If you spend any time poking around webmaster websites, visiting search-engine optimization forums, or reading Matt Cutts' or other Google-centric blogs, you already know that Google's latest website analysis algorithm – code-named Panda – is finally fully deployed.

Which means that the Panda "algo" is now determining website return position and page rank for every search term – all umpteen billion of them – entered into Google's universal search bar throughout the world. (Note: Specific, non-universal Google search engines – Google Books, Scholar, Shopping, Images, etc. – determine returns based on their own custom algorithms.)

Suggestion: If you are unfamiliar with Panda, you might want to read the LinksManager blog on the update first and then come back here.

With Panda, the Big G has, in essence, put its massive, 8,000-pound Googoliath foot down and declared that e-commerce is not a form of agribusiness. That "farming" – unless a site has something to do with tilling, planting and harvesting – will be no longer be tolerated as part of a search-engine optimization strategy.

But wait! What's new about that? Google has been threatening to penalize people who buy into link and content farm schemes for years. True, true, very true. It has been threatening that, both in its official guidelines and in its less official webmaster forums and blogs. And it has down-rated and even de-indexed sites which have fallen victim to the blandishments of the con artists selling these so-called solutions.

What Google hasn't done, however, is use its aforementioned massive boot to tap dance on the heads of the real perpetrators, the sleazy sellers of irrelevant, bad-neighborhood links and scummy vendors of so-called content written by semi-literate $5-an-article "experts" on everything from curing Alzheimer's to restoring a '67 Mustang.

Search-engine returns have been driving prospective clients to these black-hat operators' sites for over a decade and the engines – all of them, not just Google – have made little or no effort to stop or even slow that traffic.

Until now. Until the Panda Update.

Within days of going live Panda sent a whole bunch of major article, ezine, blog and link farming sites spiraling downhill toward the bottom of the index right along with many sites that obtained the majority of their links and/or content from those sites.

Prior to Panda the sites buying the bad links and content might have gone down, but the providers would have retained their relatively high rankings. Post-Panda the blade seems to be falling equally. Which is good for the web community generally and site operators who play by the rules specifically.

In our blog entry -- The Panda Update: Google Punishes Its Enemies; Rewards Its Friends -- we talk about damage control, about ensuring that your site doesn't incur any post-Panda penalties. Here, we'll focus on making Panda work to improve your site's search-engine and customer appeal.

But first, there's one simple truth about Panda that must be acknowledged.

Panda makes it harder and more time-consuming to properly search-engine optimize a website. There is absolutely no way to skate around this fact. Maximizing a site's search engine potential and keeping it maximized will require more time and effort now than it did in 2010.

Not in regard to linking, of course. LinksManager works just as well – and saves you just as much time -- under Panda as it did with all previous Google algorithms. In fact, tracking reports on hundreds of LinksManager subscriber sites shows that the great majority of them are ranked higher now than they were before the Panda update. But links are only one of the two most significant factors Google considers in assigning rank and return position.

The other is content and getting good fresh content up on your site will require more work now than it did when you could get away with trolling down to the farmer's market and buying it by the bushel.

But that's really OK because Panda delivers two very real, highly desirable rewards to those willing to apply a bit of extra elbow grease to polish up their site.

First, Panda will continue to create a lot of "empty" slots in the top tier of returns by downgrading formerly high-ranking black- and gray-hat sites. Panda-perfect your site and you could fill one of them.

Second, Panda is the first version of the algorithm to try and "enforce" Google's long-time dictum that sites should be "designed for end users, not search engines."

Does it do this very well? Depends on how you look at it. Googlebot still can't comprehend the qualitative difference between "See Spot Run" and the preamble to the Constitution, but it can sniff out garbage – like endlessly re-packaged drivel from content mills – better than any of its predecessors. And it is also a hell of a lot better at recognizing that an article about Spot running loose on the boulevards of D.C. is not relevant to a site purporting to be about democracy in the U.S.

What this means, in economic terms, is that optimizing a site for Panda will almost always result in it being optimized for humans – potential customers – as well.

All that said, here are five quick tips for making Panda work for you.

1. Don't panic about content. A brick-and-mortar business is built out of brick and mortar, or maybe cinderblocks, rebar and cement, or maybe wooden planks. Whatever. A website is built out of elements. From the POV of web-building programs and internet browsers everything – visible and invisible – is a separate and distinct element. To a search engine, content elements consist of words. Images and graphics don't count.

Does that mean you need to be a professional author to produce content that will impress the new Panda-packing version of Googlebot? Well, no, it does not. What Panda wants to see on your site is exactly what your potential customers want to see, great (and correctly spelled) information, not great literature.

Ask yourself this question: When was the last time you read a newspaper or magazine story on a subject you know a lot about without thinking that the story was a.) not very complete and b.) not terribly accurate. A long time ago, right?

Yet newspaper and magazine articles are written by professionals. So what's the problem? Simple. Those professionals don't know as much about your world and your business as you do. YOU have more information about what's relevant to your website in your head than they could gather in three months of research. All you have to do is put that information into some blogs and/or articles.

But that's tough, isn't it? You have to know how to write, don't you? Actually, no. All you have to know is how to talk ... and how to type with at least one finger or two thumbs.

Writing – formal writing – is one of the most overrated skills in the world. Writing that is intended only to be read as text is a terrible way to communicate information. We are verbal animals. If what we're reading with our eyes doesn't "sound" right to our ears we won't be able to understand it. (That, FYI, is what's wrong with so many textbooks.)

Do you send text messages or post on Twitter? Can your friends and family understand those texts and posts? They can? That's wonderful. Consider yourself a fully qualified "conversational" writer. Go sit down and knock out a 450-word blog about what you know best ... your business. Pretend you're telling the story to a couple of close friends instead of tapping it out on a keyboard and it'll be fine, Panda will love it.

