LEOPARD SEAL
SEO
By: Jonathan Heusman
Jonathan Heusman  Leopard Seal SEO Page 1
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Leopard Seal SEO
Introduction
Chapter 1: What is Google Penguin and How We Will Beat It
Chapter 2: Adapt, Thrive and Crush!
Chapter 3: The Top 10 Backlinking Methods To Crush The Google Penguin Update
Chapter 4: Beat The Penguin to a Pulp
Chapter 5: What To Do From Here Forward
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Introduction:
First I just want to say thank you for putting your trust in me and purchasing Leopard Seal SEO. I
wrote this guide because I saw a need for getting the simple information out there that will
help people beat the penguin update. The people telling you that SEO is dead or that it is just
too complicated to do now are just not well informed. I have gathered what I believe to be the
most important things you should be doing now to dominate the SEO game in its current state
as well as far into the future.
You will want to read through this guide in order and be ready to take notes or even perform
some of the steps as you go. Chapter 2 is perhaps the most important Chapter, as you will learn
the exact changes and enhancements you need to be making in your SEO campaigns since the
penguin update. Make sure you understand how to implement each of the 5 things in Chapter
2.
Chapter 3 then gives you a list of 10 of the top backlinking methods that you should be using on
all of your sites. The key however is that you use what you learned from Chapter 2 with the
backlinking techniques in Chapter 3. If you do this correctly (it s not that hard), you will be miles
ahead of your competition and get those high rankings you want in no time.
In Chapter 4 I wanted to give you a couple of additional tactics to use in your SEO campaigns
that are particularly important since the penguin update. Certain aspects of SEO have become
more important and certain aspects have become less important. This chapter gives you 3 of
the ones that have become very important and will give you a big leg up on the competition.
Lastly, Chapter 5 wraps up this guide and tells you to start taking action!
I truly hope that you enjoy this short but valuable guide. Do not under estimate the tactics and
SEO methods that you learn in this guide. You will see amazing results if you employ them and
be able to take back the reins of your Google search rankings.
If you ever need anything, do not hesitate to contact me at [e-mail]
Jonathan Heusman  Leopard Seal SEO Page 4
Chapter 1: What is Google Penguin and How We Will Beat It
On or around April 24th, 2012, Google released its latest algorithm change titled the Google
Penguin update. Webmasters immediately felt the effects of this update as thousands of sites
completely disappeared from the rankings while bunches of others inexplicably rose to the top.
Perhaps one of the strangest results of the Google Penguin update was the appearance of very
low quality and unrelated websites coming up for high volume search terms. Meanwhile,
authority sites with completely white hat backlinking strategies were sent into the abyss.
How could Google put out an update that actually penalized what most would consider high
quality sites and reward paper-thin spammy sites? Isn t that the opposite of what Google
should want?
Needless to say, the webmaster community was and still is up in arms and the SEO community
is scrambling to figure out what to do now.
Many people have already publicly exclaimed,  SEO is Dead!
An understandable reaction, but it is just that& a reaction. The smart SEO ers out there know
that there will always be change, but with change also comes opportunity.
So do you think that the Google Penguin is beatable? I mean look at that little guy, he looks a
lot weaker than a panda if you ask me, and many people thrived after the Panda update.
I ll tell you 3 things right now.
1) Backlinking is NOT dead.
2) Social Signals are increasingly important
3) On-Site optimization and Content is more important than ever.
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These 3 facts form the foundation of just how we will beat the Google Penguin update and
claim our rightful spots at the top of the search results.
It is my belief that backlinking will still play a very large role in how well sites rank, but the types
of backlinks are much more important as well as how the backlinking is done. Certain
backlinking methods will still work very well while others may actually penalize your rankings.
Frequency and diversity of backlinking is very important now as well. If Google sees an
unnatural backlinking pattern to your sites, they are much more likely to catch it with the
Penguin update. So we will talk more about that in the next couple of chapters.
The key thing to remember is that while the Penguin update may seem like it is a major blow to
the SEO industry and our ability to rank sites, the reality of the situation is that really not a
whole lot has changed at the core of the matter. Backlinks are still important, on-site
optimization is still important and social signals are still important. Certain things have just
taken on much greater importance and with the knowledge you will gain here, we will adapt,
thrive and crush the Google Penguin update.
