Posted by Cameron Francis
on
14 Feb , 2014
in
News Uncategorized
Google’s algorithm changes like Penguin, Panda, and Hummingbird have many SEOs rethinking their link building strategies. All of these updates have had an adverse effect on the search results for a countless number of sites.
Google’s web spam guru, Matt Cutts, confirmed that Google will be continually updating their search algorithm to reduce web spam and to improve the experience of their users.
Of the SEO tactics that are actually helpful, link building is a tactic to be wary of. It is constantly evolving and loaded with surprises that force many online marketers and SEOs to continually alter their link building tactics to keep up to date.
Link Building
Eventually, you will have to come to the realisation that it is extremely difficult to outsmart Google. Therefore, your best bet will be to play by Google’s rules. Even if you do outsmart them temporarily, they are bound to catch up to you in the long run. It is unlikely that any link building techniques will work forever. However, if you build high quality links, they will be far less likely to be discounted by Google when they update their search algorithm.
White-hat link building techniques that will help you to rank better in 2014 and beyond.
The days of paying $200 for 500 links are surely over. After Google rolled out Penguin 2.0, it was made very clear that paid links would be frowned upon. Google’s hard-line take on selling and buying links ought to be taken very seriously. These types of links are considered spam by Google and you will incur a severe penalty, which may include being de-indexed if they catch you.
Keep in mind that visitors to your site will be seeking fresh, informative, and engaging content and their ability to find your site could very well depend upon your link building methods.
Links that originate from low quality sites, have no value at all anymore, even if you have a large number of them. That was made very clear when Google released Panda 2.0. In order for you to get quality links and improve your ranking in 2014, it is of the utmost importance that you engage in some serious planning.
Therefore, you need to obtain your links from authority sites. There are likely to be a large number of sites that are relevant to your niche that will also be vying for links. Getting paid links on authority sites is frowned upon by Google, so you have to come up with another strategy.
Getting good links to your site will now be highly correlated to the quality of your content. If other sites see that you have very high quality content, they will be likely to approach you, and you are also likely to get some natural links based solely on the quality of your content. Building links will frequently require building relationships with webmasters of authority sites in your niche.
If that is something that is not in your area of expertise, you can obtain the assistance of an SEO company. However, a good SEO firm is likely to charge your anywhere from $100 – $300 an hour for a link building strategy session.
The parameters for quality backlinks have become much stricter. Links are still a very important component of any SEO campaign, but Google has made it clear that they frown upon unnatural, massive link building. There are now numerous tools available to determine the quality of a link. Remember to exercise caution when considering the source of links to your site.
