If it’s true that Google may discredit links with infographics, I really hope Google doesn’t just do a broad sweep and chop away. There are many useful infographics with great graphical representations and eye-opening topics. How would Google verify facts and information in a scalable fashion? Maybe they should let the community decide what’s good and relevant based on social sharing, likes, +1s, etc.? All good infographics include a source at the bottom for reference.

I’ve really enjoyed infographics as a great visual way to learn. I understand the Penguin link crackdown, but I think Google should really approach infographics carefully. A creatively designed infographic is such a great way to build domain authority and establish credibility as a knowledge source. For example, Search Engine Land created an infographic that really synopsizes essential SEO factors for successful websites below (click the infographic to see a better resolution on their site):

The Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors

Sure, there’s a link to their site embedded in there, but that’s the point–to drive traffic to your site by creating good, usable content. In their article mentioned above, they had a link to a page that allows you to download the infographic in two versions, embed the code as I’ve done above in either Large, Medium, or Small formats, or host the image yourself. I don’t think there’s anything sneaky about how they’re asking for a back link here! It’s only fair that they receive a back link to the site as fair compensation for their information and content. Such good, usable content establishes authority. There has to be some compensation for great free content like this.

Please tread lightly here, Google.

By Scott Eggenberger

Well, this functionality may soon be on it’s way according to a recent interview with Matt Cutts from SMX. When asked about negative SEO impacts to websites and what to do if you got the unnatural link warning, he indicated, “…We want to see a real effort in that you remove those links. We want to see effort. We look at a random sample to see if those links are removed or not. If you remove 90% or so, you are in better shape. We understand it is difficult and we are talking to the webmaster tools to add a disavow link feature.”

Matt’s statement could, of course, mean many things, but wouldn’t it be grand to be able to disavow unwanted links (just like those Mission Impossible agents experience in every movie) straight from the Webmaster Tools interface? I’ve seen several mock-ups for how this could pan out. Google would have to disclose and display ALL links to your site for once, too, which would also be helpful.

In the meantime, stay creative in your link building processes. Diversity is the key here, because Matt also went on to say, “A lot of people waste their money buying links and it hurts the name of the whole industry. Now we’ve gone farther and try to get those links to actually hurt you.” Google has put on it’s cape and is riding over the web dispersing justice vigilante style, so raise a glass and toast to white hat SEO!

I think the future for better rankings will involve more social applications, as evident with Google+’s impetus and growing momentum. Getting loyal fans’ approval and votes will be more important than ever. Try to think what content or offerings will attract and retain loyal customers for better conversions and rankings to come.

By Scott Eggenberger

Well, enter the Penguin update from Google that more closely examines those backlinks. Chances are, if you bought or rented links from other link builders or blog networks, those links were all junk. Now, what I mean by junk links would be links that are totally irrelevant to the page content where they reside. In examining some of these links, I’ve noticed they appear in footers or sidebars as stand-alone links with keyword anchor texts. Some of the linking domains were all different, but forwarded to the same blog. Thinking about it retrospectively, it makes sense how someone would think, “Hey, I’ll just create a ton of blogs and link back to other sites, as well as within the network, then charge people for the service.” Again, the more links, to more relevant, the higher Google will rank your site for your keywords, right? What value are those links to people? When you buy junk links like this, you’re just asking for Google’s Penguin to come sit on your face and kill your keyword rankings–bye bye traffic, too.

So, enter the post-Penguin update SEO world now. Links are still important, so how can you get good links in? Google is looking for linking to occur naturally, as if searchers will just know how to link to your site from usable content and actually take the time to do it. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have time to wait around for that. Sure, offering highly valuable, useable content up to the web as link bait is more essential now than ever. I intend to fully offer good content and infographics to relevant industry blogs and forums. However, there are a few ways to buy links to your site in a natural, relevant manner.

In order to buy good links, start by evaluating your business relationships. With whom have you done business, both personally and professionally? One of our clients supplied a huge university with all their sporting gear. I suggested contacting them for a link to reward the great service he provided. Furthermore, he could ‘buy’ a link from them in the form of a discount on their next order or some other offering. Another client is part of his industry association. Why not open some dialogue with them about getting a link for a sponsorship? Speaking of sponsorships, what about sponsoring a race or plant a tree foundation, etc.? Such events are frequent and can not only pass some good link juice, but help out folks in a good cause, too. Such sponsoring can lead to a great press release and enhance company image.

There are several ways to diversify your link building strategy and still get good links to your site. Just remember that ultimately Google wants relevant results. That’s how they got so good to begin with. If your links are legitimate and valuable, you’ll build a portfolio with a long-term strategy for success. Sure, Google isn’t returning the best results right now after this latest Penguin update, but they will continue to improve and try to clean up the web from these junk links. At Page Logic, we have several more ideas to get legitimate links to your site. We’ll show you how.

Scott Eggenberger

If Google decides to devalue the links to your site, you’d better be prepared for some loss of rankings. Start right now by creating good content that is useful to your industry. You can figure out what topics people need answers on by using the Google External Keyword tool. You’ll get better results if you have an Adwords account, but just try searching for your industry keywords and find phrases that are asking questions like, “What is a SATA laptop hard drive” or “hard drive specs.” The number of searches may surprise you and you can then share your knowledge through a blog post or infographic. There are also methods to share your content throughout the web like Pinterest, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others.

P.J. Fusco from Search Engine Land just wrote an article about what to do if you’re website is over optimized. It’s an amusing article written in Jeff Foxworthy redneck style, so enjoy. Most of the suggestions are obvious, but a few warrant some extra consideration:

1. Buying links

2. Lack of original content

3. Your inbound links mostly contain the same anchor text

4. All your links come from blogs or forums

I’ll go into each one of these in future blog posts, but the immediate response should be to stop forcing link building and start encouraging it by offering good, usable content to your industry. If you have engaged in paid link building strategies, use Webmaster Tools to examine your links. What kind of pages are your links on? Is the content relevant and useful to the reader? You may discover that you have some clean up on Links Aisle 7 to do! So, get a plan and respond to Google regarding what happened, how you’re going to fix it, and what you’re doing going forward to fix it. The more useful content you spread out there, the greater your chances of getting good links will be!

By Scott Eggenberger