Google is always making changes to their algorithm in an effort to display ever more relevant content. The goal of Google is to always focus on the end user experience so if crappy websites are ranking for various keywords it just makes Google look bad for allowing them to rank in the first place. It’s been this way for years and that’s why the game between Google and website owners that optimize for SEO has continued for years.

Why The SEO Sky Is not Falling:

No matter what the future holds – Google still has to collect and rely on external information to determine rankings

The way we SEO as it is today may look a lot different years from now, but the simple truth is that Google still has to look at a variety of external factors such as links, social signals etc. to determine how authoritative a website is and whether or not it should rank for a keyword or not and these external signals will always be possible to game for at least the next several years.

So when Google does something like go through and deindexes a blog network like Build My Rank all that tells me is that building links with blog networks is/was an effective strategy (time to build my very own private blog network lol) and serve to remind me that Google really is just an algorithm that can be beat with a little bit of work and effort. So now that they’ve gone and slapped down one strategy (and it’s not really even “dead”) what should you do?

Balanced Link Building Has Always Been The Best Strategy

I was in the process of doing a case study on link building using just blog networks (again just to prove you can build ranks with only blog networks) continuing the case study with just blog networks isn’t the best idea because this most recent attack by Google has shown that relying on one link building strategy isn’t a good idea (something I already knew, but for sake of controlling variables wanted to just use blog networks). The best strategy for building links has always been building links from a variety of sources. If you look at some of the recent niche site blogger updates on how their sites fared you’ll see those who weren’t hurt the most are people that didn’t rely on just one link building method like Spencer from Niche Pursuits.

What I’m Specifically Doing

When it comes to building links I’m specifically going to focus on some guest posting, some article marketing, some blog commenting, some social book marking and some profile link building. Before you ask, I don’t have a magic ratio of link building for various types of links (nor do I think that would be entirely helpful – or maybe it would help to have a general starting point – let me know in the comments below). What Google looks for is links that are built unnaturally so if you rely on any one specific source for link building you’re putting yourself at a higher risk of being hurt (like in the most recent targeted hit on private blog networks). So it only makes sense to build websites and subsequently links using a variety of link building methods (all of the strategies I’ve mentioned are scalable and can be easily outsourced).

I personally hate link building (boring), so even with guest posting I’m not doing that myself. I’ll pay someone to write the article, put my own link in it and then pay someone to find a website to put it on.

An Alternative Strategy – Authority Website Model

If all of these strategies around building links so that you can (in some cases) rank a site above others when it shouldn’t be there in the first place sound too tedious, hard or boring to you there is another strategy to consider – building authority websites.

An authority website would be something that would take a lot more time and effort to build because the goal is to actually be the best in your niche (or at least strives towards being the best). This is another strategy that I’ve used and it can be extremely profitable as well.

The biggest question to ask yourself is what can hold your interest longest?

1. Do you like the idea of building quick websites, playing the SEO game, outsourcing link building, testing new link strategies and constantly building new sites?

2. Do you prefer to build a handful of websites with the effort to be the best within your niche?

I’ve done both strategies and fluctuate between the various strategies I use based on what interests me at the time. I will still do some link building case studies since it’s clear people need help with this, but I need to re-think how I execute them.

Let me know what you would like to see in the comments below