been indexed by search engines before and that will give you a competitive advantage in rankings. The key is to find a popular topic that has been covered extensively and give your own unique twist to it.

#5. Low word count

Low word count can be one sign of “thin content,” which could trigger the Google Panda penalty.
Longer content helps a search engine determine relevancy. If you provide fewer than 250 words, you may have a problem, although the quality of the text is far more important.
Some websites think shorter word counts are better: “People don’t want to read.” But that’s not true. Readers don’t want to wade through useless text to find value. Shorter sentences and shorter paragraphs aid reader scanning, while meatier content provides them more information – what they really want.
Remedy: A home page under 250 words doesn’t tell the reader much. A blog article of 300-400 words may not provide enough depth. 500-1000 words is a great goal, but write for quality and your audience.

#6. Scraped content (content lifted from other sources)

There is no value to reposting another’s material and you shouldn’t be rewarded for it. It’s lazy publishing, it’s plagiarism, and it’s unethical. You can certainly make “fair use” of short bits of other peoples’ work as a springboard to creating your own larger work, but literal picking up someone else’s work is wrong.
Remedy: Use only original content; use canonical tags in your own content to identify its originality.

#7. Duplicate content

Similarly, running your same material in multiple places on the Internet is wrong. There is a specific penalty for duplicating content. Even replacing a few words here and there doesn’t fool search engines.
Remedy: Don’t duplicate, rewrite! Cover news style with a capsule and link to the original story.

#8. Content you may not generate yourself but may affect your ranking

Auto-generated text (robotic fluff you sometimes see in comments): Seemingly random sets of words that don’t quite seem to make sense accompanied by strange looking URLs. It’s garbage meant to fool spam filters.
User-generated spam (comment or forum spam): This is often more sensible text and often written to appeal to your vanity, but sometimes contains spam keywords and certainly spam links. Occasionally, the links lead to OK pages but those pages then link to spam pages, which can negatively affect your ranking.

Remedy:

Monitor the comments and if something seems odd about a comment, don’t post it. More than likely it’s spam. Post guidelines about spam and police them. Spam and auto-generated text often make off-handed comments that have nothing to do with your topic – delete or send to the spam folder!
New: Google has just launched a new manual spam notification tool in Webmaster Tools to alert you when your site has been manually tagged for spam. Use it to reduce the effect of spam on your site.

This is a guest post by Alan Eggleston.

When you get caught for a traffic violation, you get ticketed. That’s kind of what Google Panda is about. Only, instead of getting caught for speeding or driving with a broken brake light, Google penalizes you for speeding with low quality content. Think of it as being caught for driving in the commuter lane while having only one person in the vehicle, then being forced to drive on the shoulder until you change your attitude.

Some Panda Basics

Google Panda is an algorithm – a filter, really – that looks for content of little substance. When it finds sufficient low quality content, Google penalizes the whole site, reducing the site’s search results ranking. They actually call Panda an “update” because every once in a while they rerun the filter to see who has improved the quality of their content and who is still violating their standards. Those who have improved get improved rankings and those who haven’t continue to suffer lower rankings. So far, Google has run six updates.

Note: Don’t confuse Panda with Google Penguin, which is a filter meant to penalize Web spammers.

What is “low quality” content, or content of little substance?

Defining Quality

Low quality content or content lacking substance provides little value to the reader. It is written to show up well in search engine rankings, focused around specific keywords. You have probably seen the ads for writers offering to provide the keywords and requiring content be written to a certain keyword density. That can create low-quality content.

Note: Keywords are important to optimization, and making sure that keywords show up strategically in content is important to ranking, but there’s a huge difference between that and keyword stuffing and writing to place keywords rather than writing for substance.

Low-quality content is also content that is duplicated across multiple sites. Some authors and editors will use the same content on multiple blogs and websites. Google wants to know that content for each site is unique. Sometimes, content is pirated from one site to another without the owner even knowing it, often to the detriment of the original owner.

Another sign of low-quality content is simply poor writing and editing. It may contain multiple typos and misspellings, rambling sentences, poor grammar, erroneous punctuation, and long, run-on paragraphs. These are usually produced by content farms or mills that pay very little and get very little in return. Their focus isn’t on quality but on quantity. The content often lacks depth and specifics, thus also lacking substantial substance and any real value to the reader.

What to Do if You’re Penalized

If you find that you have been penalized by Google Panda, there are remedies. First and foremost, replace any offending content. Make sure that you produce content that is written and edited for your readers, not simply to place well in search. Make sure it has depth and substance and that it is well written. And run searches on Google for phrases and sentence from your work and make sure no one – including you – have duplicated the content anywhere. If someone has, demand that they remove it. If you have, remove it; rewrite it if you need to make the same points elsewhere.

A word about hiring writers: You get what you pay for. While prices for writing can vary at the high end, in the U.S. the difference between a writer willing to produce at $5 a page will be entirely different from someone who won’t write for less than $50 to $75 a page. The later is usually a well established writer who will provide top quality material, while the former is usually someone wanting to establish a career. You’re risking your publication and ranking on paying cheaply. You might find a gem in the rough, or you might simply find a lump of coal. Hiring a quality writer can be a tremendous help in creating quality content. A quality editor is equally important.

A Final Point

Being penalized by Panda is site-wide. That means Google won’t just tag and penalize the pages that show a lack of substance, but they’ll lower the ranking of all your pages. If you’ve lowered your standards and used “black hat” spamming techniques on your site, too, you could be in for a very difficult revival. Remove all the barriers to good quality content and user-oriented searches, and that should improve your rankings.

Alan Eggleston is a web editor, writer and principal of E-Messenger Internet Consulting. He recently posted a related article on the Web Editors Blog titled “Pandas and Penguins and Penalties, Oh My!”

How Your Content Is Hurting You, and What You Can Do about It