During the past few months of Google’s updates, quality audits, notices to webmasters and surprises, most of us have been virtually trying to live up to a dashboard and analyzing the natural search data. Bad position to be in a media agency reporting organic traffic numbers on a weekly or monthly basis with ‘stretched’ targets. On the clients side its not a pleasant situation either. It’s the time of the year when the expectations from SEO efforts is on the higher side and Google somehow is not doing what you expect the search engine should do, or may be not do ANYTHING at all!
In the meantime Google is quietly updating search terms with inputs from local, Gmail and Google+. Apart from this Panda, Penguin, bugs etc. make a us feel its a zoo and not SEO world. Further, Matt Cutts from the Google WebSpam team has also hinted a few actions including punishment for sites which optimized their key words more than required. Now all the online marketers concerned, I am sure, would feel that the good old days of Google were indeed fantastic when there was only one big change and that too once in a blue moon.
Is everything reasonable when it comes to SEO?
In reality Google has been trying to target spammers and those who practice blackhat techniques in a big way. While most of the recent Panda and Penguin updates and intentions are ‘Do No Evil’, they is a chance that genuine sites may also feel the pinch (such as those running affiliate networks were left to die on slow poison). One update from Google can kill years and years of marketing efforts. There have been no signs of slowing down by Google. Finally it boils down to live with Panda, Penguin if you can’t take effective measures to overpower the algo updates. But hey, see if Google’s Transition rank don’t create a hurdle between your SEO objectives and actual deliverables.
Building links
I would strongly recommend, when you plan for acquiring inbound links then do not go in for paid ones. The situation is not at all conducive for buying links. Although there may be an appreciation if you buy paid access and listing to the reputed directories. But in case Google has not yet made any cuts in its recent updates and you have ‘Super’ Confidence as a skilled link builder then maybe you can continue with your paid link building. It is not dangerous but to be taken up with utmost care while looking at other low handing fruits if any. Below are some guidelines which you can follow:
Do not create exactly matching anchor links.
Creating exact match anchor links will ultimately lead to being punished by Google. So keep this in mind and try to concentrate on links that talk more about your brand, related search terms, gro.
Link building to be constantly unpredictable
Genuine, fresh and unique content is the best link baiting strategy to me. Search marketing professionals have different opinions about link building, passing the link juice, incoming and outgoing link valuations and with SEO there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ situation.
Whatever pattern of link building you have in mind do not do the same thing every month/week because Google will catch you. Be unpredictable and you can escape.
Diversify the quality (read: PageRank) of the sites you are buying links from.
Try to place your paid links in a very selective mode and diversify them. Do not get links from the same place instead get links from small, medium, large, popular, ostracized, With PR, without PR etc. What’s more, never be scared to purchase ‘nofollow’ links. Never ever try to disregard prospective connections from communal media internet sites like Twitter as well as Facebook.
Purchase blogs
Purchasing a blog with a clean history of ‘unique content’ and constant traffic growth will be more effective in the long term. This will provide you with more value and not merely the links and also you will not be at risk of being punished for acquiring paid links.
Create Shareable content
As we have seen that paid links are risky, it is better to venture into creating contents by diverting the money invested in paid links. You need to add only unique contents so you’re your site gets some value. You can write guides for different topics, build micro sites, build new landing pages etc.
Thanks Knowledge Sharing.
Very Informative.