How can you build high-quality links in a post-Penguin world?

In a post-Penguin SEO landscape, building high-quality links requires strategic content creation, influencer outreach, active community participation, and guest posting on reputable sites. Regular link audits and social media promotion also play important roles in maintaining a clean link profile and maximizing content visibility. Expertly implementing these strategies aligns with evolving search engine guidelines.

Imagine you're having a conversation with a friend. You want to share something interesting or helpful with them, something they'll find valuable. That's the same approach you should take when creating content for your website. Ask yourself: What topics are my target audience interested in? What kind of information would they find useful or insightful?

Think of outreach as making new friends and building relationships in the online community. Just like in real life, these connections can be mutually beneficial. Here are some ways to strategically reach out to other websites: Guest blogging. Broken link building. Blogger outreach.

In this day and age, outreach should primarily be through digital PR and that will naturally create the backlink opportunities based on the effort you put into creating it. Outreach link building by email and relationship building is a low to no gain activity that will require immense time investment.

In the online world, just like in the real world, your existing connections can be a valuable source of opportunities. Reach out to friends, colleagues, or acquaintances who have websites in your niche. Let them know about your content and ask if they'd be willing to link to it. Also, consider collaborating with other websites on projects or initiatives. This can help you expand your reach and gain exposure to new audiences.

Having a relationship with a reputable PR vendor is better than attempting to become friends with a webmaster via email. Google and many search engines largely find this linking scheme approach to be rather obvious and easy to devalue those links on many sites. Having a good relationship with a writer and a PR vendor would be the better and more cost effective strategies.

In the pre-penguin era, 90% of links were exact occurrences. Usually people don't do this, they just write "Look here" or just give the URL of the articles they're interested in. Of course, Google is talking about this type of spammer behavior and began to reject such links and even punish them for them. Nowadays, the following percentage of exact occurrences of the keyword is recommended: 35% – 45% of your links should contain branded, URL, or natural anchors. 50% – 60% should contain partial match anchors. No more than 10% of your links should include exact match anchors. You can check for yourself how natural your anchor text looks using the well-known websites Ahrefs or Semrush.

Imagine anchor text as the signpost that guides people from one page to another. It should be clear, concise, and accurately reflect the content of the page you're linking to.

To see what backlinks you have acquired, one could use AHREFs, SEMrush, or the Links report in Google Search Console. I would caution to mention those who attempt to "rank" links with terms like DR (Domain Rating) or DA (Domain Authority) specifically regarding backlinks. These are made up numbers by platforms and don't serve an actual purpose in determining backlink effectiveness.

Just like you would regularly check up on your garden, you should also monitor and analyze your link profile. This helps you ensure that your links are still of high quality and contributing positively to your website's SEO efforts. Use tools like Google Search Console and Ahrefs to track your link profile. These tools can provide valuable insights into the quality and authority of your backlinks.

Remember, link building is an ongoing process. Regularly monitor your links and take action to improve your link profile whenever necessary.