Cutts made the announcement through his blog, as well as on This Week In Google.

This is the fourth update of Penguin, including the initial release and two subsequent data refreshes.

The initial release affected ~3.1% of queries, with the two data refreshes affecting less than 0.1% and ~0.3%, respectively.

Cutts revealed Penguin 2.0 was near at hand nearly two weeks ago on May 10 via Twitter.

Shortly following the announcement on Twitter, Cutts released a new Webmaster Video detailing what to expect in terms of updates from Google over the next few months.

Specifically, Cutts mentioned:

• Penguin 2.0
• Targeting advertisements that pass PR
• More sophisticated link analysis
• Better detecting and reporting hacked sites
• Panda refinement
• Increased communication with webmasters.

Cutts discussed in This Week in Google that Penguin now dives deeper in site-wide link analysis, whereas before it was mostly restricted to the homepage.

Already webmasters and SEOs alike are reporting great change in the SERPs. Despite this, it’s too early to be sure of anything other than there is indeed change.

We’ll be keeping a close eye on our data, and as soon as a reasonable pattern can be concluded we’ll share. If you believe you have further insight into this update, or just want to discuss it further, please comment below!

That’s not to say an inanimate search engine won’t benefit from a good cooking recipe, but we’re willing to bet that the people searching for one online would like to be able to read it without it sounding generic, strained and altogether unoriginal. What am I getting at? Our very own Jon Ball said it best: “Good content and relevant resources work toward the benefit of humanity.” Web developers and content writers need to understand that website material should come from the heart… especially if it’s about a homemade casserole that’s just like what mom makes.

Link Building Strategies are Part of This, Too
Link building fits into that equation like this: If content is formulated for search engines, links may not serve a purpose for readers visiting the site. Google is becoming a lot better at recognizing content that is genuine and organic and seeing it as more relevant for users. This is a great thing, but it can be scary, too; the latter because it means companies that don’t have great content may get hit hard, especially with the new Penguin update coming soon, and the former because it means there is going to be a larger amount of – hopefully – awesome content circulating the web. With the development of stronger material will come more reputable websites and, eventually, opportunities to build quality links.

And it’s pretty easy, too. Jon mentioned in his Search Engine Watch article that there are two very simple steps to getting a link: Basically you find a target site, and then you get that link. That’s it.

The problem is that many companies become narrow-minded in how they get those links. Sometimes they try to dupe Google by setting up a linking network. This often fails, as you can imagine. Or sometimes they try to gain links that will get the website instant popularity. But guess what, 15 minutes of link building fame doesn’t bode well in the search engine world. That’s why it’s good to start slow but build a quality reputation and aim for authoritative links.

This is Where it Gets Fun
As we said before, narrow-minded thinking can get people into trouble. It’s not always bad, but it sometimes doesn’t leave room for as much creativity as is needed. Which, when you think about, is not about being creative at all – it’s about having a real conversation with real people. Creating that discussion space with a company blog is a good start. Pratik Dholakiya said one good tactic to building links is by developing a community. Marketers already have a good start if they’re managing a brand community across various social networks, because that means people may be interested and ready to shoot the breeze about whatever topic is most relevant. While it is important to manage social media sites well, it could be worth it to stop worrying about a strategic approach and dive right into a discussion. Light a fire and see what happens.

The relationships that matter on the Internet are those that support, challenge, grow together and have a significant impact on those around you. You will invest in these friendships and, let’s be honest, they will be incredibly beneficial personally and professionally. Look for the influencers, the nerds, the opinion-givers. Use those connections and their knowledge to think big, and quality links will be a happy result.

Look past the content, folks. Good copy is a byproduct of a lot of underlying work and devotion to the industry. Everything will fall into place if there is a strong dedication to making your efforts benefit humanity. By “everything” we mean “mostly everything,” and by “humanity” we mean “your target audience.”

