Good day, my SEO heroes! Link building campaign strategies are just one of the many things we teach at Search Engine Academy.
I also do client work, and I want to share something with you about trying to find link partners for my clients that just leaves my mouth hanging to the floor.
First off, we know that Google Penguin has drastically changed the way we build links. It’s slower than ever, and each link won is like fighting an epic and legendary battle with everything we’ve got in our arsenal.
Doing a careful link analysis and tailoring a very individual request for a link takes more time than ever, and yet, this is the way it’s got to be done in the brave new post-Penguin world. So be it.
Well, when I do all the above, and given everything else I have to do on any given day, if I crank out five requests per day, I feel good about myself and think that I will have a nice shot of single malt during happy hour at my own hacienda, thank you very much.
So I start getting back some replies (most webmasters just ignore my emails, par for the course), and let me tell you, there is something going on out there with web owners who do not thoroughly read or keep up with Google’s SEO recommended best practices and guidelines. Let me share with you a theme that’s developing, one that I find quite disturbing.
I’m getting back replies along the lines of “yeah, no, I don’t want to trade links with you. I heard Google no longer wants anyone to exchange links or ask for them, so I don’t do that anymore.”
When I got this back, you could have knocked me to the floor. Where in the sweet love of almighty Google did THAT come from? I had to read it multiple times to make sure my eyeballs and glasses weren’t showing me something out of a nightmare. After several readings, some of them out loud to my cats, I realized I was seeing some massive, massive mis-interpretation and/or misinformation.
I mulled over what to do. Should I take time that I really don’t have, expend energy that could be used in a more positive manner (like finding more link partners), attempt to educate someone about the truth (I wasn’t feeling it, really), and tell them what Google Penguin is all about?
No. Not my responsibility.
If these folks choose to follow half-baked information sources, or if they develop this theory in their own fevered brain, who am I to disabuse them?
You may think otherwise of me, but I decided to use my precious time, energy and resources to move on and continue searching for complimentary websites, but I just wanted to share this little nugget of intelligence with you, dear gentle SEO reader.
I hope these folks wake up someday and realize they are hurting their own sites by sitting on the sidelines and avoid building links. Granted, link building is hard, hard, HARD, but you gotta try at least every once in awhile, don’t you think?
Until next time, keep it between the ditches comrades!
All the best,