2012 – A Year Of Turmoil
In years gone by in the wonderful world of SEO, ranking for keyword
phrases was quite a bit simpler than it is today. Can I get an amen,
people? Can I get an alleluia?
Those were the salad days, the proverbial Garden of Eden. Those days
are gone forever, but that doesn’t mean we still can’t crush it online.
We all need to simply acknowledge that some big changes have occurred
in our industry. And remember, within big change there is big
opportunity. So, let’s crush it, shall we?
If you’ve been doing SEO for any amount of time, you already know all
about Google’s little, evil laboratory and all the changes they’ve been
throwing at us. Things are getting more and more complex every day.
And, you know what? That’s just fine. Things are peachy when you can
measure what Google is up to through vigorous testing and roll with the
punches. Think relevance, my lads and lassies.
Relevant Sites Didn’t Matter As Much In The Past
So, what is Google up to exactly? Well, in the past Google didn’t
look very hard at off-page contextual relevance when critiquing where a
website was getting it’s links from. They didn’t seem to care. A link
was indeed just a link, no matter where it came from (barring receiving
links from gambling and pornography sites, which have pretty much always
been a big no-no, in case you might have been wondering.)
So, as the practice went, an SEO could get a link with the anchor
text – “sports car” – on a website about giraffes and they’d be good to
go, especially if the page was a high page rank (PR) page, with low
outbound links, on an authority site, and so on and so forth. Most of
you know the drill.
Things have changed a bit now. These types of links still work
(raise our rankings for our chosen keywords) and, without a doubt, we
all still need high PR links from authority sites. Outbound links on a
page are still a factor as well. But the non-relevant links don’t work
as well as they used to.
Google realizes that sites about giraffes may link out to sites about
sports cars at certain times. If we take a look at big authority news
sites, well gosh, these sites link out to and receive links from many
different sites. With authority news sites, relevance becomes pretty
much impossible – and, you know what? These sites still rank quite well
for many various keyword phrases.
Google knows this, so it will probably never completely devalue links
from less relevant pages/sites. Following me? It’s all about weight.
Now Relevant Links Hold More Weight – They Are Critical To Killing It In The SERPS Now
Google has become more sophisticated and is using a lot more
discretion in “weighing” where we’re getting our links from. With
rigorous testing, more and more professional SEOs are finding that
getting links from relevant sites holds a lot more weight nowadays. If
you do some testing for yourself, it’s very likely you’ll come to the
same conclusion.
Links from relevant pages and relevant websites have more weight, no
matter the anchor text or the PR on the page. It’s long been suspected
that Google was heading in this direction, now it’s simply been
confirmed. And SEOs that are using relevant sites for links are killing
in the search engines right now. They’re crushing it. Game over.
Therefore, in 2012 (and beyond), getting links from relevant websites
and relevant pages (relevant to our own site’s content) has become even
more important to ranking highly. And it appears that the direction
that Google is taking right now that this will become even more
important in future updates.
Guest Posting Is So Much More Important Now – Cozy Up To Your Competitors
So, where do we get our links? Do we set up a bunch of Web 2.0′s
(blogspots, tumblrs) with relevant content and link back to our money
sites? No way! Not a chance! These are akin to link farms. These
simply aren’t the best links anymore. Google knows these sites are often
used by link spammers.
Right now they’re looking very closely for links from actual
competitors, sites in your same niche. Doh! That sounds kind of scary,
right? Competitor sites. That’s right, they’re looking for links from
other sites in your niche. It’s time to get cozy with your competition
and work together.
So, how are we supposed to get these sites to link to us? And why
would they want to link to us? They are competitors after all. A-ha!
Great questions, you’re one smart cookie, aren’t you?
You get sites to link to you by writing content for their site.
Write high-quality content for other sites in your niche and give it to
them, in exchange for a link back to your site. In fact, you can do
guest posts for other sites and have those webmasters guest post on your
site as well, it’s very much a win-win situation. The more the
merrier.
Google really wants sites to link to each other. Gone are the days
when we don’t want to link to other sites (this has been true for quite
some time). We actually rank higher when we link to sites in our niche.
Of course, many of you may have known that already, just a refresher.
Bottom Line – Links Are About Traffic Not The Link
The old guest post is more important and valuable than ever before.
People are killing it with guest posts right now, because these links
are so powerful. It’s much less about the amount of links right now
with Google – it’s about funneling traffic to the right places from the
right places. Google loves that. They love relevance.
The fastest and easiest way to find guest post opportunities is by
using software. With a good, speedy, reliable piece of software, you
can scrape Google for potential guest posting opportunities. And while
many other sites are building crappy Web 2.0 links that don’t count for
much, you’ll be building links with real weight. You really are a smart
cookie.
Glen Hooke,
Post from: SiteProNews
The Way To Crush Your Competition In 2013
