This is a guest post by Divya Rawat from Inetzeal.com.
The second quarter of 2012 is already well on its way. With Google topping all SEO news charts, one can safely predict that there are going to be dynamic changes in the industry.
Experts are predicting a major shift of focus from just Link Building to brand link building strategies. Viral Content and Social Media are also on the search engines’ radar.
Change is a harbinger of a new world order; this is true for all SEO campaigns. The perception that SEO is all about link building will not stand in good stead, just as it did not previously. All webmasters will have to pull up their socks as the latest updates by the leading search engine Google in its algorithms are going to affect the rankings, drastically.
Instead of chewing off its nails, it would be better for the SEO industry to focus on the tried and tested with a twist! Seven ways to achieve the benchmark could be:
1. Brand Building
This year, experts across the forums are emphasizing on building a brand, using innovate link building strategies. The focus has shifted from anchor text to brand links as the audiences are being more discerning about what they link to. This is possible due to the proliferation of the social media in the day-to-day lives of the browsers. By focusing positively on the website as a brand and encouraging discussions in a variety of forums about the blogs/articles/news on it, you can see some great results.
2. Promote Expertly Written Content
The greatest asset in a webmaster’s domain is the content the website has to offer. Content, in the form of article, blog posts or news, written by experts in the industry (that the website caters to) serves as a quality link for visitors.
Content can be on site or on any other relevant site. It can present different view points, in-depth analysis, or just news to score a high-five with genuine readers. It is imperative that the website hires or outsources the articles or blog posts to experts or great writers from the required field. This will make sure that the information is cross verified and authentic.
Hence, websites promoting informative and useful content attract greater traffic thereby increasing chances of improving the traffic conversion rate.
3. Viral Content Used For Link Baiting
As a part of the content strategy, webmasters can design viral content that is done with the sole purpose of attracting a large number of links within a short span of time.
The best way to do is by threading a discussion on current topic/happenings, news, reviews etc. Like taking a recent example; Google Penguin Update. The relevance of the content is again tied to the authoritativeness of the site. The trustworthiness (for the audience) plays a significant role in the success of viral content.
The rule of thumb, though here is the freshness of the content.
4. The Next Logical Strategy Is That Of Being Visible And Talked About In The Social Media
In a day and age where, popularity has taken significance, being talked positively about across all mediums, boosts the image of the company.
Any website owner would love to be promoted by word of mouth instead of depending upon oiling the PR machinery. This is possible only when the services are impeccable.
The website delivers on its part; be it providing services or selling products. When it does, people are bound to spread the word and the quickest medium is the social networking site, where, if statistics are any indicator, the entire world hangs out!
5. Off-Site Content To Support Onsite Content
Yet another point that has a link to point number 2. The search bots have become cleverer. They also rank a page on the offsite links it attracts. Again the rule here is to encourage guest blogs to link your site’s content.
However ensure that the information that they offer is genuine and the reader has something to take back after reading the blog posts!
6. Niche Directory Links
Linking strategies that involves listing in niche directories is considered a traditional method. The importance of directories cannot be disregarded though, as many people search directories for information about websites rather than keywords. Submit relevant links to those directories that have impeccable reputation; at least as much it’s possible in this virtual world.
7. Infographics
Information works best when it has visual support. If you browse the net, infographics are being rendered in almost all the informative pieces.
Basically, people are open to a visualized concept. An informative article/blog supported by infographics lends a different dimension to the link building exercise. In fact if you browse the big ten blog posts in any niche category you are sure to come across well executed infographics. The infographics serve a dual purpose of not only making it easier to figure in the SERP’s by applying keywords in the image tags, but also make it easier for the reader to process the information at a single glance.
An SEO company need not get stuck at the number seven. They could also opt for link building strategies that involve offering discount coupons, giveaways and freebies via their own or social networking sites.
The trick this year to optimize link building is by thinking out of the box – a necessity of the times!
Top 10 Search Terms:
• link building strategies after penguin
Thanks for the SEO primer. SEO done right is creating a quality site–one that will make keep a visitor interested and one that a bot will quickly understand. The most challenging of your 7 points for me is infographics. It will be harder to choose a graphic now that I know that I have to blend it with SEO. Your argument is sound…, so I must embrace that new challenge.
I was wondering about directories and links. I had heard that directory links are PR0. Is that changing?
Infographics are really good and most popular way to get backlinks now a days but its very difficult to create them. Do you know any tool to create Infographics easily.
Thanks for the link-building tips. What I have learned is that it is definitely a process that requires consistency and work. It is interesting to see how influential # 7 (infographics) can be. I know I am starting to use them some more.
What do you people think of private blog networks?
I mean a company creates 10 new blogs each of them with its own domain name. Then they hire some bloggers and start creating content. Their links are not always to leading to the company’s site but to other sites too.
I think it could work.
If only I could get my content to go viral…well at least I’m already both part of several niche directories and practically a brand all on my own.
2012 part 2 here I come!
Great tips Divya ! In my opinion, guest blogging & free product distribution are two of the greatest ways to build quality backlinks after this Penguin update !
I personally think that the good things about those frequent Big G updates is that a site with a spam or spun article content is really hard to get improved in serp with any links you make, so it will offer an usual people the better “expert” information they are looking for. Ofc, the worst thing is that there are lots of websites with excellent content have got penalties because of Big G algorithm bugs. (I had a personal blog, with personal information and I didn’t ever made a “back link” to it, but I guess several days ago Big G didn’t like it and now I even can’t find it in the SERP);
Divya, all of your suggestions are really good and I agree with you. Thanks for sharing this post, it is useful for people like me and others:)!
I have always found blog commenting and forum linking to be two excellent methods. Infographics are also a cute way to build natural links.
I try my best to get my posts mentioned in social media, sometimes I’m successful, but most of the time not. I think the only time I’ve gotten a lot of retweets is when TweetSmarter retweets one of my posts about Twitter. I’ve also had some success with StumbleUpon.
I best concentrate on another of your points and that is great content. I’m dying for some people to link to what I write, but again, it rarely happens, except when someone like Tweetsmarter makes my posts viral and people link to it from that.
Thanks for the link ideas. Next thing on my list is a guest blog post. Hopefully a link from that will be helpful.
This is a nice mix of passive natural link acquisition and link building techniques. Google is apparently cracking down on free directories, but niche directories should continue to provide strong links.