3 Ways You Should Adjust Your Link Building Strategy for Google’s Post-penguin Era
The launch of Penguin 4.0 reaffirms Google's stance on cleaning up link spam in SEO. Poor link building practices should be a thing of the past, but many people that do SEO still try to take shortcuts by implementing blackhat tactics that will get their website penalised. In this article, we discuss a few ways to transition to a white-hat SEO link building strategy that will get you the ranking results that you are after.
Links are one of the most influential factors in SEO. Even with the rollout of Penguin 4.0, links are still the prime factor that will get websites ranking on the first page of Google. In the past, several webmasters were guilty of engaging in link spam activities to get their site ranking on the first page of Google.
Thankfully, Google’s initiative to cleanup the search results by punishing those sites that engage in link spam has created a new opportunity for webmasters to earn links by publishing content that delivers value to their target audience. Many SEOs are saying that link building has become harder. And that is true if the SEO continues to engage in link spam activities. But if the SEO chooses to deliver value to their target audience, getting the links isn’t as difficult as it seems. It may be labour intensive, but not difficult. Here are a few ways you can earn natural links in the post-Penguin era.
Publish content that provides value to a specific audience.
Any content that gets published on your website should provide value to a target audience. There are several niche markets where people are craving for specific information and they are willing to share links to the information on their site and social media platforms if it provides them with the value that they are looking for.
There are several ways to deliver valuable content. For example, Instagram marketing specialists Vibbi publish guides on their blog to help businesses implement a brand building strategy on Instagram. The guides that are published offer valuable insights for the platform’s user activity, advertising, brand building, measuring ROI, running sweepstakes and developing a content strategy.
User-generated content can deliver just as much value as well. In the video below, Bemyhairmodel.com focused on developing a platform that delivered a value proposition in the form of convenience to their audience. The site connects hairdressers with people that are looking for free haircuts and the content is submitted in the form of classified ads. Hairdressers get the convenience of easily finding models every week while the models get the opportunity to have a free haircut. This value caused people to share the website’s link on relevant platforms and has allowed the site to rank well in the organic search results.
Engage in PR activities.
Many SEOs are only starting to realise the importance of PR in an SEO campaign. Ten years ago, SEOs were submitting press releases to press release submission services in the hope of getting valuable links in web publications. However, PR in the post-Penguin era requires relationship building and delivering a value-proposition to editorial websites that will cite, reference or publish your website’s content.
There are web services available that bridge the gap, such as Help a reporter out and Just reach out. But in the end, those tools will only help if the content that they receive will add value to their story.
Resource: How you can use HARO in your SEO link building strategy.
Reach out to content curators that are actively looking for content.
This is one of the easiest ways to scale your white-hat link building is by connecting with publishers that need content contributions for their audience. You can look for roundups, newsletters, bulletins or contributor invitations and submit content that will get published the platform that they contribute to.
The video below shows how you can find these contributors on Twitter.
Something that you should keep in mind when you are executing your post-Penguin link building strategy.
Content-driven link building works over the long-term by naturally earning links from authoritative and relevant websites. Many of the links that will be published will be on new web pages, which means it will take time for the authority of the link to mature. Patience is required with this strategy, but it will pay-off over the long-term.
Additionally, the success of your link building campaign is fuelled by the value and optimisation of your site’s content. Make sure that the content provides enough depth and relevance for both search engines and web users to understand. Succeed with this and your site’s content will not only rank, but will dominate the organic search results over the long-term.