In light of the many recent algorithm changes by the search engines, particularly Google, many people are now suggesting that Link Building is now irrelevant to SEO.

In this post we will share with you what we know – not what we think we know  – as this information has been given to us by Google.  During a recent Google+ hangout Google answered a number of direct questions on this very issue.  One message came out loud and clear:

Building poor quality artificial links, using exact match keywords in anchor text and pointing them back to your site is a strategy Google really fought against in 2012.

Some SEO practitioners would go so far as to say we shouldn’t even be using “link building” as a term in the SEO community anymore.  I can see why they are saying this but we should not loose sight of the fact that good quality links are still a huge part of the Google search algorithm. However, the focus is now on ‘link earning’, which is very different.

We were advised that the following activities are still worth doing for SEO:

Premium Directory Submissions: (Google did target a bunch of ‘spammy’ directories , but overall this strategy still works if you select the premium directories such as Best of Web Directory, BBB.org, Yahoo Directory

Social Bookmarking: (sites like Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon etc). That is why we have now added social sharing implementation as part of our SEO programs.  Social Bookmarking is valued by Google as it encourages users to share content.

Citations:  This includes submitting your business information, not only to Google+ Local, Yahoo and Bing local, but also citation sites such as Yelp, Trip Advisor etc.

Press Releases: Not those free PR sites, but use PRWeb.com or something similar to get high quality backlinks. Again, not that there is anything wrong with free PR submissions; it is just the fact that since link “earning” has become more difficult this is still a good way to build high quality links, when a company writes news worthy info. Don’t bother wasting any effort on low quality sites that may or may not help. Focus on the high quality submissions.

Blog Submissions: Blogging is still an excellent SEO strategy. There have been reports about spammy blog syndication sites being penalised, but nothing really confirmed. Quality is again the key as with all these initiatives.

In our next post we will share what we know about SEO activities that Google doesn’t value and also give you more tips on how to improve the search engine ranking of your website.  If you would like more information, please leave a comment below or use the contact form.