Guest Posting: Updates From Google
Google made the official announcement earlier this year that creating guest posts solely for SEO purposes could result in an SEO penalty. So how will Google penalize sites that do use guest posting as a part of their online marketing strategies? Here are some hints as to where Google will go next when it comes to guest posting.
Keep All Links on Topic
A good way to avoid attention from Google is to make sure that any sites that you post on for guest posting purposes link back to your own site with the most relevant content possible. By not linking back to highly relevant content, Google could decide that the link to your site is considered an unnatural link which will result in a penalty.
The reason why there is a high likelihood of obtaining a penalty for linking to irrelevant content is that so many black-hat SEO that have paid for guest posting are paying for posts on sites that are minimally relevant or completely irrelevant to the content on their own sites. This mistake has made it easy for Google to identify these links as irrelevant.
Avoid Sites That Promise Link Building Benefits
An easy place for Google to start looking for site owners that are breaking the rules has been sites that are offering link building services. These services that offer guest blogging opportunities are considered just as bad as sites selling paid links because Google knows that in most cases the users of the sites are only using them for SEO purposes and not for genuine relationship building.
If you have used one of these sites in the past, it might be time to go back and remove those links or at least add no-follow tags to your backlinks from those sites so that your site isn’t immediately penalized should Google decide to go after users of the site. In addition, you should also refrain from using such sites in the future that are known hubs for obtaining links because it will only be a matter of time before Google cracks down on such a site as the site grows in popularity.
Focus on Relationships
If you want to stop having to look over your shoulder every time you try a new SEO technique, it is time to start focusing on building relationships. Trying to simply build links these days is just too dangerous and you should instead begin focusing on how you can build an audience. As you do this the links should come to your website as an added bonus and not because link building was the main goal of your efforts.
In addition, by focusing on building an audience rather than building links, the percentage of visitors that are actually interested in your site’s content, products and services will be much higher. You will no longer have as much traffic that is simply uninterested in what you have to offer on your site or worse trying to use your site for link building.
The whole purpose of building links was never to get untargeted traffic to your site. Therefore if you focus on the audience building, you can ensure that the traffic to your site will be more targeted and this will be reflected in the types of inquires, comments and shares that you receive.
If you need help with revamping your content marketing strategy in order to avoid problems with penalties later down the road, Infintech Designs can help. Click here to give us a call or chat with us today and let us help redefine your strategy.
