Link-building tools and tactics and the future of SEO

History of Links – Pre Google – A complex world!

– earlier with multiple search engines with slow to update and narrow coverage, now with automated search engines with low quality and increased coverage.

– Links are like votes – Google Theory

– Anchor text as a relevance factor

– Proximity of words and keywords density

Are Links Dead?

– Links are not dead, the weightage has changed.

– Google webmaster tools consider links as an important factor.

Links are Everywhere

– Case of PR web gone wrong in a press release submission issue.

Link Building – what not to do!

– Buying links, not recommended due to penalty concerns

– JC Penny case, caught for buying links for ‘just anything’. Lost most of the ranking.

– Forbes caught for selling links hence devalued.

– DecorMyEyes was penalised for negative comments for link building.

– Google Chrome and Google Japan penalised by Google for buying links 🙂

– Bad link building through articles: Poorly written article submitted in multiple directories. Considered as duplicate content by Google.

– Right way: Write on target content and place relevantly

Where to get links from?

– Local is big . For ex. Google Places – google maps and searches

– Linkable assets: Great Content = Great Links

– Blog adds freshness with QDF (query deserves freshness), Google loves it! Do keyword research and write on what people are looking for.

– Social media is a part of Google’s search algorithm

– Evergreen Concept : Creating content with the same page

– Creating linkable assets through Infographics. Lot of research is required and need to be creative.

– Be a thought leader in your industry. Please link you easily and search engines trust you.

– Think of images, videos, reviews and other channels to get traffic.

– Links = Traffic, not Ranking. One update on Google can lose large chunk of traffic.

Link Building Tools:

– SEO without best tools is useless

– Google WMT, XENU (Free), MajesticSEO, SEOMoz, Blekko, SEOToolSET

– identifying link building tools and linking opportunities

– The latest Google Disavow Tool – in response to negative SEO