Google Penguin has been a bit of an apocalypse for many Internet marketers. A considerable chunk of online businesses experienced severe drops in the status of their search engine rankings once the update was put in place. There were wild stories floating about far and wide on the cyber waves that the entire process of link building was perhaps being systematically phased out in favor of a more sophisticated and complicated system. Google itself was supposed to have favored the radical change.
However, now that the hubbub has nearly died down, we might start to inspect the realities and try and answer the big question: Are Web 2.0 Properties Still Effective for SEO?
The answer, for the most part, is yes. However, as with every change, there are important differences and several new things to learn. As could be expected, the rumors were mostly false. Link building is still very much in force and many types of effective link building continues to exist that can help you secure enviable search engine rankings for your website. If you have found yourself wondering about successful and some of the more effective types of link building that exist at the present time, this article will try to wrestle with that very question.
Here is a list of link building strategies that I personally found to be effective in the superlative degree even after Penguin has sunk its teeth well and good into the flesh of Internet Marketing tactics!
Make Use of Valuable Web 2.0 Properties
It's really not a matter of joke. Some of the better grade Web 2.0 properties are worth as much in virtual worth as owning your own private corner of a central New York property. Which are these valuable Web 2.0 properties? These sites would include some of the sites that people tend to refer to as 'standard searches' whenever they put in a query into any search engine. As you can well imagine, this includes regular suspects of sites like Hubpages.com, WordPress.com as well as the ubiquitous Squidoo.com. Google recognizes these old friends as high quality pages since they only allow superior quality content to enter their respective domains.
Don't believe us? Just try putting some spun content as a Squidoo lens. See what happens. Chances are that your content will be removed in a matter of minutes, if not hours. That is the reason why these websites prove to be so valuable when trying to get a backlink from. Each of these sites is rigorously reviewed and implements both automatic as well as manual editors to get rid of all but the highest quality content from their content database. Enhance your chances even more by putting high-quality, authentic content on your website using completely unique ideas. You could even try adding in alternate forms of media like audio or video instead of just textual content to add variety to your pages.
Your best bet would be to come up with keyword rich but absolutely unique content related to your particular niche that will rate high on the search engine radars. Moreover, unique content ideas related to your niche that will rate high on the search engine radars. Moreover, unique content ideas related to your niche will also be appreciated by visitors to your website. There is just so much spam and duplicated content available on the net today that a truly unique piece is a really refreshing sight for a discerning reader.
Get Links through Guest Blogging
This one should be a no-brainer. But, it is really surprising how many marketers fail to take advantage of this simple technique. Through guest posting you can effectively get very high quality links for your pages with a little effort. The best part of guest posting is that it enables you to kill two birds with a single stone. Through this process you are not only increasing your website's visibility, but also making quality content available at the same time that should in turn, attract visitors to your website by their own merit.
Of course, every good thing in life comes with a premium. In the case of guest posting, it is the sheer effort you must expend behind every single post that you create in order to be even considered for publication. If the website is a high ranking one, or even a blog with a considerable number of hits, do not want to accept anything other than content that is more or less superlative in terms of quality. This is why sticking to mere textual content might not be enough, since a good post must be interactive for readers on the web to be able to quickly grasp the concept. Consider adding high-quality graphics, audio, animation or other video to help illustrate the major thrust of your piece. Although established blogs and websites tend to have their own criteria for publication that are quite stringent, your focus should always be on exceeding their expectations and trying to go way above and beyond their criteria. That way, once you get through the initial hurdle of getting their approval, they will be looking forward to more great content to be up on their site.
Blog Commenting (done by a literate human!)
Blog commenting can be a great technique to build up your prestige in the search engine rankings. However, do not think that automated blog commenting can help you get your way. Websites tend to crack down heavily on automated and spam comments, especially if they happen to be popular sites that are generally well regulated. Besides, a well thought out comment is likely to attract the attention of both the author of the post as well as other readers. Besides, manually commenting on blogs allows you to hand pick the highest-grade blogs that are maintained well, updated regularly and are visited by a lot of people. How do you predict the status of a website or blog? The standard indicators would be their age, page rank, following etc. Well-networked blogs (say, a blog maintained by university alumni that happens to be popular) can offer a great opportunity too.
This guest post is contributed by Gem Franco on behalf of OpenHost.co.nz, a web and domain hosting company that focuses on servicing the small to medium sized business market. Gem is a freelance writer whose articles appear on various Technology and Internet Marketing blogs.