By the way, do you know what the main predator of the Penguin is? It is the Leopard Seal.
Do you want to attack this situation like a Leopard Seal or cower away and become a victim like
a little sardine?
I ll assume I know the answer, so let s move forward.
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Chapter 2: Adapt, Thrive and Crush!
In order for us to thrive and crush the Google Penguin update, we first must adapt our SEO
techniques. Don t even think about blog comment spam or using large private blog networks.
And don t bother with blasting out 1000 backlinks a day using some automated software like
SENukex. The penguin update was designed to notice this type of backlinking and will penalize
it.
There are 5 key points that I want to go over that you must adapt into your SEO techniques if
you want to thrive. Each of these points is very important and all put together, they will help
you to crush the Google penguin and get to the top of the search results for your keywords.
Do not take any of these for granted. They may seem a little silly or inconsequential at first
glance, but if you take them to heart and really use them, you will be miles ahead of the SEO
pack.
Ok ok, you get it, so tell you the 5 things! I know, let s quit beating around the iceberg and get
right into the meat of it.
The 5 Penguin Adaptations
1) Strong Anchor Text Distribution Is A Must
2) Utilize Authorship Markup
3) Backlink Variation is Uber important.
4) Social Signals Are Vital
5) On-Site Optimization + Content Content Content
I ll talk briefly about each of these here but I bet you are probably thinking hey, I have heard of
doing all of these things, this is nothing new. Well just doing them isn t what is important. What
is important is HOW you do them.
I have to re-iterate that the SEO game really hasn t changed all that much at its core, but it has
changed in exactly how you implement the core principals. You will find that having an SEO plan
in place before going all crazy and getting random backlinks from all over the place will be a lot
more effective and save you a ton of time and heart-ache.
So my advice to you is to take these 5 key points and adapt them to how you currently do your
SEO. Or perhaps these are so different from what you currently do you will want to change
completely to something closer to this. The choice is ultimately up to you, but take this
knowledge to make the best possible choice you can.
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The following is my best advice on how to go about each of these 5 adaptations for the best
results and to achieve the best rankings.
1) Strong Anchor Text Distribution Is A Must  What do I mean by strong anchor text
distribution? Well most people in the SEO industry learned somewhere along the way
that the anchor text of a backlink tells Google what the site is about. So in order to get a
site ranked well in Google for a specific anchor text (keyword), it only made sense to use
that same anchor text for every single one of our backlinks.
And it worked really well for a long time! However, Google appears to have finally
caught on and has begun taking into account when websites have an abnormal number
of identical anchor texts pointing to a site. Or in terms we are talking about, sites with
very little text distribution in the links pointing to them.
So how can we effectively rank websites for specific keywords now if we can t make all
of our anchor text keywords the same? The first thing is we can use the idea of Latent
Semantic Indexing (LSI) when choosing anchor text.
Let s say that your main keyword that you want to rank for is  dog training . LSI
keywords for that would be keywords like animal training, dog classes, dog teaching,
classes for dogs, training for dogs, and so on. See how these are all keywords that
basically mean the same thing but are different.
However, using the idea of LSI alone is not enough. One of the biggest things Google is
looking at now is natural looking SEO. So to look as natural as possible, you want to mix
in some anchor texts that aren t so keyword targeted that a normal person might use.
For example, a person might find a site about dog training and would name the backlink
 dog training website or  pretty cool dog training site . Imagine how people would
share links on social media type sites and you will get a good idea.
So in summary, you want to use the idea of LSI as well as take into consideration what
would look natural to Google to come up with a couple of dozen anchor texts that are
all related around your main anchor text. Use your main keyword as anchor text 10% to
20% of the time and then mix in the rest of the keywords you come up with when
creating your backlinks to create a powerful and natural looking linking profile.
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Not only will Google be much more likely to give you some love, but you will have a lot
better chance to rank for long-tail keywords and additional keywords you may have
never thought to target.
2) Utilize Authorship Markup  Authorship markup is a fairly new technique that Google
has been pushing for people to do and is actually quite a powerful addition to your site.
Basically what it does is claim the content of a site as yours by using a special tag that
looks like this: rel=author. There are a couple of ways to set this up, some easier than
others. I will cover the one I think is easiest.
