No BS Guide to Beat Google Penguin Update

1) Research what your competition is doing to stay on top If there is a particular search term you are trying to rank for, then the best thing you can do after this whole Google Penguin shakeup is to see what your competitors at the top have been doing to rank well. A great site to analyze some of the important factors such as anchor text, types of backlinks, etc… is www.ahrefs.com this site will only show you some of the data for free, but it is usually enough to paint a picture of what is working for your competitors. You are able to see the number of backlinks that they have, how many are do-follow and how many are no-follow. You can see how many links are from each type of domain extension as well as actually see a couple of the backlinks that they have. You can also see some interesting stats such as what organic keywords they are ranking for. Unfortunately the free functionality of this site is very limited and you will only be able to analyze one site per day unless you pay for an account. However, if it is in your budget, this can be a very dangerous tool for you to figure out exactly what your competitor has done in terms of backlinking. 2) Keep a steady Link Velocity as much as possible Link Velocity is the rate at which you gain backlinks to your site. If you get them too fast, then there is a good chance your site will get penalized for spammy activities. If you get them too slow, you will not get the desired rankings. So it is really kind of a balancing act. Try to get anywhere from 10 to 100 links per day if at all possible. Even near 100 is a bit much, but should not raise any red flags. The key with backlinking now is quality and consistency. So if you can get 10 quality backlinks per day, then you will start to see results very quickly. 3) Audit Existing Links If you have existing sites that have been hit by the Google Penguin update, then now is a good time to audit your backlinks. If you have links coming from networks that Google has de-valued such as private blog networks, then remove your sites from those networks. Also, it goes without saying, but do not continue using any spammy forms of backlinking or even buying paid backlinks. Believe it or not, Google IS getting smarter and the latest update has really started de-valuing and even penalizing spammy backlinking techniques. Just take a deep breath, step back and see what kind of backlinking you have done and then think about what type of backlinking you are going to do from here on out. (Hint: Re-read my previous articles). Those are the 3 additional tips I have for you to really take it to Google and this latest Penguin update. If you take everything that you have learned in my previous articles you will be miles ahead of the competition and be able to build a very strong backlinking profile. It may be a bit more work, but you will be virtually future-proof by doing things this way and be a lot happier for it. To keep an eye on further SEO developments and what others are discovering with the Penguin update, I recommend that you search the popular SEO blogs from time to time. There are a lot of smart SEO bloggers out there and it is worth keeping tabs on what they are talking about. The more you know, the better you will be able to react. What to do from here forward? It is important that you take all of this new knowledge (or perhaps refresher knowledge) and put it to use as soon as possible while it is still fresh in your mind. Otherwise, it is worthless to you. Google has sent a very clear message with this and other recent updates that the old ways of doing SEO are no longer viable and if you don’t act accordingly, you will not have the success you deserve. So from this update, we know that there is no more keyword stuffing articles, no more hammering the exact same anchor text keyword on thousands of low quality sites, no more shortcuts and no more focusing on just 1 or 2 backlinking sources. We also know what it is that works best with Google now such as social signals, great content, great on-site optimization and intelligent backlinking. It is clear that to beat Google, we have to play their game or at least appear to be playing their game. That means having a variety of backlinks across the board so that your SEO appears much more natural. It means incorporating as much social proof as possible into your backlinking and it means creating useful content that people will want to read and share. That is it in a nutshell. There is no need to over-complicate things. The biggest mistake people make is thinking that there is some secret or magic bullet out there. The truth is if you can follow the advice in this guide and are willing to do put in the work, then I promise that you will be happy with the results. One thing you need to understand about all of this is that effective SEO practices have not really changed. Google has just made it harder to use deceptive or spammy SEO practices to rank well. And this is a GOOD thing. In a sense, they are forcing black-hat SEO’ers to become more white-hat, which is definitely not a bad thing. In fact, it is even likely to remove a lot of the competition because black-hat SEO’ers either won’t know how to adapt or will be too lazy to. They will continue to use their automated tools that blast out thousands of spammy backlinks and sooner than later their site(s) will be slapped because of it. So this Penguin update is a wake-up call for many that it is time to adapt or be crushed. I don’t know about you, but I know I was getting a bit lazy at times with my backlinking and I actually look forward to increasing my quality of SEO. It isn’t always fun writing long authoritative articles or creating accounts and posting content on certain sites, but it is a necessary action that you need to take. (That is unless you can outsource the work). So in closing, my advice to you is to re-read my previous articles, but this time as you read, formulate your own SEO plan and identify at least 10 action steps to take in the next week. Write them down and even go so far as to write down which day you will complete each action step. This will help tell your brain where you are going so that it can formulate how and when it needs to get there. Take these steps and then go from there. Write out an action plan each and every week to spend 10 or 20 minutes on your SEO. It will all add up very quickly and since you are smart enough to take action every day, you will almost be guaranteed to have amazing results. I look forward to hearing about your successes and watching you dominate the search rankings like I know you can. Make sure to comment on my articles and ask me any questions or suggestions for future blog posts.]]>

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