Overview

While we are eagerly waiting for Google’s changes to Penguin ?in next few weeks, I think it is logical to revisit one of the major changes to its Search Algorithm,?Google rolled out in April 2012. Main reason behind this roll out was to discourage webmasters & SEO managers from black-hat link building practices. These changes (also known as Penguin) caused significant fluctuations in SERPs for websites around the world. Google has kept up with tightening the guidelines ever since to result in better Search results. However, this has caused many websites hard to recover from drop in rankings.

How to Comply with Google’s Guidelines?

Those who keep up with Search Engine news & how SERPs are affected are aware of the fact that we never get all the details involved in certain Google roll out. It seems like we playing catch up with Google to stay on track. Here are some basic things we have learned to follow over past few months, to keep consistent rankings in Search results.

1. Create Google Webmaster Tools Account
2. Submit latest sitemap to Google when there are significant changes on the site. Make sure your site is indexed correctly
3. Monitor for crawl errors in Webmaster tools at least once a month & fix any broken links (internal and external)
4. As part of your SEO strategy, keep up with natural link building practices. I am listing few ways you can achieve this.
   1. Create a road map to generating fresh content. This can be Video, Graphics, Pictures, or Text content that can be shared with your followers. This is the ultimate link building strategy that you can adopt. I know it is not easy to generate original content, but it needs to be done.
   2. Use keywords naturally in the content. Don’t try to tweak the content just so you can fit in the keywords
   3. Schedule content syndication from blog posts, social media platforms & other content sharing websites. If you are using article websites to publish content, be cautious about anchor links. Too many anchor links coming into the site does not fit Google’s guidelines. Remember, inbound links should be generated naturally
   4. Analyze back links frequently to check the quality of back links that are generated to your site. ?There are tools you can use to accomplish this.
      1. Google Webmaster Tools
      2. Open Site Explorer
      3. Link Detox
   5. If you find spammy links in your backlinks list, be proactive in getting these removed
   6. If you are in the habit of commenting on other blogs to get a trackback to your website, be cautious & reasonable in posting comments. Google is monitoring this closely. If it seems like you are using this as one of your main strategy for generating inbound links, you may be at risk of losing your rankings
   7. Do not buy links, so you can have more links coming to your website. It is all about quality, not quantity. Having fewer high quality links will get you better results than countless spammy links
5. Monitor your competitors link building strategies
6. Monitor Google Analytics Traffic for drastic drop in traffic. This might be an indication of drop in search engine ranking

Conclusion

In summary, always follow Google’s guidelines & stay away from black-hat link building practices. It might take a while to build links naturally, but you will get there eventually if you follow best practices. Feel free to pass your comment on any missing points in this topic, that our internet marketing community can benefit from. Let us hope that we all can recover from any changes that Google is getting ready to roll out in next few weeks.

Related articles

• Google Penguin Update: A Link Is A Link…Not
• Google’s Major Penguin Update Coming In Weeks. It Will Be Big!
• 5 Ways to Protect your Website from Google SEO Penalties
• SEO Practices in 2013: Location, Links and Luck – Part 1

About the Author

Kalpana Murthy, President/CEO at WSI Plano, DBA Kriti Web Solutions, LLC. is a Digital Strategist, Consultant, Speaker/Trainer, & Software Engineer who is passionate about bringing affordable technology solutions to businesses to build online presence. Kalpana Murthy is a certified partner with Google, HubSpot, Sharp Spring, SEMRush and other digital solution providers.