After watching Wil Reynolds @wilreynolds Mozcon 2012 presentation on #RCS (Real Company Sh*t) it began to dawn on me that SEO the way it is traditionally thought of has had almost nothing to do with real marketing tactics in recent history. It seems the goal of most SEO’s to this point has been to somehow “trick” or “hack” Google into believing that their website is the most relevant for certain keywords without attempting to provide actual value to their customer base(and some people still wonder why Google favors big brands). The truth of the matter is that “do-follow blog links”, “forum profile links”, & “high pr article submissions” have almost nothing to do with actual marketing and the unfortunate SEO’s that are stuck in this mentality are going to continually get hit by Google algorithm changes until they are fazed out of the market place. The game of link building is slowly (or very quickly depending on how you look at it) changing into the game of audience & follower building and this can only be done properly by filling “info gaps” and providing quality content to your audience.
The Best Medecine is Preventative Medecine
“Building Links” is a term that makes many people cringe, before the big bag penguin update it was widely believed that the more links you had the better, until:
Nowadays people are hurrying to do exactly the opposite as Google has now introduced the Link Disavow Tool which allows webmasters to actively tell Google which links they actually want pointing their site and which links they don’t. This tool is also giving Google a plethora of different low quality linking websites which they will undoubtedly add to future algo updates. So as SEO’s and Internet Marketers we must come to a point of truly understanding how to achieve natural quality links so that we don’t have to worry later on down the line about another lovable but vicious animal update unleashed by the big G.
So How Do We Get Links now that Automation is Out?
Like Wil Reynolds suggests, we start doing RCS and building a community of people that actually love our sites & our brands and link to us because they are compelled to do so.
Step 1 – Get a Blog – Why should you get a blog? Because your competitors more than likely already have one and are attracting new clients through it every day. Think your space is to uninteresting to attract attention? Think again. If your a general contractor (something that most people are not rushing to follow) there are a ton of info gaps to be filled in your space. Some examples?
I went to ubersuggest.org and typed in “How to remodel”
& here are just a few of the 228 results:
As a contractor if you provide a blog for your audience and fill in those info gaps with quality information not only will you be establishing yourself as an authority in your industry & attract followers naturally, but you will also build natural links all of over the net & social networks with people gladly wanting to share your valuable information.
And we all know Links+Social Signals = Google Love <3 – All without the need for endless directory/article/press release submissions which are losing value every day.
Step 2 – Get a Twitter, Facebook, & Google + Account – Why should you get all these social media accounts? First and foremost to begin building a follower base, once you start building quality information through your blog you can begin sharing that information through your social media outlets and start gaining traction in the ever powerful world of social media. Also USE HASHTAGS, hashtags are becoming one of the most used ways to attract attention and if you use trending hashtags in your space people when doing hashtag searches will see your content and can begin reading, interacting, & sharing it.
No Wonder SEO’s Get a Bad Rap
It seems that even though SEO is becoming a much more skilled trade there are endless new SEO companies popping up and tricking new clients into using their outdated and harmful strategies for their websites & businesses. That is why I am growing elated at the new events that are re-shaping what SEO is and how it is being done. No longer will SEO be about having 1,000,000s of spam links and content, but it will actually become a creative endeavor that involves all aspects of actual marketing which is what Google wants to see in the first place.
To learn more about how SEO can help grow your business, contact Lucid Site Designs the best Miami SEO Company in town.