1. SEO Experts Speak Out on Creative Link Building Techniques via Point Blank SEO
This post is from last month, but it’s definitely worth a look if you haven’t checked it out yet. Asking top SEO experts a simple question – “What was the most creative way you, or someone you know, got a link?” – has yielded big answers. Point Blank SEO offered 52 responses from industry professionals that may just blow your mind. Check out their responses for link building outreach ideas and more. Sneak peek: One response said the most creative ways seen to get a link include a hoax or a practical joke – a tactic that resulted in not only great brand awareness but a few quality links, as well. Intriguing!

2. Secretive Link Building Tips that Could Rock the House via Search Engine Journal
Sometimes the answer to all your SEO worries and troubles are right in front of your face, yet are still being ignored. It’s OK, it’s this way for a lot of people. That’s why we’re so thankful ResultFirst offered up these easy tips on how to create awesome SEO content with great link building strategies. The seemingly unconventional tactics, including anchor text tips, developing the brand across various online mediums and, simply enough, hard work, may be the key to quality material and increased traffic. How willing is your company to make its website’s sustainable and respected?

3. Public Relations and SEO Go Hand in Hand, Here’s How via Search Engine Land
Casie Gillette dives right into the inherent link between SEO and public relations – something that is often overlooked by many companies. The similarities between the two departments are uncanny, and using PR strategies to gain links and improve SEO may be worth it for many businesses. After all, it is all about how to spread the brand image in the industry, right? Gillette goes into how, why and when companies should start seeing their link building strategies in a different light. New insight into the complex world of SEO is always appreciated.

4. Google’s Got Updates and Gadgets Up Its Sleeve via Google Blog
Last week the sixth annual Google I/O developer conference began in San Francisco, and the first day alone was chock-full of fun announcements about Google gadgets and tool updates. A few highlighted on Google’s Blog include the new Chrome advances, how Google Plus is seeing a user experience upgrade, what to expect from searches and how Google Maps is becoming more customized for each user. This is exciting, and SEOs are waiting on the edge of their seats to see how these recent changes will affect their websites and any aspects of their campaigns.

5. How to Make Past Website Content SEO-friendly via SEOmoz
Not only do web pages take up a lot of space, they can also have a particularly negative effect on SEO and page rankings. SEOmoz offered a video with Rand Fishkin on how to continue improving on SEO while also deal with the dead weight of previous posts. Fishkin offers info on how to deal with external links for older URLs, using press releases, blogs and social media, how to reclaim links and more. SEO is an infinite process that doesn’t always involve moving forward – sometimes you need to take a step back and figure out how to make the general site more reputable to those reading it now and in the future.

6. A Few Tips for eCommerce Link Building via Search Engine Journal
eCommerce sites, get your weekly link building tidbit here! Yes, building quality links is hard and ecommerce sites may have an especially hard time, but that certainly doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Search Engine Journal offers a variety of easy and intriguing ideas to garner more links to make the site rank better while attracting more of the target audience. Invest in the world of ecommerce link building, and you’ll find that there is a lot at your fingertips to make that website bring a whole lot more to the plate.

* Attend this webinar and learn which links work and why they work to increase search rankings

Register Now! Click here.

Jon will share our original research and pull back the curtain on which backlinks work and why.

To register for the free webinar at Digital Marketing Depot, visit: http://digitalmarketingdepot.com/webcast/take-a-closer-look-at-links-why-a-site-ranks

This webinar, in conjunction with Deigital Marketing Depot, is designed specifically to show you how the big sites rank. It’s free, it’s friendly and it’s full of useful information. Register today!

“Are backlinks as powerful as they were before Google’s updates?”

I think backlinks are more powerful because now Google doesn’t have to deal with as much spam. In other words: let’s say four years ago, you could rank a site in Google using spam engines. Spam engines are pieces of SEO software that sign you up for 500 different websites, article websites, social bookmarking websites, podcasts and RSS feeds. You’d hit “Go,” go to bed, wake up the next morning and you were ranking in Google.

That was really the case. Sad as it is, that was true. And that’s how powerful links are. Well now they’ve eliminated those links, so good quality links have more value than ever. Now that percentage of value shifted to the relevant, good quality links.

