Tons of SEO Professionals and Webmastars nearly collapsed at their keyboards in the wake of Google’s Penguin and Panda updates. SEO professionals believed that – “link building was dead… ” and this was an immense concern – to put it lightly. However, as time passed and Webmasters and SEO Professionals alike adapted to the shift, the fear wore off regarding link building for (SEO) Search Engine Optimization. In fact, the initial reaction was a bit of an exaggeration.

Building links continues and should/must continue, as it is an essential aspect of Search Engine Optimization. All search engines are driven by links.

With that said, we shall move forward with further information about link building, which you might find exceptionally useful and informative.

Misconceptions About Link Building That Should Be Disregarded Immediately

- Don’t build links and make sure your content is amazing. This is far from the truth… In fact, even Matt Cutts of Google said “Links are still the best way that we’ve found to discover how relevant or important somebody is… ”

This statement came from the head of Google’s web spam team. The guy who released the Penguin and Panda updates to begin with. So, maybe now we can all just relax and try breathing again? Maybe…

You see, although backlinks remains as a vital aspect of SEO and it’s also, one of the best methods that search engines utilize to rank and index content – the old fashion way of linking is now in the past. Those days are gone!

Google is now targeting particular types of link building methods/strategies. These particular strategies are the ones that should be avoided by Webmasters and SEO Professionals or risk the algorithm and manual penalties, which Google has the power to uphold at any given time.

Things You Should Avoid When Backlinking

Google’s goals and hopes with the implementation of Penguin and Panda were to get rid of spammy and suspicious link building shenanigans.That was all. In a nutshell, stay away and do not use “quick fix” link building tricks. For a very long time, website owners and webmasters invested a lot of time and money in exchanging links with other websites to boost page ranks.

However, these link building methods didn’t offer anything of value to users. Their mere existence was to develop as many links humanly possible and tricking search engine algorithms to advance a website’s page ranking. These are the kinds of link building methods that Google discourages and now with Penguin’s implementation if these unethical link building strategies are utilized by anyone, you will be given quite a hefty penalty for such practices.

Do Not Use The Following Link Building Tactics:

1. Cross Linking or Link Exchanges with other web pages with the singular purpose of creating a link tree to increase page rank… This is the type of tactic that should be put under lethal injection. DO NOT DO THIS!

2. Placing links to a website on low value directories is not recommended, as the majority of these online directories are not good. You’ll be able to tell the difference between low value online directories and the truly good ones. Make sure that they are applicable and relevant to your business, industry and/or niche.

3. Guest Blogging or Guest Posting with the only purpose being the insertion of keyword, stuffed links within the body of the content is also, a big NO, NO! As mentioned above, you will know which are high valued blogs based upon domain authority or social shares.

Below find some invaluable Link Building tips…

4 Tips on Safe & Effective Link Building Strategies

Now that we’ve established unethical, link building tactics and that they are indeed being targeted by Google – we are ready to move forward on what we all should be really focusing on – which are four, basic building principles, which will make your link building efforts invaluable and your SEO campaigns an utter success!

Stellar, Quality Content. It’s been said many times, but one more time won’t hurt a bit… Creating content that’s high in quality is vital! High quality content provides value to online users. Therefore, you will naturally/organically gain quality, Google friendly and approved links. Moreover, this will also, develop “Link Earning.” If you follow through with high quality, engaging content – eventually, your website will be recognized and your link building will go onto autopilot mode.

Keep Links Applicable/Relevant. Google counts on your inbound and outbound links to remain relevant. For instance, links should be connected with other web pages that have an organic and direct connection to your business, industry and/or niche in your business. Example: If you have a website that offers professional, cleaning services and it links to a website with professional cleaning equipment – this would make perfect sense to Google rather than linking back to a fly by night, medical equipment company.

Less Is MORE. With the new ways of link building – less is most definitely more! Using just a few links from a small amount of high quality websites is a lot more valuable than utilizing a large amount of links from low quality, spammy and suspicious websites. Quality over quantity will be triumphant in the link building journey. Concentrate on deep links when in search for high quality websites.

Social Media Investment. Social Media Networks and/or Platforms are more important than ever before. Although, Facebook shares or likes are not perceived as links – they do however, provide an excellent avenue to spread your message. Furthermore, it will boost your brand’s visibility and bring users to your website. Content, which is shared via Social Media platforms will organically boost and enhance a website’s visibility. It is recommended that you use tools, such as – HootSuite or Buffer, so that you may schedule Social Media posts in advance.

As you know, the SEO world is ever changing and although, sometimes it may become overwhelming – it is up to SEO Professionals to adapt to these changes, so that your website remains current and becomes even more successful and fruitful. So, when you hear people saying that link building is dead – know that this is an utter misconception and that link building continues to be a valuable aspect in SEO practices.

SEO is about growing organically, and to develop an effective, organic online marketing plan, it’s important to not only look at SEO, but content marketing and social media, too.

The algorithm of SEO is constantly changing. Social content is being consumed at an alarming rate and it is increasing day after day. As people are continuously turning to social media platforms to search and interact, it becomes important for businesses and brand agencies to improve their design thinking, presence and especially content.

