With the looming “Penguin Update” on the horizon, I wanted to talk a bit about link building. Google Analysts have been talking around the rollout date for the Penguin update for months at this point. With all the talk about this update, we might as well get our businesses in good order as far as links go.

Here’s a quick overview on the Penguin Update:

• First time Google ran this update was April 2012.
• This is a machine learning algorithm that references spammy backlinks for businesses.
• Google crawls websites to insure that they have valid backlinks and good quality backlinks.
• If websites/brands do not have those quality links, it will result in penalty within ranking.

When preparing your business for an update like this one of your first step should be to check your bases. Log into Google Webmaster Tools and check the list you have for “Links to your site” under “Search Traffic”. This is where you would evaluate the links listed to insure they are creditable sources. Things to look out for:

• weird domain extension
• strange URLs that aren’t recognizable

And if you see either of those things, check there spam score!

Creditable links would include: Industry specific links, directories/social media and local links. If your links are falling outside of those categories then start evaluating them and possibly disavow them within webmaster tools.

When you are removing links you need to remember to build them back up. Link building is a concept that’s been around for years but now it looks different than ever. With Google constantly updating the algorithm, it’s important to stay current on link building trends. When we are talking about link building for your business there are a few easy things to do to get things started.

• Start with Moz.com/local or yext.com to run a business scan of the directories your business is already listed on and then evaluate where the inconsistencies are and fix those first.
• Look at those listing scans and determine if you have any duplicates on a directory – if so, work on getting those removed.
• Think about your industry connections. Are there industry expert pages you could be listed on? Are there business journals you could be published on? Do you have any local directories or search pages you could be on? What are you a member of? What niches do you have and are there any sites that showcase those from an industry level?
• Guest posting or blogging for another business is an easy way to get an organic backlink. This could be an industry blog page that you take over for a post or could be a business journal you wrote an article for.
• Working on claiming your address on location pages. (GMB, Yahoo and Bing)
• Add a resource page to your site and then encourage your affiliates to do the same. Then link swap so that you are listed on their site and they are listed on yours.

Those are just some quick ways to start link building for your brand. I have also attached some link resources for you.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/every-link-building-tactic-need-know-2016/156519/
http://searchengineland.com/library/google/google-penguin-update
https://moz.com/local
http://www.yext.com/
https://moz.com/blog/spam-score-mozs-new-metric-to-measure-penalization-risk