Before, some of the garbage got some of the value. Now it doesn’t. Now, stepping back to the entire algorithm, there’s a big debate on whether social is going to take over SEO. People are asking “Do Facebook and Twitter mean more now?” That’s absolutely ridiculous.

Google can’t crawl Facebook and Twitter. It can’t go through the JavaScript parts and figure it out. At an event, I heard Matt Cutts speak. I sat five feet from him and he said, “Twitter can shut us off at any time.” And they have. Twitter has blocked the Google bot from their site. And he said, “We can’t be beholden to a site to rely on our rankings.”

The concept he spoke of next is the open web. What the open web means is the trillions and trillions of web pages hosted on millions of servers all across the world giving votes to websites with links. That’s how they derive their rankings. That is their stock and trade.

There’s no other way that they can get rankings, because it’s quite simple: Does the page have relevance to the keyword? Does the title match the search? Does the content on the page have value? With their natural language algorithm, they can read your page and determine if it’s written by a human and what grade level they write at. And then, is it original content or is it ripped off from another website? And if you’re doing that, you’re not going to rank.

Well you might, but it’ going to be a hard battle. And then it’s estimated that 70% of the rankings are derived from backlink profile. They say, “How many people vote that this page has value?” Now they throw out the garbage links. They don’t even count. So like I said before, we are researching a highly lucrative, moderately competitive keyword and it comes down to 241 sites have given them links. That is not a lot.

Considering the value of that keyword, it’s probably worth millions.

On Monday the 13^th, a webmaster video by Cutts said he expected Penguin 2.0 to go a “bit deeper” and be more effective than the first Penguin update. As always, thought, Cutts can’t get into too much detail.

Predictions have come in from experts and non-experts alike, but there are some common themes. Anchor text abuse, link trust, “bad link neighborhoods,” citation links, link trust, social signals and relevancy seem to be the most common themes.

The biggest debate, perhaps, has been on whether webmasters should begin pruning their link portfolios or not.

Portent’s brilliant study ‘A Changing Standard for SEO Spam: Google Penguin, Link Penalties & Declining Leniency’ suggested, “Google is tightening its standard for manipulative linking, putting more companies at risk of being penalized with every Penguin update… In other words, clean up your link profile now — before it’s too late.”

But regardless of the incredible research that went into this study, not everyone agrees.

I thought I’d take a look at what a variety of experts are saying on the subject, simply because no one knows what the future holds.

Jason Brooks – Post Penguin 2.0 Link Building – What Links Will Work? on UK Linkology

“Citations are likely to be officially crowned as the most powerful links on the web when the penguin pecks again (no surprises there then as they probably already are).

Our regular ‘non-citation’ based hyperlinks will continue to pass power but with contextual relevance, authority of site and author and social visibility used as their primary weighting factors.

Links with no authority and no author authority will pass nothing regardless of being relevant or not.

I think the only saviour for small sites with lesser known authors and no authority will be social visibility and engagement metrics but ultimately well engaged sites will build the other metrics anyway.”

Brooks believes that citations and author authority are going to be the type of link for link juice, and that topic has come up a lot. He also counts on relevancy and social signals both via author authority (centered on G+ Authorship) and regular social media marketing. Brooks also sounds the horn of relevancy whenever he can.

Eric Enge – Penguin 2.0 Forewarning: The Google Perspective on Links on SearchEngineWatch

“Would you build the link if Google and Bing did not exist?

If you have 2 minutes with a customer, and the law required that you show a random sampling of your links to customer prospects, would you happily show the link to a target customer? Or would it embarrass you?

Did the person giving you the link intend it as a genuine endorsement?

Do you have to make an argument to justify that it’s a good link?

If you’ve been building links that are exposed by these questions, the best thing you can do is start getting in front of it now. Don’t wait for Penguin 2.0, or the next wave of link message penalties to come out. Start getting your business on a sound long-term footing now.