The benefit of using authorship markup is that if done right, your site may start showing
up in the search results with your Google+ profile picture next to it. This adds a lot of
credibility to your result in the searchers eyes. Using authorship markup is also a huge
plus in Google s eyes as it shows them that you are creating unique and original content
and helps keep people from stealing your content since you have told Google you are
the original author.
The easiest way to setup authorship markup that I know of is to first login to your
Google+ account and add your blog/site to your  contributor section. Once that is
there, you need to put a link back to your Google+ profile from any piece of content that
you post on your site. Most people do so with a sort of author bio box and it would look
something like this.
 Connect with me on
Google+
You just need to make sure you put in your Google+ profile address and put something
similar to this at the top or bottom of each post that you want to claim. It is as simple as
that.
If you are using Wordpress, there may also be a plugin you could use to simplify this
process. Very recently a promising plugin came out for free that could simplify the
entire authorship markup process for you, but I have just played with it a little bit. It is
called Author Sure and can be downloaded here:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/authorsure
At first glance, it looks to simplify the process of setting up authorship markup which is
awesome. I have seen people selling plugins that do the authorship markup for you on
the WSO forum before, so this may save you $10 or $20 right here.
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You can see the authorship markup live and in action on one of my blogs at:
http://www.majormarketingtools.com/internet-marketing/product-creators-and-affiliates-are-
you-targeting-the-right-market
That was setup with the plugin I linked to above. There are a couple of additional setup items to
get the About information as well as the picture in. In order to get the picture in, you must setup
a gravatar.com account and upload the picture you would like displayed. You will also want to
fill out some of your profile information on Gravatar as well. The other thing is to go to your
profiles section inside of your Wordpress blog and write a short profile under the  About
section. After that and setting up the plugin, you are good to go. It takes less than 5 minutes
and will add a ton of SEO value to your site(s).
I may do a video walkthrough showing me doing the setup in the near future that I will send to
you free very soon.
3) Backlink Variation is Uber Important  Earlier we talked about Anchor Text Distribution.
Backlink variation is a very similar concept so I won t spend a ton of time talking about it.
The idea of backlink variation is that you want to get backlinks from a wide variety of
sources. Not just different websites, but different types of websites. Sure, you can get
100s of backlinks from 100s of different article directories, but they are all still coming
from one type of source& article directories. What is important is to utilize every
different source of backlink in your arsenal (that Google still values).
So instead of hammering one source that you know Google values, use 20 sources. It is
not too difficult and will create a much more natural backlinking profile to your sites.
If you aren t sure what types of backlinks Google still values, don t worry, I will be going
over that more specifically in Chapter 3. Truthfully, the types of backlinks Google values
has not changed a great deal.
Where Google places the importance is in HOW you do your backlinking. 10,000 blog
comments in a day or week to junk auto-approve blogs is not the best idea. But 50 to
100 blog comments on high authority and relevant sites will add a lot of value and look a
lot more natural.
4) Social Signals Are Vital  Social signals have been a pretty important thing in Google s
eyes for a little while now, but they are only becoming more and more important. While
the importance of massive irrelevant backlinks has gone down, the importance of social
signals has gone up.
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So what exactly is a social signal anyway? Basically a social signal is when someone talks
about your site on a social networking site such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or
anywhere else that involves a community. It can even be on forums. Or maybe they
 like an article, or  plus a blog post or  re-tweet a story. Those are all forms of social
signals that Google watches out for.
In a sense, a social signal shows Google that other users care about your content or
think that your content is useful. Why else would they re-tweet it or like it? One of the
best ways to get these social signals for your site is to include the appropriate buttons in
a very visible place. At a minimum, you should have a Twitter, Facebook and Google+
button on your site. I find that a vertical bar to the left of your content or a horizontal
bar above or below your content is most visible.
I use a free Wordpress plugin called  Slick Social Share Buttons on most of my sites that
puts a vertical bar to the left of your content. You can grab it here.
You can see it in action at this site: http://www.topkettlebellworkouts.com/
The question of how to GET these social signals for your site is somewhat of a tricky one, but the
honest and most ethical way is to produce good content and share it in places that you think
people would benefit from it. Also, don t hesitate to ask friends and family to check it out and
click the social buttons for you.
I will give you some more ideas for getting more of these social signals for your site in the
Chapter 3 as well.
5) On-Site Optimization + Content Content Content  On-site optimization has gotten
more and more important recently and content has been and always will be important.
