Okay Google, what should I do - and NOT do now???

[sickseo]

I've been an SEO for 5 years. I have an office in the US and my team and I do everything ourselves. I'm getting a bit frustrated trying to keep up with Google's algorithms an I'm looking for some insight from the BHW community on what works these days and what doesn't work anymore:

SB links (comment, trackback, etc...) - Seems like this is a dead strategy now. Seems like it hurts much more than it helps right?

Profile links - Any usefulness at all anymore? Doesn't seem like it.

Social Boomarking - Still seems to help. Maybe. Anyone?

Web 2.0 - Seems like the thing to do. Post articles to Blogger and Wordpress.com with links back to money-site (using different versions of anchor text). Any comments/suggestions?

Social Signals - +1, Twitter re-tweets, Facebook likes, etc... All signs point to this as the future of SEO. Could it be? Seems too easy.

White hat - Contests, compendiums as link bait, link exchanges, top 10 lists, etc... - Seems like the way to go now. Is black-hat dead?

Please contribute to this thread and share your experience. Yes I want to make money but at the end of the day, I want to do a good job for my clients (sounds cheesy but it's true). Thanks!

 

[manny521]

It seems the prevailing wisdom targets poor anchor text diversity as the cause. I thought poor anchor text diversity was what Panda 3.3 was about and when Panda 3.3 hit my site on February 17th, I worked very hard over the next 60 days to diversify my anchor text and recovered all my long tail keywords and my short tail keywords were on their way to returning to previous rankings, then Penguin hit on April 24th and I lost all my rankings again.

One thing I could understand is that google turned up the dial on over-optimized anchor text in penguin. Only time will tell as to what the solution is to this penguin.

Social signals are obviously something that should be increased on everyone's sites.

Besides that, I have been adding a ridiculous amount of super high quality articles to my blog to try and increase the authority of my site.

Best of luck!

 

[Spaznik]

I would: Not depend on Google anymore.

I would not: Depend on Google.

 

[sickseo]

I would: Not depend on Google anymore.

I would not: Depend on Google.

Can you explain what you mean by this please?

 

[Spaznik]

If I were you, I wouldn't depend too much on organic traffic, especially on Google's organic traffic. Look into other ways of driving traffic and monetizing your sites that don't depend on Google. But that's just my opinion, of course. I just say this because I think the future of SEO is a bit uncertain as of now...

 

[Maja92]

The way most people are doing SEO is indeed dead and outdated, e.g: snipping your way to the top or targeting specific keywords. Winners are those who are doing the "new SEO"

 

[sickseo]

The way most people are doing SEO is indeed dead and outdated, e.g: snipping your way to the top or targeting specific keywords. Winners are those who are doing the "new SEO"

I guess that's what I'm trying to get a handle on.. what is the "new SEO?"

 

[Envyliciouz]

Do you activate somewhere else by nickaname "tops"?

 

[SuperLinks]

I hate to be negative here but this is ridiculous.

You have clients paying you to be the expert.

Don't like dealing with algorithm updates? Tough. That's what you signed up for when you took on clients to optimize their websites.

Do research, do testing, and figure out what works like the rest of us do. You shouldn't be relying on hear say on forums like this one if you are in the field providing SEO services. You need to be the expert through data analysis, testing, testing and even more testing.

 

[sickseo]

I hate to be negative here but this is ridiculous.

You have clients paying you to be the expert.

Don't like dealing with algorithm updates? Tough. That's what you signed up for when you took on clients to optimize their websites.

Do research, do testing, and figure out what works like the rest of us do. You shouldn't be relying on hear say on forums like this one if you are in the field providing SEO services. You need to be the expert through data analysis, testing, testing and even more testing.

That is EXACTLY what I'm doing here... research. Of course I'm doing all the other stuff too (testing, analysis, etc...). But isn't that exactly why the BHW forum exists? So we can collaborate and share our knowledge and experience? Isn't that part of the research process? I learned a long time ago that it's okay to put my ego on hold and ask for help. To be successful, I need to acknowledge that other people might actually know more than I do... and why not benefit from their knowledge right?

By the way, it's "hearsay" - no space. See that? You just benefited from my knowledge! Aren't you glad you are a member?