Start actively building unimpeachable links, and start working on eliminating the bad ones. I am not saying that you need to stand on the rooftops and yell out “hey Google I sinned come punish me”, but you can begin asking sites that are the source of dangerous links to remove them.”

Enge’s piece is brilliant because it asks a series of questions. Ask yourself those questions and think about the answers. This is a natural, holistic approach to Penguin and link building in general. Enge agrees that you should work on removing and disavowing spammy links, and he also agrees that citation links will be important. He also values relevancy and common sense in his Penguin predictions.

Simon Penson – Google Penguin, the Second (Major) Coming: How to Prepare on SearchEngineWatch

“If I was asked what my money was on, I would say we will see a tightening of what is an allowable level of spam still further, some attempt to begin measuring link authority by the neighborhood it comes from and any associated social signals that come with it. The rate at which links are earned too will come under more scrutiny and that means you should think about:

* Understanding your link profile in much great detail. Tools and data from companies such as Majestic, Ahrefs, CognitiveSEO, and others will become more necessary to mitigate risk.

* Where you link comes from not just what level of apparent “quality” it has. Link trust is now a key metric.

* Increasing the use of brand and “white noise” anchor text to remove obvious exact and phrase match anchor text problems.

* Looking for sites that receive a lot of social sharing relative to your niche and build those relationships.

* Running back link checks on the site you get links from to ensure their equity isn’t coming from bad neighborhoods as that could pass to you.”

Penson focuses on bad link neighborhoods and anchor text abuse. He notes that where the link is from is just as important as the type of link, especially where the next Penguin update is concerned. He also preaches the importance of social sharing. He also details what those bad neighborhoods are and how to figure out if your links come from those neighborhoods.

Pratik Dholakiya – The Coming Penguin Update: Should You Reevaluate Your Link Building Strategy? on SearchEngineJournal

 “Why do I choose “would I build this link if it was no-follow?” as my primary test? Besides the fact that it fits Google’s Terms of Service perfectly, it is a sound marketing strategy. I believe the focus of SEO should be on growing your online presence even in the absence of search engine benefits… Excessive reliance on Google’s algorithm is unsafe, and sends the wrong message to clients.

The second question to ask is “how easily could a newcomer copy my link building strategy?” Yes, anything can be copied, but how easily, and by who? No content strategy should be easy to copy without at least a year of serious writing experience…

It’s not that “easy” or “simple” are bad. Sometimes it’s important to strip away the complexity and focus on mastering the most effective skills, which are often the basics. No, it’s that “mechanical” and “linear” are bad. They are bad because even somebody who hasn’t learned the basics can handle something that’s mechanical and linear…

To get into some of the specifics, focus on modern anchor text strategies that are concerned just as much with click-through-rate, branding, and conversions as they are with search engines…

Google doesn’t want amateurs at the top of its search results.”

Dholakiya, much like Eric Enge, focuses on a couple of questions. The no-follow question is intriguing, but the it’s the statement about how unsafe relying on Google’s is that really makes that thought come together. He also notes that having an ‘easy to copy’ strategy is a bad thing precisely because good, sustainable strategy comes with deep thought and research. Pay special attention to that last part I put in bold text.

Dr. Pete – Penguins, Pandas, and Panic at the Zoo on SEOmoz

(Editor’s Note: Dr. Pete just pointed out that this article is from last year, but it’s still an exceptionally solid analysis, so we’re going to keep it in the piece. Thanks, Dr. Pete!)

“There’s still a lot of speculation, but likely culprits include:

* Aggressive exact-match anchor text

* Overuse of exact-match domains

* Low-quality article marketing & blog spam

* Keyword stuffing in internal/outbound links

Many people have suggested low-quality link profiles in general, but analysis of Panda has been complicated by Google’s recent attack on link networks, which seems to have been manual and has probably been going on for weeks.

… From a diagnostic standpoint, it definitely helps to know whether you were hit by Penguin or another update, but after that, you have to fix what’s in your power to fix. Don’t spend weeks trying to prove to management that this was all Google’s fault. Isolate the damage, find the problems you can fix, and get to work fixing them.”

