“You’ve had some Cowboys in here”
An old SEO saying of ‘you can’t have offpage without onpage and you can’t have onpage without offpage’ still rings true today just as it did back when search engine optimisation was still taking baby steps in the internet world. Today I am going to look at the reasons why we have offpage, the latest news with offpage and what it can achieve when done right. So let’s dive straight into the shark infested link building pool, for those who don’t know link building is the method of steadily increasing your linking profile in an organic way to help your site rank higher in the SERP’s, simple right? Well unfortunately with consistently stricter Google guidelines and more people springing up willing to offer every man and his dog a dodgy link this once honest method is proving trickier and trickier with Google now bulldozing low authority bad quality sites they deem as untrustworthy. So what can SEOers and site owners do to build a good linking profile that falls within the guidelines of the ever suspicious Google? Content is king In my opinion there is nothing like a fresh steaming batch of brand new content. Whether it is articles or blogs content can really work well within the Google algorithm as it provides new up to date and relevant content on a consistent basis to help drive traffic to your site in a natural way, all of which Google loves. Anyone can write an article or blog on something but if you do this on a continual daily or weekly basis publishing engaging and relevant material then it can help massively in boosting your organic linking profile. For example, if your blog/article gets picked up or placed on a good authority blog site with a clean link directing traffic to your homepage then welcome my friends to link building nirvana! Offpage outlaws Speaking of blogs you may or may not be aware that Google has taken a particularly dim view and lethal action recently on the world of blogging communities (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/unnatural-link-warnings-blog-networks-advice). Spam blog sites were offering blog posting to anyone with a few spare dollars to get their articles or blogs on highly influential domains to manipulate page rank. However when Sheriff Google found out about these sites all hell broke loose in a fight only Google would ever win. They took action like never previously seen with tens of thousands of these low quality sites being shut down almost overnight with their page rank and authority being stripped away that left the site owners and blog posters quaking in their black hats.
When done right offpage can be an advantageous essential entity, as there is no point having a fantasticlly designed website with the best features and functionality around if no one can find it. Tailoring offpage links to different pages of your site in a natuaral way over a period of time pushing the specific keywords you want to target along with a mix of brand keywords is the way to go.
Spamming all of your hard earned links to one page via one keyword is a sure fire way to get you noticed for all the wrong reasons. ‘Keep it simple stupid’ is my advice and I really believe the future of link building lies in the aforementioned content. I feel brand spanking new content is key as more and more previous techniques such as PR link exchange and blog posting on dodgy sites is a thing of the past. There is a new Sheriff in the link building town and he doesnt play nice.