Social media is crucial for growing a successful business presence online. And equally essential is SEO. However, there’s something else which most people miss: how SEO and social media marketing are closely linked. That or they get clouded by misconceptions and popular myths. So how is social media marketing connected to SEO? Does posting to various social channels improve the business’ ranking? Is it not possible to fetch a rank without it?

Let’s explore some roles that social media plays in SEO.

Social Media Channels are nothing but search engines.
Treating social platforms like search engines is the best way forward. That way, the likelihood of increasing discoverability and rank is more. The idea is to be where the potential customers are, presenting them with the information, results and content that they are specifically looking for.
That said, it’s important to mention that the search visibility is not considerably improved by the information presented in the social media page. Social profiles could help users in fetching information; however, it is done indirectly. When Google assesses the local rank of a certain page and provides information, it takes does so through an external network of third-party sites and directories. These directories gather their information from multiple web sources, such as the social platform of a business. Due to this, filling up the complete information in social profiles can give a business an advantage with respect to visibility and accuracy in online listings.

What are Social Signals?
This is another category where misinterpretations run galore. Many believe that if an article is shared several times, then its rank is improved on Google. But it’s not so. Social signals are not about the popularity of a piece of information – i.e. the number of times users on social platforms share it from their own feed, but it’s about the number of users who share the piece from the business’ on-site page using the social share buttons. This is how Google can measure the rankings. However, the quality of content, the business’ authority and inbound links all play a more crucial role in deciding a page’s rankings.
Get more visibility and inbound links
This is possibly the best and most value method by which it can help a business’ SEO. As long as they are earned naturally, inbound links are probably the most dependable authority builders in the world of SEO. But often it gets difficult to earn them unless they’re built directly with guest posts or with some other method. A sure-fire way to grow the number of inbound links a website receives is to increase the number of people who encounter its content. Yes, it’s that simple. Provided the quality of content is excellent on the website and people link to this page as a result, increasing the audience by a substantial amount will earn the website at least 10 brand-new inbound links. And all of these would be natural, derived from different sources.
Digital agencies should remember that social media’s role is completely dependent on the ability of the business to produce top-notch content that users would like to connect with and consume. If the content is link-worthy, there is no doubt that the size of audience would increase. Marketing agencies should learn from their lessons, stay active on social channels, experiment a lot and not rely on one strategy for increasing rankings and ratings of a business.

Content marketing and SEO are two frequently used terms and broadly discussed topics in digital marketing. What eludes most is how they work together and the importance of it. First, let’s have a look at both of them separately.

SEO: It stands for Search Engine Optimization. It involves a series of approaches undertaken to improve the search visibility, the ranking and also the traffic coming into a page of a website. The ways to achieve this is by optimizing meta tags, title tags, building links, back linking, using strategic keywords and much more. Most of the website’s traffic begins with a search. Hence, it is important that a brand building strategy includes SEO.

Content Marketing: Firstly content can exist in various forms – blogs, infographic, podcasts, videos and much more. No matter the form, it has to attract, engage, and inform with valuable content. Content marketing is a bigger approach which with SEO forms a part of your digital marketing strategy.

A digital marketing agency should remember that planning a content strategy which effectively integrates SEO as a part of it works not only well for the targeted audience but also for Google and other search engines. Here are reasons why tightly coupling content strategy and SEO guarantees success for your inbound marketing strategy and also the brand strategy:

1. SEO asks. Content answers.

First off, link building – possibly the most important factor to consider in your SEO strategy. Simply put, getting other websites to link back to your website is called link building. How does it help? It drives referral traffic as well as increases the site’s authority and ranking. When a number of trusted backlinks are made to your website, major search engines rank the pages of your website higher. Effective backlinks are made by high quality content. What qualifies as high-quality content? Relevant, interesting content that is share-worthy and persuasive. When your content is compelling, the likelihood of other sites to link back to your website is more. The other strategy to improve your website’s ranking is to create guest posts. These posts are placed on external high-domain-authority sites along with a bio and must include a link back to your website.

2. SEO leads. Content follows.

Important words and phrases that allow people to find your content and your website through various search engines (including Google) are called keywords. They are the most significant component of SEO. Every business or site will have unique keywords specific to their business or field. Keyword strategy involves including keywords and groups of keywords in title tags, URLs and meta descriptions so that people can easily find the business by simply searching for it. Besides this, keywords must be incorporated in the content strategy as part of landing pages and blog posts. Essentially, SEO plans the keywords that are to be delivered and content provides them.

3. SEO is forever. Content continues delivering.

SEO is not a one-time, permanent process. It is an ongoing one. It requires consistent maintenance. This is because Google consistently demands content that is novel. The recently updated pages with quality content are constantly indexed and rate higher on SERPs (search engine results page). That is why most B2B marketers (close to 72%) and digital marketing agencies are producing more content than they had about year ago. The only way to target and engage your audience is to regularly post compelling content.

One might go as far to say that SEO and content are sides of the same coin. One doesn’t work well without the other. Finding a workable balance between the two parts forms an effective inbound strategy. It gets more traffic, ranks your website higher and compels the target audience to keep coming back for more.