You might say that content is the life blood of the internet. No wonder Google values
high quality, original and unique content, right?
There are a lot of tips, tricks and techniques to have high quality on-site optimization.
There are long guides written on the subject even, so it is not something that I can fully
cover here. However, there are a couple things I will say that are very important.
It is very important that your linking structure makes sense and that you do not have
any broken links on your site. Basically the best linking structure would resemble
somewhat of a pyramid where your home page is the very top of the pyramid. Your
homepage then links to each of your first level of pages and each of your first level of
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pages could then have sub-pages that would be linked to from the first level pages but
NOT from the homepage. Take a look at the diagram below for a visual look at it.
Sorry for the crappy picture, but hopefully that gives you an idea of what I mean. If you
have just random links pointing everywhere or pointing in circles, Google will not know
how to crawl it effectively and you will not have a good distribution of  link juice or
 page rank flowing through your site. Also be very careful to not have any links pointing
to broken links on your own site or on external sites.
There is a cool little tool called Xenu s Link Sleuth that you can use to analyze your
site(s) for any broken links. Check it out at: http://xenus-link-sleuth.en.softonic.com/
Other on-site optimizations that can be made include using H1, H2, H3 tags, bolding,
italicizing, underlining, etc& in your posts and pages. Also, using pictures and videos
when appropriate is important. These are some of the basics of your on-site
optimization and I encourage you to Google around a little bit for on-site optimization
tips. You will find that there is a lot of information out there that will really help you
understand the key things to do.
But what I have talked about here should give you a pretty good basic foundation for
what to do.
Now we all know that content is very important. I believe the biggest change from this
Google Penguin update is that there is more importance put on longer authoritative
types of articles. If your blog posts or pages are anywhere from 700 to 2000 words, then
you are doing pretty darn good. So just aim for longer articles and you will benefit.
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The other thing that you DON T want to do with regards to your content is to keyword
stuff. You really do not need 2 to 3% keyword density. You don t even really need 1%.
What you should focus on instead is using variations of your keyword and actually
implementing the concept of LSI throughout your articles. This will be much more
natural to read and Google will still figure out what your top keywords are, don t worry.
If you do a good job on both your content and your onsite-optimization you will be a
long ways ahead of the majority of other webmasters. Put just a little extra time in to
do it right and you will be rewarded.
Chapter Conclusions: Well that concludes this Chapter detailing what you need to do to
adapt, thrive and CRUSH the search rankings. If you combine all 5 of these, you will be
almost unstoppable and will likely never have to worry about another Google slap again.
It may seem a little bit daunting at first to have to do all of these things. If you have
never done some of them, there might be a little bit of a learning curve. But once you
get it down and understand that these are the things you must do to rank well in
Google, it will just become part of your SEO routine and you will do them with ease.
Now just a quick review, these are the 5 things that you must be doing or taking into
consideration to beat Google, the penguin update and future Google updates.
1) Have a strong anchor text distribution for your backlinks.
2) Implement Authorship Markup on your sites.
3) Strong Backlink Variation, the more diverse your links, the better.
4) Get social signals (aka social proof for Google) any way you can.
5) Have great on-site optimization and content.
In the next Chapter I am going to talk about the 10 backlinking techniques that I see as
the most reliable and most effective to use to rank your sites in Google post-penguin.
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Chapter 3: The Top 10 Backlinking Methods To Crush The Google Penguin Update
Anybody who tells you that backlinking is dead as a result of the Google Penguin update
is just trying to scare you or shock you. Backlinking is alive and well and it will be for a
long time to come. Google may be putting more emphasis on other factors such as on-
site optimization and content now, but that does not mean getting backlinks to your
sites will now have no effect.
What the update does mean though is that backlinking has changed and it is no longer
about pounding 1000 s of backlinks out all using the same anchor text. Some people
may be testing and finding that it can still work to do it that way, but they are treading
on thin ice. One of the most common factors of the sites that are still standing and
thriving since the Google Penguin update is that they have a strong, diverse backlinking
profile.
What do I mean by strong and diverse? I mean that they have a large variety of anchor
texts used for their backlinks from a large variety of sources. They also have a good
number of backlinks from authority sites as well as from sites that are relevant to their
own. To Google, their backlinking appears natural and they don t get 1,000 backlinks
one day and none for the next 2 weeks. This is what I mean by a strong and diverse
backlinking profile.