Dr. Pete also takes a common sense approach to Penguin. He differs from Portent and several others, though, because he advises that you don’t take a hatchet to your links. He advocates a smart de-optimization strategy, if you need one at all. He also fixates on anchor text abuse, but acknowledges that some gray hat tactics might still work after the new Penguin update (whether he endorses them or not).

My Thoughts

I want to throw my two cents into the hat here, as well. I think the biggest thing the next Penguin update will hit is anchor text abuse. It’s the easiest way for Google to find an overactive SEO. You really need to watch your anchor text—whether it’s overusing exact match anchor text, not varying the anchor text you’re using or refusing a branded link—you can’t follow those practices anymore.

Anchor text has to fit the webpage around it. It can’t be awkward, stilted or unnatural. If it’s an organic fit in a blog post or an author bio, that’s good. It has to coexist with citation links and provide value to the reader. Abusive anchor text provides no value to the reader, and it’s also easy for Google to target. It’s robotic and spammy, so it’s an obvious target.

I also think the industry’s a bit too jumpy right now. We’re too focused on ourselves as SEOs, we easily forget that Google’s web spam team is trying to fight spam, not subtle spam but egregious spam, the kind that well-meaning SEOs never engage in. They’re not trying to fight SEOs. They’re busy trying to sort out some crazy stuff and, as long as we act like human beings, they’re not coming after us.

I also doubt that guest posts will fall on the chopping block. There’s been a lot of scrutiny with guest posts, and people are even specifically asking Matt Cutts about it. I don’t think the sky is falling despite all of the noise. When real human thought goes into writing a post and getting a post published, it’s not spam. Guest posts add real value when they’re curated by humans. Those links are earned.

Brooks, Enge, Penson, Dholakiya and Dr. Pete are all search marketing professionals, but none of them agree completely. No one knows exactly what the next Penguin update is going to bring, but there’s one thing all of these Penguin Prophets have in common—they take a calm, common sense approach to the algorithm update. Take a look at your backlink portfolio, read their advice and make your own predictions.

Doesn’t sound so complicated now, does it?

So How Do We Apply That to a Link Building Strategy?

Let’s take a regional sales conference, for instance. There are plenty of ways professionals can approach others at a conference, especially when they make conversation and get to know fellow industry experts. This can be done in many ways, from bellying up to the bar to shoot the breeze, mingling at a casual meet and greet, or targeting an industry idol and making it a point to approach them (after you’ve worked up the courage, of course). It’s different for every person, and that’s the beauty of it.

One word of advice: It’s important to establish friendships for personal reasons, which will help when building a genuine relationships, but there needs to be a mutually beneficial reason behind the relationship.

This same philosophy can be applied to link building and outreach.

Link building campaigns are personal, which is a major component to their success. The more personal they are, the more meaningful the outreach and subsequent connections. A recent Shop Talk post sheds light on how important meaningful guest post outreach really is. In order to guarantee both parties will benefit from the interaction – it doesn’t have to be a wild success to strengthen the SEO community – authenticity and generosity is key. Additionally, Search Engine Journal’s Loren Baker says there needs to be transparency from the beginning, sort of like real-life relationships. Do you see the connection yet?

Let’s Get Some Perspective

It should come as no surprise that professionals won’t get far if they approach potential connections using some phony, paper-thin persona. You have to be a real person. Same goes for business people who consistently ask for favors instead of offering help – we all know people like that, right? – or give a vague or ambiguous answers about who they are or where they work. This should be obvious.

Instead, try to show potential connections that there’s more than meets the eye. A lot of SEO strategies are based around offering readers and search engines a unique yet authoritative approach to website content. Baker stated that when he did link outreach, he would offer himself as a marketing specialist and industry expert, not necessarily a digital strategist looking to use quality links. This is great advice, because if you actually want to build a strong and lasting relationship with someone, you’re won’t contact them to get links and then go on your merry way. It’s about so much more.