2. If you're not already doing it, start linking to social network pages. With Panda, Google has greatly increased the search-engine clout of social networks. It is factoring social network links into ranking and return decisions and adding social network pages to some search returns.

Managing your social network links (SNL) with LinksManager is pretty much as simple and easy as managing any other kind of link. Acquiring them is typically a bit more tedious than finding website links, but is still well worth the effort.

Here's a typical scenario. You are a breeder of Komondors, large dogs comprised for the most part of skin and bones covered with hundreds of floor-length "dreadlocks." Your site contains a blog or an article on the importance of having Komondors professionally groomed because of the difficulty involved in saving their coats once they get tangled up and matted.

Logging onto Facebook, you search for dog groomers. Now comes the tedious part. Go through the dog groomer pages and find the ones that have a News Feed page, which in Facebook usually has a built-in NavBar item for links, or a "Pages I Like" link on their Wall.

Email the groomer – either through Facebook or via the groomer's website if that is listed – and tell him that your site contains an article about the importance of professional grooming. Include a link to the article and ask the groomer to add it to his Facebook page. Offer to add either his site or his Facebook page to the "Professional Grooming" category on your link page and include a link to your LinksManager powered Add-Link form.

3. Little things mean a lot, so don't ignore them. A 2500-word article is content, so is a 25-word product description. And as far as Google is concerned the former is not necessarily more important than the latter.

In addition to adding new content to your site, now is a good time to beef up your existing content. How do you add impact to a mundane laundry list of features provided by a product manufacturer? First, don't bother fussing with the list. If it came from the manufacturer it's probably accurate and contains most of the information the majority of potential customers want to know.

The problem is not the list, the problem is the fact that it's the exact same list of features that's on every other website offering that product. Since duplicate content can't buy you search-engine love, change the overall content by adding additional information on top off or below the list.

You don't need a ton of words. You don't have to write an essay about the state of the world before and after the product was invented. Just 25 or 35 relevant words. Such as: We started selling XYABC, Inc.'s Widget line in 1985 and were immediately impressed with the small number of complaints and returns they generated. This model, Ol' Reliable #5, has broken all durability records. Since adding it to the catalog in 2006, we've sold hundreds of them without a single return,"

'Nuff said.

4. Having trouble thinking of something to say? Let your customers do the talking. Do you ever get "attaboys" from your customers? Emails or snail mails saying things like "I really enjoyed doing business with you. Your reps were great on the phone and the package arrived three days later, I was expecting it to take at least a week."

Of course you do, everyone has good days once in a while. If you don't post these messages on your site, you should begin doing so at once. Customer testimonials – like other forms of word-of-mouth advertising -- are one of the most powerful sales tools existent. If you do already post your testimonials, you should strongly consider enhancing them to increase their search-engine-optimization potential.

Take the example above: I really enjoyed doing business with you. Your reps were great on the phone and the package arrived three days later, I was expecting it to take at least a week.

How could you go about enhancing that?

The first step would be to look up what the customer bought and send them an email thanking them for their kind note and asking them how the product is working for them. Chances are the reply will say something like "The Ol' Reliable #5 has been working great. We love it."

Now you can change the testimonial to this:

Here's what Jim C. of Saranac Lake has to say about buying an XYABC widget from us ... "The Ol' Reliable #5 has been working great. We love it. I really enjoyed doing business with you. Your reps were great on the phone and the package arrived three days later, I was expecting it to take at least a week."

That simple enhancement, adding two of your core search terms – XYABC widget and Ol' Reliable #5 – to the testimonial has just raised the page's informational and search-engine value.

5. Take a deep breath and consider carefully before posting blog comments, article contributions and directory listings.

According to the official Google Party line, ranking and return position decisions have always been more about quality than quantity. Except that pre-Panda versions of the algo and the supporting applications and hardware didn't have the chops to enforce it. They weren't discerning enough, fast enough, or finely tuned enough to really notice or appreciate the difference.

Panda, to a large though not complete extent, can. Post a comment on a blog that's updated infrequently and overloaded with more or less random ads (even Google Adword ads) and you won't get any search-engine optimization benefit from the link back. Post comments to enough blogs like that and you may even get penalized.

The same goes for posting to article directories with lousy traffic and social network link stats and forums with few members and an acute lack of posts less than six months old.

Remember the old adage about "clothes making the man?" In Pandaland, "bad sites can unmake good content." Panda, more than any previous Google incarnation, will judge you on the basis of your content, whether that content be a major white paper or a 12-word fragment of anchor text. It will judge you on the content you add to your site and the content you add to and import from other sites.

Share good links and good content with good sites and great things will eventually happen. Link and post promiscuously, carelessly, stupidly and something bad is likely to occur.

As time goes by and the reshuffling of return positions continues, the Panda Update will force many webmasters to re-evaluate their core belief that more is always better – more hits, more links, more minimal-income producing ads.

In the real world of commerce, as opposed to the fantasy world of web-think, that particular belief has never – not even in the very early days – been true.

A thousand irrelevant, mediocre links have never driven as many paying customers to a website as a hundred properly focused, tightly targeted ones..

One hundred thousand hits generating 200 sales has never been preferable to 10,000 hits that generate 500 sales.

Thirty or forty dollars in revenue from cheesy ads has never offset the loss of hundreds or thousands of dollars in sales from potential customers turned off by the clutter, ugliness and cheap appearance of ad-encrusted, popup-obscured pages.

Like the web itself, Google and, for that matter, LinksManager, is constantly evolving and re-inventing itself.

It, and we, welcome change rather than fear it.

So should you.

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