Now you already know about anchor text diversity and the need for varied backlinking
sources, so I am going to give you 10 backlinking sources that will help you build that
strong and diverse backlinking profile that you need. Let s not waste too much time and
get right into it.
Backlinking Source 1: Website Directories
Ok, I bet this first one just threw you for a loop. Aren t website directories from like
2002 and aren t they useless now? Turns out they are actually still very useful and make
for some very easy backlinks from some very well established sites. You can submit to
either free or paid directories. Most people stick with the free ones which is what I
recommend.
I wouldn t go too crazy submitting to website directories, but do a few per day for a
week or so and you ll be in pretty good shape. http://www.directorycritic.com/ is a good
site to find a big list of free website directories to submit to. Just click on the link for  free
directory list and have at it.
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Backlinking Source 2: Guest Blogging
Ah yes, the age old guest blogging method. Since the death of private blog networks
happened, this method should be one of your power methods to beat out your
competition. Not only can you get some great exposure for your sites, but you get some
seriously powerful links with this method.
Google tends to put more weight on links that are in the main content area of sites than
those found in the sidebar. And guess where your link will be when you get a guest blog
post posted. To do this, just Google for 10 or 20 of the top blogs in your niche and
contact them asking if they accept original guest posts. If they do, write up a compelling
article and there you have it, some powerful link juice that Google loves.
Backlinking Source 3: Blog Commenting
In the past, a lot of people used programs like Scrapebox to quickly blast out thousands
of irrelevant comments on any old blog they could scrape. While this worked fairly well
for quite a while, it is a horrible idea now. But blog commenting in and of itself is still a
great idea. Rather than blasting thousands of irrelevant comments, now it is important
to comment on relevant blogs or articles with an interesting and on-topic comment
while including your backlink.
You can search out high page rank posts that are relevant to your site to comment on
and get some very powerful backlinks. A pro tip that I tell people is to not use your
anchor text when commenting on the really high authority blogs. Instead, just use a first
name. This greatly improves your chances of your comment being approved which is the
only way we get the backlink.
Even though the backlink will not be using a relevant anchor text, the link juice that you
get is still very valuable and if the site is relevant to your own, Google will see that and
put a higher value on it.
Backlinking Source 4: Social Media Sites
Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, these are all sites you should be trying to get
links from almost daily. With Twitter, you want to tweet links to your pages and posts
and hope for re-tweets as well. With Facebook, you want to post links to your pages and
posts as well. The same for Google+ and with Pinterest, you want to use interesting
pictures in your posts and pages so that you can pin them for easy backlinks.
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It is very easy to get these social backlinks by yourself, but if you really want to ramp
things up, here is a secret that I use. I use a site called Amazon MTurk to create a  gig
for people to tweet or facebook my links. I pay something like $.10 or $.15 when
someone completes the gig and have anywhere from 20 to 50 people complete it.
This means that my links are being Tweeted and/or Facebooked by 20 to 50 original
accounts that often originate from all over the world. Pretty powerful and pretty cheap.
Of course if you have good content or give people a good reason to, they will tweet and
Facebook links to your site without you having to ask or pay.
Backlinking Source 5: Social Toolbars (Slick Social Share Buttons)
This is similar to the previous backlinking source, however, having a toolbar such as Slick
Social Share Buttons enables visitors to quickly and easily  like,  plus ,  tweet ,
 stumble , etc& . Think of getting these as a person voting your site as useful and having
quality content. What does Google want their top results to have? Useful information
and quality content!
You can use the same method as I talked about above with Amazon Mturk to get  likes ,
 plusses , etc& In a way these aren t exactly backlinks, but then again, in a way they
are. One thing is certain however, the more you get, the more well received your site
will be by Google and the more likely it will rank on page 1.
Backlinking Source 6: Social Bookmarking
Social Bookmarking is another way of sending social signals to Google about your site.
You should  Bookmark every post you make on your site on at least the top 5 or 10
social bookmarking sites. For a list of the top social bookmarking sites out there, just
look at http://www.socialmarker.com/
As soon as I post a new page or post on any of my sites, I always bookmark it on at least 5 sites.
It only takes a couple minutes once you have created your accounts and is a quick way to draw
Google s attention to your new content. It is also a nice little backlink to add to your diverse
group of backlinks.
