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It’s no exaggeration to say that one of Google’s primary objectives with their latest updates is to take professional SEO’s out of the picture as much as possible.
This of course encourages businesses to pay for Google advertising as opposed to paying SEO companies or individuals to achieve solid organic results. Practices such as creation of unnatural looking backlink profiles and reliance on heavy use of specific keyword orientated anchor text in backlinks have been especially targeted. Many people have seen their rankings in the SERPs drop sharply overnight. There are numerous reports of a lot of internet marketers throwing in the towel, as was Google’s intent.
But the reality is that SEO is alive and well, just undergoing some major transformations. The difficulty level of ranking for a keyword has always been primarily decided by the competition level.
This infers that with less competition out there, it is now EASIER to rank for tough keywords.Here are some tips on how to approach the playing field in 2013:
*As before pay attention to on site factors such as correct image tags and heading code.
*Do good keyword research but don’t stuff them in to the page- use them naturally and sparingly.
*Pursue backlinks from the entire spectrum of website types. Don’t put all your eggs in any one basket. Get some forum profile links, video links, social links,
2.0 authority site links, related website links, and of course probably most importantly contextual article links. And don’t restrict yourself to this short list. The more link divergence in your profile, the more natural it looks to the spiders.
*High page rank is still of course very important- although domain authority and page authority are more in vogue terms these days. But the same fundamental principle applies- links from high pr sites will help boost your rankings as they carry a lot of link juice.
But remembering that a diverse profile is very important, don’t only pursue PR5+ links. It’s natural to get links from many sources, including of course lower page ranked sites.
*Anchor text- don’t overdo your primary keyword targets. Penguin especially slapped overuse of keywords in anchor text. Vary your ‘money keywords’ with long tail keywords, your site name, your site URL, and even generic anchors like ‘URL’, click here’ etc.
There has been much written about the exact percentages you should aim for- in reality that’s tough to keep track of. Just keep it good and varied.
*Link to all your site pages, not just your home page. What’s natural looking about all your hundreds of backlinks pointing to the home page only?
*And finally don’t underestimate the inherent SEO value of secondary tiered link structures- ‘links to your links’ in effect.
By the way, there is a new 'google animal' in the house called hummingbird- already having profound effects and will be a major player in search in 2014.
Good luck out there!
