SES London 2013 - Paul Madden - Social Media and SEO

Paul Madden formerly blackhat SEO @SEOIdiot now SEO and in building guru based in the UK http://www.paulmadden.co.uk/ gave some great tips on link building post penguin.

I didn't take many notes having been a little stuck in the moment of listening however I did take some notes and hopefully caught the gist of what he was trying to get across.

Things to remember when link building;
- Links don't expire you have to take these off.
- Link data is a must!!!!
- Understanding the sites you get links from don't just say yes

GET A MONTHLY LINK AUDIT PROCESS IN PLACE!

Signals that should tell you your site is at risk;
-Far higher % of on anchor text
- site wide links are a no no
- stay away from suspect Cctlds
- Remove links that have died check BACKLINKS and if the sites still exists or not

% of link anchor text is the answer
GOOGLE IS BASED ON LINKS, don't forget this!!!

What you need to ask yourself when you are measuring link metric value;
What is the cctld
What is the purpose of site, is it of value?
Check for Banned words
Does the site have Links to bad places (use Xenu Link sleuth)
Commercial anchors
No interaction on site, comments, tweets, reviews
No social activity on site

TOP 4 things to remember when building links;
- audit link profile
- make sure the guys know what they're doing
- don't stop building
- watch link profile

Basically, measure, measure , measure and then keep track!!!
Link building is NOT dead, it's just getting tougher.

Link Building in a post Penguin era by Kevin Gibbons (snippets from SES London)

So I think the great way Kevin started this chat off was by defining the difference between Penguin and Panda updates from Google. I don't think that everyone quite has this one bedded down and defined just yet. To be honest it's pretty simple though;

Penguin penalizes links.
Panda penalizes content.

That's it!!!

I think the reason a lot of these discussion we're based around post penguin updates really comes down to;

People needing clarity on how to clear penalized sites.
How to actively engage your sites backlinks and effectively monitor or prevent this from happening again.
How to build links without raising any flags

So, what is a rubbish site that Google finds spammy?
Websites that have no links, no comments, no activity or shares! I also think sites on dodgy tld's I.e. .info sites

How does Google identify crappy link building?
Your site has over optimized anchor text
Your sites link profile consists of social links, directories, article submission sites and blog comments
You have a totally one sided link profile I.e. great links from great sites with nothing else
You push links heavily and then stop and do nothing for months

With Author Rank becoming more and more prevalent and relevancy playing a huge part in everything were doing these days it is essential to start using Google plus.
You must have a plus page
You must link your plus page to your blog
Dont believe me, straight out of Eric schmidt's mouth, look it up.

Become a recommended author!!! That's the goal.

TIPS FOR SEO companies;
Use Rss subscribers
Watch your Bounce rates
Monitor Average number of links per post
Monitor Average number of social shares
Ask yourself, What would Matt cuts do?

What can I do to keep track of BACKLINKS

Download BACKLINKS from majestic SEO.
Track % of anchor text distribution.
Analyze links vs. referring traffic.
Find out what number 1 competitor is doing and what his link profile looks like.
DON'T CHANGE ANCHOR TEXT - rather remove link.
Focus on audience and topical relevancy to build a natural link profile.
If content is not generating links its not natural is it?
Don't publish rubbish.
Remove links with no value to users.
Replicate link models of top sites.

However, the most important Thing to remember with seo and link building moving forward for 2013 is:

Create scalable content marketing strategy and focus on audience, social thinking!!!!