Backlinking Source 7: Pinterest
With Pinterest being the hottest and fastest growing site on the web right now, we can
hardly ignore it. Not to mention it is very easy to get backlinks from Pinterest to your
sites.
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All you need to do is include a compelling or interesting picture on each of your posts or
pages and after you have published it, immediately  pin it to your Pinterest account. If
it is compelling enough, you have a good chance of getting some re-pins which means
some more backlinks automatically.
Google loves Pinterest right now, so take advantage of it and start pinning. It is very
easy to get started and very easy to Pin any pictures that you want from your sites.
Backlinking Source 8: (Free) Press Releases
Press Releases are still a very powerful form of backlinking for your sites. The great thing
about press releases is that people often times forget about this type of backlink and
you can submit them for free to a number of different free press release submission
sites.
The biggest thing that you will want to do is Google for a press release template to see
how to write your press release. Or, you could head over to prweb.com and search
there for how press releases are written as well as how the link is included at the
bottom of each press release.
This appears to be a pretty comprehensive list of free press release sites that you can
submit to. http://www.socialmediapressreleasenews.info/2012/04/18/best-free-press-
release-submit-sites-list/
Backlinking Source 9: Video Sites
Video is still very important to use in your marketing and that includes for getting
backlinks to your sites. Youtube is the obvious first choice for uploading your videos to,
especially considering that it is owned by Google. However, there are a number of other
pretty good video sites that you can upload your videos to also for some nice backlinks.
Metacafe, Dailymotion and Vimeo are all good places to submit your videos to as well.
To place your backlink, just include a link to your site in the description of your video.
Your video doesn t have to be something fancy or anything, it could be as basic as
putting together 10 images or so with some music and creating a video file out of it.
Backlinking Source 10: Document Sharing Sites
Document sharing sites gained popularity for backlinking a couple of years ago but I feel
like the method never really got it s real recognition. It is a powerful method and since
the Google Penguin update, some of the document sharing sites have actually shown a
Jonathan Heusman  Leopard Seal SEO Page 17
very significant increase in rankings. That tells me that it is still one of the best places to
get backlinks from.
Some of the top document sharing sites are: Scribd, 4shared, docstoc and slideshare. In
order to submit to them, you typically need a pdf or powerpoint file that includes your
backlink in them. Then you just upload the file to these sites and they do the rest.
This is one backlinking source you do not want to overlook as it is very quick and easy to
do and it appears that the Google Penguin update actually put more value on them than
they had before.
OK, so that concludes the list of my top 10 Backlink Sourches to dominate Google, post
penguin. Using at least 10 different types of backlink sources is a good start to your
backlinking diversity, but preferably you will have even more. There are a ton of great
ways to get backlinks, but I just wanted to cover what I believe are the top 10 to use
right now.
Just to recap, here are the 10 backlinking sources again.
1) Free Website Directories
2) Guest Blogging
3) Blog Commenting
4) Social Media Sites
5) Social Toolbars
6) Social Bookmarking
7) Pinterest
8) Free Press Releases
9) Video Sites
10) Document Sharing Sites
With everything we have talked about thus far, you are well equipped to beat the latest
Google Penguin update. But why stop there? In the next Chapter we will talk about
some more ways that will help you to dominate the search rankings post-penguin-
update.
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Chapter 4: Beat The Penguin To a Pulp
With the knowledge you have now gained from reading the previous chapters, you will
pretty much have the Google Penguin on the ropes, wobbling about to fall down. But
we aren t happy with that. We want to be like Ivan Drago beating on Apollo Creed in
Rocky IV.  If he dies& he dies . Ok, maybe that is a little dramatic, but I wanted to
throw a couple of other hot tactics at you to make sure you beat the penguin.
1) Research what your competition is doing to stay on top
If there is a particular search term you are trying to rank for, then the best thing you can
do after this whole Google Penguin shakeup is to see what your competitors at the top
have been doing to rank well.
A great site to analyze some of the important factors such as anchor text, types of
backlinks, etc& is www.ahrefs.com this site will only show you some of the data for free,
but it is usually enough to paint a picture of what is working for your competitors. You
are able to see the number of backlinks that they have, how many are do-follow and
how many are no-follow. You can see how many links are from each type of domain
extension as well as actually see a couple of the backlinks that they have.