 

[lancis]

Everything that worked before Penguin, still works. If that what you ask. I'm blasting at that same moment.

 

[manny521]

Do you activate somewhere else by nickaname "tops"?

i was thinking the same thing...

 

[sickseo]

Do you activate somewhere else by nickaname "tops"?

Nope. Not me.

 

[googlemonster]

Google is full of shit, and so is that Matt Cutts pratt. First off in an interview he refused to discuss Dan Thies (eats too many pies) negative SEO case. Apparently his rankings are back, well sorry that is a manual lever switch being pulled. Social signals comes straight from the mouth of non practicing poster boy SEO's like Rand Fiskneck. I have a site where one page has over 1k facebook likes, retweets and a couple of G+- thingies. All natural. It get's outranked by an old news article on an 'authority' site which has no silo'd or topical relevancy to said query. E.g. mens fitness talking about video games... So the juice on that is nonsense. Google's algorithm will never change from links, because of the way the link graph is formed and works. Links still work, they will now they will in 10 years. What people forget is not every link is equal.

Now with this fucking retarded penguin update, it looks at anchor diversity and pretty much that!

Here is a graph taken from an 'authority' site where the vast majority of links they acquired all have the same anchor.

I am seeing the same thing with a clients site. My advice would be to dilute these links with random links.

http://wpmu.org/wordpress-penguin-google-matt-cutts/

 

[ajithrocksca]

I run a private blog network with niche authority sites.. Lot of seo consultants from the UK, provide me articles with links (to their client sites).. I accept only paid articles that are related and relevant; and those that don't hard sell. Over the past couple of weeks, I am getting a lot of emails from these clients to strip off the anchor text of the articles that they provided me earlier.

Anchor text diversity and no anchor texts or anchor texts like "read more", "click here", "visit the site" and related anchor texts are the way to go at the moment.. but this too will not last, as Google is going to come up with another update to target this..

In my opinion:

1) Do the on page SEO correctly.. make it more user friendly. Make sure you would love the page if you were the visitor.
2) Use the google alerts method. for off page seo as well as direct traffic.
3) Forget about Google. If they rank you, then it is fine.. If not ok.. Just forget about Google
4) Focus on social marketing. Come up with systems that can be replicated over and over again.
5) Start selling social market optimization as a service.

It is time we start focusing on things that are under our control and not under Internet God's (google's) control.

 

[BreakAllTheClocks]

http://www.micrositemasters.com/blo...need-to-act-smarter-and-5-easy-ways-to-do-so/

 

[googlemonster]

I run a private blog network with niche authority sites.. Lot of seo consultants from the UK, provide me articles with links (to their client sites).. I accept only paid articles that are related and relevant; and those that don't hard sell. Over the past couple of weeks, I am getting a lot of emails from these clients to strip off the anchor text of the articles that they provided me earlier.

Anchor text diversity and no anchor texts or anchor texts like "read more", "click here", "visit the site" and related anchor texts are the way to go at the moment.. but this too will not last, as Google is going to come up with another update to target this..

In my opinion:

1) Do the on page SEO correctly.. make it more user friendly. Make sure you would love the page if you were the visitor.
2) Use the google alerts method. for off page seo as well as direct traffic.
3) Forget about Google. If they rank you, then it is fine.. If not ok.. Just forget about Google
4) Focus on social marketing. Come up with systems that can be replicated over and over again.
5) Start selling social market optimization as a service.

It is time we start focusing on things that are under our control and not under Internet God's (google's) control.

That's no good, social marketing is pretty crap unless you spend dollars on facebook cpc program. Your average competitive niche will get NOWHERE with social marketing: e.g. weight loss, insurance etc. From my point of view, Google is there to be exploited that is IT. Whatever they change makes no difference in the end it's a series of scripts that calculates stuff. If they change it again, then I will change strategy!

 

[manny521]

It is time we start focusing on things that are under our control and not under Internet God's (google's) control.

I couldn't agree MORE with this statement. Google's algorithm is so out of our hands and we are at the whim of the big G...

Now its time to find a social marketing strategy that will be as effective as google, or at least similar....

If you have any suggestions, it would be appreciated!!!