Not all link building efforts can or will build relationships, but it’s the best possible outcome. A link is the end goal for link builders, but there’s another potential mutually beneficial opportunity present in every link.

So what’s the takeaway?

Think long-term: show the person on the other side of the email that you’re a real human being, be a smart link-building businessperson and invest in the potential opportunity the outreach can lead to.

Here are last week’s words of wisdom and why you can’t afford to miss them:

1. Google’s Being Secretive Again via Search Engine Land
SEOs were buzzing last week about a new Google Update, and many wondered how the recent changes would affect Google rankings and traffic patterns from organic searches, according to Search Engine Land. While Google has been open about past Panda, Penguin, EMD and top-heavy updates it recently announced that there would be no more confirmation about system changes. In accordance with that statement, Google will not confirm if there has been a recent rollout. There has been a lot of talk from the experts about what they’ve seen change and how their websites be affected, but none have been able to specifically pinpoint what was updated without Google’s confirmation.

2.Matt Cutts Lets Us in on the Next Penguin Update via Search Engine Land
Matt Cutts kindly responded to questions on Twitter about the latest proposed update, saying there was no new Penguin action this week and that we should expect a Penguin 2.0 within the next few weeks. The mention of Penguin 2.0 has SEOs confused, as Google reportedly announced a Penguin 3.0 back in October 2012. SEL went back over the Panda updates since February 2011, with the latest update, No. 25, being “confirmed as coming; not confirmed as having happened.” Penguin 1 updates started last April 24, with the second the following month, and the third last October. The next update, whatever it’s called, is expected to be big. Like BIG, big.

3. Emphasis on Trust Over Content via SEOmoz
Many SEOs have hinted, but SEOmoz just comes right out and says it – trust is king. Content marketing is at the heart of every SEO strategy, but the experts at SEOmoz say it’s possible to build a deeper relationship with readers than many companies think. Building a trustworthy site for readers includes everything from writing what they want to read, turning to industry influencers, thinking beyond just the links, making readers become more interactive and so much more. SEOmoz recommends doing research and having an insightful approach to more suitable content for those paying attention.

4. An Interview With SEO Specialist AJ Kohn via Squawk
In a one-on-one session with AJ Kohn, the expert on all things Google Plus, Squawk uncovers how he became so into the subject matter, what the future of Google Plus entails and whether it will really impact social media. Grab some popcorn and a comfy seat, this is gonna be interesting. Read on to find out if he really is in communication with Google Plus developers and what Google Authorship really means for marketers and readers. Also, Kohn takes an in-depth look at today’s social media and how it will evolve in the next few years in terms of advertising and offers some advice for SMBs to better target their ideal audience.

5. Unnatural Links Penalties? Here’s the Recovery Process via Search Engine Journal
Remember when Google made that unnatural link penalty change last year? Now many SEOs are trying to make their site 100 percent Google-certified again, but it’s not always easy. Search Engine Journal breaks it down for you, from the definition of an unnatural link, how to spot one from afar, determine whether you were charged with a link penalty, how to remove them and what to do moving forward. Whew, that was a lot. But we’re very grateful to you, SEJ.

6. The Age-Old Question of Home Pages vs. Rank Pages via SEO Roundtable
A recent thread on Webmaster pointed to a recent experiment with home page links and rank pages, concluding that Google may refuse to rank home ages well if they have poor links. However, Google did rank internal pages well. The SEO called this a sort of loophole, though SEO Roundtable pointed out that webmasters are perplexed with opposite situations. What’s the real answer?

“What’s the best way to build links for a brand new website in today’s SEO climate?”

With a brand new website, you have a great opportunity because you’re not beholden to the legacy of spam. A lot of older sites that have had SEO work done have a history. The best thing you can do is take your keyword and write every term that relates to your term on a white board or a piece of paper.

So if your term is ‘office chair,’ then you write everything that relates to the office chair: office, working, sitting, carpal tunnel syndrome– anything that relates to that term. At the end of that exercise, circle all of the words that a community might be built around online. And then you’re going to search for associations.

