SEO Link building

We recently took a good look at The New York Time’s expose of American retail giant JC Penney’s less than white hat SEO linkbuilding efforts and Google’s subsequent demotion of their rankings. Truth be told, JC Penney are hardly the only company in the world relying on paid-for links from often irrelevant blogs or bogus content networks. Scratch beneath the service and there are plenty of other organisations benefiting from linkbuilding that if studied closely would in all likelihood fall foul of Google guidelines.

On the other side of the paid link fence you don’t have to look too far either to see juice for sale. Last year the Daily Express was caught selling ‘SEO advertorials’ for £1,000 each. The Oxford Mail is also selling links, placing keyword in news stories linking to client sites. In the States there was news this week of sites including Oakland Tribune and San Jose Mercury News inserting paid links into a section on their footer. All of these are cruising for a Google bruising in the form of ranking devaluation or even de-indexing.

Sure, there might be quick fire financial wins, and heaven knows the publishing industry needs to generate all the income it can. But flouting the Google Guidelines is no way to run your business online over the long term.

If going out and buying links is going to cause trouble, what then are the best ways to inspire inbound links and build your online profile effectively AND sustainably?

Here are just some tried and tested methods that any SEO agency worth their salt will be deploying on your behalf.

1.      Directory submission. Like shooting links in a barrel. Links from aged, trusted domains in the form of directories are often more valuable than people give them credit for. Submit. Tick the box and move on.

2.      Competitor analysis. Check out the competition and see who’s giving them juice. See if you can get on in the action too. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. If your competitors have got their act together, which of course you hope they haven’t, then it’s likely they’ll be doing the same to you.

3.      Press releases. Get your press releases syndicated through the likes of PR Web and Response Source and benefit from links propagated across a range of domains. You might pick up some nice traffic too through Google news and even Universal search returns.

More quality SEO linkbuilding tips to follow. In the meantime if you need any advice or are unsure as to what link building tactics might or might not conform to Google’s Guidelines, talk to your SEO team for the latest SEO information.