The Linklifter

Today we have for you a beautiful graphic which discusses the ever changing world of SEO!

The site Fuzz One has created a very interesting graphic on the changes that came about during the last two years of Google’s Penguin and Panda updates being enforced.

What a well-designed beast! Whilst we think a summary of information like this is great and very useful, we particularly like how they merged the Panda and Penguins together!

What do you think? Have you changed your perception of SEO and your work/blogging habits along with the updates?

And on a more lighter note, here’s an adorable Panda (of the red kind) and a cheeky Penguin (watch from about 0.35) to sign off this quick post.

SEO Moz has just published an interesting summary of possible ranking signals that may (with great debate) rocket your site into the SERPs in 2011.

I wanted to share with you some of my thoughts on the overlooked ‘rank-worthy’ website features that the SEO Moz crew have highlighted and also to remark on some of the underlying changes to SEO strategy we may see as we enter into 2011.

Thoughts on SEO Moz’s Ideas

Firstly the old garnering NoFollow links actually does help in ranking.

Great news, possibly, for the optimistic. Most people don’t want to waste time on building NoFollow links quite yet whilst the jury is still out, but the announcement that social media mentions are now a part of Google and Bing’s ranking algorithms is a strong indication that NoFollow links are useful after all.

A high number of mobile visits means that people need your site whilst they are on the go and busy or looking for something good to read. i.e. they really want to go to your site and so your rankings should increase.

Measuring the number of mobile visits to a site would create a bias towards those sites with a readership with the means to access a smartphone, i.e. the richer people. How would that be fair on websites that are based in places where mobile internet access is not as developed as London or Washington DC? Yet almost everyone everywhere now has a mobile phone, so mobile searching is seeing a huge surge especially in Asia and therefore we can anticipate a whole new set of factors affecting search rankings where time and location are of the utmost importance and maybe, shock horror, links are less important.

The amount of rich media (videos, podcasts, pdf, Flash, images and graphics) indicates a trustworthy website because most spammers can’t be bothered with it whilst most ordinary people can.

Again, nice idea; natural, useful sites often have components other than words, but again, surely this means that the bloggers and website owners who have all the latest recording equipment and Photoshop editions get preference over a site that relies on written content? Perhaps these sites are the ones that will be searched for on PCs rather than mobile phones, so the two methods of getting online will be complementary parts of the search ranking algorithm.

Prediction Summary

Wherever you are in the world, mobile searching looks set to come into it own next year, and increasing your site ranking from being read on-the-go will see some new strategies emerge to take advantage of mobile internet traffic.

But don’t forget to place this in its wider context! At the moment, it seems the main new direction in SEO strategy is to integrate link-building with social media, particularly Twitter and Facebook. Links which were worthless for SEO are now counted.

For more predictions for link building in 2011, check out the Search Engine Journal’s great article.

Good quality links are hard to come by and if you only have one good link among a sea of bad links, it’s time to reassess your link building strategy. In general, the greater the interaction you have with other sites, the faster your blog will grow in popularity and importance but there are lots of ways to direct your interaction to optimise your website’s ranking in Google.

Leaving your website URL in comment boxes and linking back to your favourite sites is, in essence, a very rewarding SEO activity. Not only are you getting your name out there but you are also bringing in traffic from different corners of the web. What’s more, Google places high importance on a site’s backlink (incoming links) structure when assigning a new higher PR to a site.

But before you start placing links here, there and everywhere..STOP!

Not all links are rated equally well by Google.

Knowing which are links to go after and which are best to avoid will save you a lot of time and effort in the long run. The effect of poor quality links on your site’s SERPS can be bad and hundreds of Nofollow links will do your site very little good at all in terms of SEO. Building quality links is one of the most difficult parts of any SEO strategy, it is worth expending resources and energy in getting it done right (as possible) and adapting your strategy along the way.

Hobo SEO blog gives one of the best run downs of what makes a quality link based on their experiences. One of their most important points is that although some types of links can have a temporary good effect on rankings (e.g. link on blog post), long term rankings are based on a overall varied profile with links on related industry sites.

Determining the basics of what it is that makes a good quality link  isn’t too difficult; the main gist is to try and get links on real sites (not those who are just intended for making money) and which are topic related. The process of persuading others to link to you is what is difficult and time-consuming but one good link is worth the extra hassle.

Here’s a summary of good and bad sites to build backlinks on, but read it here as well for further details.

Good backlinks from:

+ Respected, authority, sites like government, university, newspapers, or Wiki.

+ Blogs which are very popular within your specific topic of interest.

Bad backlinks from:

- Directories or linkfarms

- Unrelated sites or sites with excessive external links

- Bad neighbourhood sites (Pills, Porn or Poker)