You should search for groups, blogs, experts and everything that’s related to what you talk about. Then you can start to strategize on how to get links on all of those sites, and you’re in a perfect position. Now if you’re in a highly, highly competitive niche, don’t lose heart. We’ve ranked some fairly new sites in some extremely competitive niches with handful of links.

Once again, it does not take thousands of links. Matt Cutts talks about how Google counts links or does not count links. That’s his style, and that’s their way of doing it. They don’t go out and penalize you. They go out and just say, “Well, this link does not count towards your profile.” I’ve had some fairly heated debates with people about that concept.

If there was a documented case of someone who did negative link building at a competitor and they lost their rankings because of that, or if someone published a paper and talked about it, it would be world war three on the internet. Everyone would do that because it’s easier to take your competitors down than to build yourself up, usually. So, it’s my belief that Google just doesn’t count certain links– they don’t consider links that aren’t relevant.

There’s an article that interviews Andre Weyher, who worked on the spam team at Google. He says that relevancy is the new page rank. That’s what they’re going to pursue because it’s easier for them to sort out whether or not a link has value in through a relevancy lens than through a page rank lens. That’s because a page rank lens is perfectly agnostic. It has no affiliation with any terms at all.

So, if you’re a brand new site and you want to build links, it just comes down to two processes: 

1. Find the target site.

2. Get a link on said target site.

That’s really what it comes down to–whether you write an article and get a guest post, or whether you beg the webmaster to put a link somewhere on the site.

You can also make a beautiful infographic or you can say, “your readers would enjoy this.” It really comes down to finding the sites and asking for a link. So your job right now, as a new website, is to discover some of the sites in your niche that are relevant to what you’re doing, and then figure out how can you get links on those sites.

Here are last week’s words of wisdom and why you can’t afford to miss them:

1. Spread a Kind Word via Search Engine Land

In a post sponsored by yours truly, Julie Joyce talks about benefits branching out out to write about, and link to, other industry experts. While it is important to promote your own company website, promoting other people’s work, offering diverse content and building connections will undoubtedly build the brand and website reputation. It’s about creating lasting friends, really. But it is always smart to plan a good interview or crowdsourced piece outreach strategy, make the experience unique for both parties and promote the heck out of the fruits of your labor.

2. Video Interview With Alan Bleiwess via Search Engine Journal

Bleiwess preaches quality, quality, quality in a web series interview on SEO and link building practices. The SEO expert chats candidly about how to build unique experiences and communicate personal brand to industry communities. In a straightforward and passionate account of how he found success, Bleiwess stresses the importance of natural, pure content that is based on personal experiences. The best way, as it turns out, is to be yourself and build links because they make sense to the overall story, not because search engines are on the prowl.

3. Time to Think Like an Engineer via Search Engine Watch

It may sound intimidating, but don’t be scared, thinking like an engineer is easier than you think and can be incredibly beneficial to a link building campaign. Just remember that it’s all about the process. Search Engine Watch lays it out nicely, starting with defining a vision for the SEO strategies, conducting plenty of research, mapping the strategies out, working on design and text requirements, and ending with the design details and producing content to fit the plan. Making every specific step count will lead you to success.

4. Link Removal Fees are Breaking the Bank via SEO Roundtable

Beware of the dreaded link removal fees, as they are putting some SEOs in the poor house. OK, not really, but Google is really cracking down on poor links, and it’s costly to take down links that are hurting a company website, as a webmaster claims on WebmasterWorld. Turning to services like the Google Disavow Tool may help for this type of situation, as it offers a way out without having to pay for removal of the bad links.

5.  Positives of Press Releases on Matt Cutts’ Blog via Search Engine Land

Challenging Matt Cutts’ previous statement that press releases don’t “benefit your rankings,” SEL proved otherwise on a few different occasions. In the past, the news source claimed Google uses links in press releases as well as anchor texts to rank websites. But, more recently, it found more solid evidence that Google uses links in press releases to rank websites, including Matt Cutts’ blog, where a release had been posted a few days prior.