No doubt about it, link building as we know it is undergoing a quiet revolution of sorts, which is probably going to explode with the next major Google update. For the time being, the best solution is to keep informed, follow the tips below, and hope that your website doesn’t get its back link profile penalized for questionable tactics.

Link building is dead

Long live… link earning. This is what the pros in the field prefer to call it these days. That’s because links are about far more than numbers and frequency. They are largely about quality, outreach, some PR, and visibility. As such, let go of the mind frame that tells you to chase numbers and chase good content and top publishing platforms instead.

Link building is bound to change

One more alarmist school of thought in SEO has been prophesizing the death of link building for some time now. Many believe that the next Penguin update is going to bring major changes to the way SEOs use links and anchor text – and they are probably right about this, but not about the specifics about this change, which can only be speculated upon at the moment. However, there are some things that Google has been frowning upon more and more severely of late: link schemes, website network schemes, etc.. If any of those things are what you understand by link building, then, yes, prepare for an earthquake. Otherwise, seek out options to make sure your links stay safe in the face of any changes we might see in the future.

Link building needs to rely on social

Most SEOs probably already know that paying for links will get you nowhere these days – nor will cross linking across websites within the same network. If you want a top quality link leading back to your profile, you will need to seriously invest yourself in doing outreach, identifying opinion leaders, getting their contact details and then convincing them your content is worthy of their website. But bear in mind that finding out who those game changers are won’t help you much, if they are not affiliated with a good publisher. Start with finding venues for publication, then go for new contacts.

SEO is also PR

A growing trend in SEO these days is for companies to offer a variegated array of content to sites that publish content about them. There is now so much more to link building than just guest posting. Startupwebpro For instance, has produced all sorts of content for its clients, from ‘making of’ and ‘behind the scene’ videos to visual content like infographics that might be more tricky to optimize, but far more rewarding in terms of reach, in the long run.

Mind the Author!

These days, bigger brands, which can afford targeting the top publishers in their niche, are becoming increasingly more mindful about a site’s degree of authorship recognition implementation. These established companies are already visible enough to afford to look elsewhere when they stumble upon a publishing platform that does not take the upcoming AuthorRank into consideration.  Simply look for an author bio section – if they have one, that means you stand to gain from all the perks authorship comes along with (the biggest of which is, of course, more clicks).