Category: Search Engine Optimization

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Does Google Love or Hate Links in Their Ranking Algorithm?

Are Links Important?
Are Links Important?

Over the years Google has valued links in their ranking algorithm by boosting sites with more links to a higher position in the organic or unpaid search results. By valuing links Google created a cottage industry that SEO’s jumped on and really milked with clients. Some SEOs charged exorbitant amounts to clients with very little accountability in regards to the price a client was paying for the number and quality of links they received.This past year Google has addressed this cottage industry by “smacking it down” stating that links from spammy resources, article directories, and forum postings would not be a good fit and encouraged site owners to start moving away from link building and into content creation and site optimization that focuses on improving the users’ experience.

However, Google has admitted that even though they themselves have a love hate relationship with links, that the results in their own search engine are better and have more relevancy to readers when Google does include links in their placement algorithm.

I feel that quality links that point to a website and shares of links do allow Google to evaluate the popularity and relevancy for readers so there will always be a place for links in the Google algorithm but link numbers are getting less important than a review of the whole picture which include links, social shares, co-citation, and blog mentions.

To further explore this important topic I would recommend that you watch this video from the MOZ blog. It provides two differing points of view on are links valuable to Google or not. The take away from this blog post is that yes links are still valuable but less valuable than they have been previously.

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The Changing Landscape of Social Media

Are Twitter heads reading your Twitter feed?
Are Twitter heads reading your Twitter feed?

With recent changes Facebook has made, renegotiation of the Google-Twitter contract, and Google’s announcement that it does not include social signals in its ranking algorithm, business owners and SEO’s are struggling to find where social media fits into a strategy for web visibility.

Although I still feel that social media still has a place in a mature business’ overall marketing plan, how to go about using social media for visibility is now drastically changing.

It used to be that having social updates posted to Twitter and Facebook was a strategy that all businesses on the web needed to embrace, now our recommendations are different based on this changed landscape.

For new businesses the validity of starting a Facebook or Twitter account with no followers and paying a writer to post updates has lost value. It is by far better for this new business to invest in AdWords and blogging for a long range content and visibility plan than to be on social media platforms.

For established mature businesses whether to post to Facebook or Twitter really now depend on the business’ community. Some firms have a vital Facebook presence and to continue to post there makes perfect sense. Additionally for these businesses to use Facebook’s options to promote posts to a wider demographic is now becoming an attractive option. For right now Twitter continues to be a smart place to be, but this may change rapidly as Google and Twitter redefine their relationship in the months ahead.

What is becoming more and more attractive than a Twitter and Facebook as a marketing strategy is activity on a personal Google+ profile tied to a rel=”author” tag with high quality content pieces and Google+ Community creation and moderation.

This next year will be strategic for how businesses use social media. I am predicting that more activity will be in Facebook  promoted updates than in regular content creation and that Twitter will need to continue to reinvent itself to stay relative in this new landscape.

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Building Links Using Article Directories is a Dead Strategy

Creating articles that were informational in nature with links back to your website in a bio and placing these on news sites, article directories, and ezine sites for use by other webmasters on their blogs and in their websites in a way to build incoming links is just another previously good tactic that Google has disavowed.

Unfortunately, there are many business owners who are still using this tactic and are encouraged to embrace this tactic by SEO firms mainly based in India. It is very important to know that using this type of tactic today may actually work against you.

Make sure to watch this video on this topic from Matt Cutts the lead web spam engineer from Google and the voice to my industry. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo75Og4M34Q

It is important to understand that this approach was highly useful and beneficial to websites one and definitely two years ago. But now using this tactic may actually drop your organic placement. Guest blogging is also another high profile tactic that has also fallen under Google’s eyes and has also been disavowed as a usable tactic to improve organic search placement.

With Google focusing on high quality unique content, that is not overly keyword dense, and has high user relevancy as tested through click through rate, time on page, and personal search history it is nearly impossible to scam your way to the top of the organic results.

A much better approach for placement today is to focus on improving the user experience on your website, refining the message, and promoting your site to generate traffic on social media and Google AdWords.

There will always be sites that are placed in the top ten slots on Google but getting there now is no longer an art form but rather creating the very best user experience that is the most relevant to a unique search query.

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Can Older Websites Retain Their Organic Placement?

Matt Cutts from Google helps to demystify the issue that many older and previously well placed websites ask frequently, “how can I maintain my organic placement against new website startups in my industry?”

You can watch the full video here.


Here are my tips to assist you even further on this important topic.

1. Just because you’ve had great organic placement for years does not assure that your site will continue to be well placed now and in the future. It is important to know that your placement can be pushed down as new more relevant websites appear. Even those that are brand new.

2. If your website is over five years old, it is absolutely time to budget for a complete redo. Not only a design change but a full review of your content and how you are using technology on your website. If you don’t have YouTube videos on your website, you are really missing a strong channel that will drive traffic and keep visitors coming back to visit.

3. Have you really read your own content? Have you looked at your Google Analytics data in the last month on your website traffic? If things are falling off for you, you will want to look at your message, look at your bounce rate, and time spent on your website. If the numbers are low, it is time to really think of the things you can add or remove from your site to improve value to your readers.

It is very important to understand that just because your business and website have been around for a while does not guarantee organic placement. Google is evaluating click through rates, time spent on your site, and a user’s search history to rack and stack websites. If your numbers are low or your site is stale your placement will drop when compared to other hungrier, more relevant websites.

If you need professional eyes on your site to help understand where you are and where you should be, we offer a SEO placement review that may be of value to you as you evaluate what you should do to move up or retain your site placement. I invite you to read more and check pricing.