SEO is changing again for blogs
There are a couple of things that will be changing very soon in the SEO landscape. Things which were relevant even a couple months ago suddenly aren’t and some things which were okay a year ago have changed slightly.
First off: Guest blogging. What is it? Simply put it’s just writing articles on someone else’s blog. Guest blogging is popular because of the content value it can provide to websites. The idea is to create a network of friends who post on your site and visa-versa and add in a link back to your site, essentially growing your site’s influence on the internet due to the backlinks (especially if they are highly regarded authors with high ranking sites themselves). Seems like an attractive way to gain a jump in SEO; after all, it has so far been a great practice among SEO companies for a long time now. New information is slowly surfacing from the folks at Google suggests you should flat out stop if you’re trying to trick Google with cheap guest blogging strategies. While there is still something to be said for genuine guest blogging, it’s turned into a spammy way of trying to increase your site’s ranking.
This practice, seemingly overnight, has turned into almost a blackhat practice. The major problem is that the content these guest bloggers are putting out there can often be recycled content from other articles and irrelevant to your site.
Secondly, let’s talk about anchor Links. Google’s going to start penalizing anchor links. Anchor links work like this: say you want to rank for the term “affordable pool supply” and use the anchor “affordable pool supply” to link to the pool supply site. Google has released an official warning on this practice: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/66356?hl=en Don’t optimize your links like that. A better use of linking is as follows:
- Bare URLS like: foxdesignsstudio.com
- Branded URLs like: Fox Designs Studio
- Or long phrases: we really want to hear from you, hit us up.
Of course, from an SEO standpoint, the value of link building really rests on the authority and validity of the site who is sending the links so in short, it’s still a viable way to increase ranking but don’t try to outsmart the system by using low quality backlinks and optimized anchor links. I want to be clear that link building is still an important part to SEO but some practices are being cracked down on and should be encompassed with other SEO efforts.
Finally, I want to hit on is keyword heavy content. Be careful your blog doesn’t contain keyword stuffing. We’ve all known for a long time now the direct consequences for doing this, especially if you’re content writer or you are trying to rank for long-tail keywords. Drop this in your copy “cheap variable speed pumps for sale” (a long-tail keyword) and a penalty won’t be far behind. Just write organically, While there’s arguments over what percentage is necessary to improve rankings, Matt Cutts from Google says keyword density has nothing to do with it. Mention your keyword a couple of times in a naturally sounding body of copy and you’ll be fine. Keep repeating it over and over and you will be endanger of keyword stuffing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk4qgQdp2UA. Ask yourself this: does your copy sound artificial or natural?
The bottom line is and always has been: just create relevant copy for your readers and stop worrying about keyword density, link building strategies. SEO isn’t about trickery and latest gimmicks/tricks; it’s about building a long-term strategy of all factors. The above information is a warning of common practices which are being cracked down on in some respects.