As Google continues to surprise webmasters and site owners with the impact of its algorithm updates, it becomes more and more suggestive that these updates will eventually render the classical means of creating links obsolete. It is apparent in these occasional updates that Google search algorithm is evolving. That is, Google is getting smarter in filtering sites that would appear on its SERPs.
SEOmoz CEO and co-founder, Rand Fishkin, thinks Google, in all these updates, conveys to us its intention of depriving the value of links built through old-school tactics. He foresees the emergence of the importance of earning links in driving relevant traffic to sites, just like in the mid to late 90s.
Nonetheless, not all conventional ways of creating links would seem to become ineffective. In fact, the manner by which we utilize these link building strategies could shape their role in earning links. Here's the comparison and contrast of some link building and link earning strategies as discussed by Fishkin. It primarily focuses on how we can turn the classical ways of building links into strategies for earning links.
1. Reciprocal Links and Cross Promotions
Link exchange is now against Google quality policy. We need to earn the goal of this technique in a natural and non-manipulative sense of SEO. We can do this by creating a kind of "mutualism" with another site. By developing a partnership with an authoritative site, our site can get featured without the need of dropping anchor text on other sites just to build backlinks. Our site partner will directly promote our site by mentioning the areas we are expert in and the kind of content we have for and can offer to visitors. In return, we should also promote the content of our partner site to our subscribers and target audience. So this strategy is a sort of making testimonials.
2. E-mail Blasts and Social Sharing
In the old-school SEO, we usually send e-mails to other sites or bloggers, offering them a bait piece or a sort of agreement, to gain exposure. We offer them a free logo or an exclusive content in exchange for a backlink. But we can also get penalized by Google due to "unnatural" linking. Instead of doing this, we may share the link of our content on our social pages. If our followers will find our content useful and interesting, they would share it to their own sets of friends and followers. As our social shares get magnified, they will produce organic links.
3. Buying Links and Earning Links Through Content
Any link schemes that pass PageRank violate Google quality policy. Thus, buying links must not be considered as an option for SEO. Rather, we should earn links by creating quality content. Quality content for Google denotes the relevance of content to searchers. So we need to determine the kind of content our target audience would interest the most and find out the keywords or keyphrases commonly used by searchers to find such content on the Internet. If our content would add value to users' experience and get them satisfied, more likely, they will be the ones who will share our content on their own social pages or blogs. As a result, natural links that point back to our site will be created through social sharing and citations.
4. Directory Submission and Inclusion on a Curated List
In an interview, a former member of Google Webspam Team admitted that getting listed on web directories is still important link building technique provided that these directories are curated lists and portals. Lists of credible and valuable web resources get shared easily on social networks and linked or cited by bloggers. Hence, curated lists provide the listed sites with valuable exposure. Moreover, the list creator also reaps SEO value from the list with respect to exposure and partnership with the listed sites.
5. Article Marketing and Guest Posting
Many article submission sites were hit by both Panda and Penguin. Hence, pretty good article directories, as of this posting, only have PageRank of five or six. These sites that managed to maintain good PageRank are picky on the kind of articles being uploaded on their pages. Those that accept any kind of article without quality control greatly suffered from the impact of both Panda and Penguin. But having a guest article on an authoritative, credible blog is far better than article marketing. By guest posting, we build partnership with the blog owner while creating quality backlinks for our sites. We also expose ourselves and brand to the site owner's friends and followers. So guest posting may eventually lead to an enhanced brand exposure and increased number of followers.
6. Link Dropping and Active Participation on Communities
Dropping do follow links on a page's comment section, online forum, or guestbooks is another old-school link building technique. Google algorithm updates made this technique ineffective. We may also get penalized by Google for spamming using this technique. Rather than dropping links, it's much better for us to join communities of bloggers and netizens who are experts on our niche. By actively participating in their activities, we can build affable partnership with them. Their followers and other members may also notice us and find interest in our content. Thus, by joining credible communities, we can hit two targets in a single stone: brand exposure and partnership.
7. Mining Competitors' Backlinks and Mining Competitors' Content
Since Google now favors sites with quality content, mining our competitors' best backlinks will no longer serve us best today. Finding out the sites they're linking to and create also links on those sites pointing to ours, will do less for our ranking on SERPs. It is our content that makes our sites appear on search results. Search engines crawl the web space and look for keyphrases used by searchers in finding information on the Internet. If our sites offer the information needed by searchers, more likely, our pages will appear on SERPs. However, there might be hundreds of sites that offer content similar to ours. So we need to become credible on our respective niches in order for our pages to be chosen by searchers over the other sites. We can build our credibility, as already mentioned above, by joining and actively participating in communities of experts. Another way is to look for a competitor's best content, then create a more authoritative and extensive content on that topic.
8. Building a Network of Sites and Building a Network of Social Influencers
Establishing a network of sites for the sake of building link popularity is spamdexing. Sites in a link farm are all hyperlinked to every other site in the network. In this way, link farming creates more inbound links for a member site. But this is a kind of search engine manipulation; hence, violating Google quality policy. A far better way of creating quality backlinks can be done by building a social network of influencers. These influencers have a great number of followers who, believing in their authority and credibility, share their content. If we capture the interest of these influencers through our content, they will surely share it to their great bunch of followers. Thus, having influencers in our followers' list will boost our brand exposure and create natural links pointing to our sites.
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