A month has passed and Penguin is still a much-discussed topic in SEO forums. While you can pick up a lot of great tips from some SEO gurus, there are several wannabes out there spreading misinformation.

The last time I discussed a few general SEO tips that could help you find your feet in a world shaken and stirred by Penguin. This time I’ll simply focus on separating the grain from the chaff.

Myth 1: It’s the end of backlinking.

Fact: It’s common sense, how are people going to find your site through an article/blog post, if it didn’t contain an inbound link to your site?

The problem is that a lot of people don’t understand the meaning of the term backlink.

Wikipedia defines backlinks as any link to your website, coming from another site. That’s exactly what it is!

The only thing you should avoid post-penguin is using the same anchor text over and over again to point to the same page. Instead, focus on the following:

1. Permutations and combinations of your targeted keyword, like ‘plush toys ’, ‘best plush toys’, ‘new plush toys’, etc.
2. Brand keywords, i.e. the name of your business/website as the anchor text.
3. Non-keyword anchor texts like,  ‘this website’, ‘click here’, etc.
4. Inbound links to different pages of your website and not just the home page.
5. Naked links to your website, for, example:  http://vanionlinemedia.com/

Myth 2: Article marketing is dead.

Fact: It isn’t! I came across this post written by a gentleman who proclaimed that ‘as per his sources, links from article directories like Ezinearticles have been deemed unnatural by Google!’

My clients and I have hundreds of articles on Ezines, we haven’t received one unnatural link mail. I have to say though that we have always used a lot of branded anchor texts and not exact match ones.

While Matt Cutts may have said in a 2011 video that he doesn’t like article marketing the way it is being used, he has never called uploading quality content spam. In fact nowhere has Google said that you should stop posting useful and relevant content on reputed websites or those related to your niche!

Admittedly, backlinks alone won’t make your site rank high, you need good on-site SEO, social signals and above all you have to offer an overall impressive or at least satisfying user experience.

So, while article marketing cannot be the soul of your SEO campaign, it isn’t time to call for its funeral either. It’s sill very much alive, kicking and effective, if used in the right manner.

 

 

Google+