You can also see some interesting stats such as what organic keywords they are ranking
for. Unfortunately the free functionality of this site is very limited and you will only be
able to analyze one site per day unless you pay for an account. However, if it is in your
budget, this can be a very dangerous tool for you to figure out exactly what your
competitor has done in terms of backlinking.
2) Keep a steady Link Velocity as much as possible
Link Velocity is the rate at which you gain backlinks to your site. If you get them too fast,
then there is a good chance your site will get peanlyzed for spammy activities. If you get
them too slow, you will not get the desired rankings. So it is really kind of a balancing
act.
Try to get anywhere from 10 to 100 links per day if at all possible. Even near 100 is a bit
much, but should not raise any red flags. The key with backlinking now is quality and
consistency. So if you can get 10 quality backlinks per day, then you will start to see
results very quickly.
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3) Audit Existing Links
If you have existing sites that have been hit by the Google Penguin update, then now is a
good time to audit your backlinks. If you have links coming from networks that Google
has de-valued such as private blog networks, then remove your sites from those
networks. Also, it goes without saying, but do not continue using any spammy forms of
backlinking or even buying paid backlinks.
Believe it or not, Google IS getting smarter and the latest update has really started de-
valuing and even penalizing spammy backlinking techniques. Just take a deep breath,
step back and see what kind of backlinking you have done and then think about what
type of backlinking you are going to do from here on out. (Hint: Re-read Chapters 2 and
3).
Those are the 3 additional tips I have for you to really take it to Google and this latest
Penguin update. If you take everything that you have learned in Chapters 2, 3 and 4 you
will be miles ahead of the competition and be able to build a very strong backlinking
profile. It may be a bit more work, but you will be virtually future-proof by doing things
this way and be a lot happier for it.
To keep an eye on further SEO developments and what others are discovering with the
Penguin update, I recommend that you search the popular SEO blogs from time to time.
There are a lot of smart SEO bloggers out there and it is worth keeping tabs on what
they are talking about. The more you know, the better you will be able to react.
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Chapter 5: What To Do From Here Forward
It is important that you take all of this new knowledge (or perhaps refresher knowledge)
and put it to use as soon as possible while it is still fresh in your mind. Otherwise, it is
worthless to you. Google has sent a very clear message with this and other recent
updates that the old ways of doing SEO are no longer viable and if you don t act
accordingly, you will not have the success you deserve.
So from this update, we know that there is no more keyword stuffing articles, no more
hammering the exact same anchor text keyword on thousands of low quality sites, no
more shortcuts and no more focusing on just 1 or 2 backlinking sources.
We also know what it is that works best with Google now such as social signals, great
content, great on-site optimization and intelligent backlinking.
It is clear that to beat Google, we have to play their game or at least appear to be
playing their game. That means having a variety of backlinks across the board so that
your SEO appears much more natural. It means incorporating as much social proof as
possible into your backlinking and it means creating useful content that people will want
to read and share.
That is it in a nutshell. There is no need to over-complicate things. The biggest mistake
people make is thinking that there is some secret or magic bullet out there. The truth is
if you can follow the advice in this guide and are willing to do put in the work, then I
promise that you will be happy with the results.
One thing you need to understand about all of this is that effective SEO practices have
not really changed. Google has just made it harder to use deceptive or spammy SEO
practices to rank well.
And this is a GOOD thing.
In a sense, they are forcing black-hat SEO ers to become more white-hat, which is
definitely not a bad thing. In fact, it is even likely to remove a lot of the competition
because black-hat SEO ers either won t know how to adapt or will be too lazy to. They
will continue to use their automated tools that blast out thousands of spammy backlinks
and sooner than later their site(s) will be slapped because of it.
So this Penguin update is a wake-up call for many that it is time to adapt or be crushed.
I don t know about you, but I know I was getting a bit lazy at times with my backlinking
and I actually look forward to increasing my quality of SEO. It isn t always fun writing
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long authoritative articles or creating accounts and posting content on certain sites, but
it is a necessary action that you need to take. (That is unless you can outsource the
work).
So in closing, my advice to you is to re-read this guide, but this time as you read,
formulate your own SEO plan and identify at least 10 action steps to take in the next
week. Write them down and even go so far as to write down which day you will
complete each action step.
This will help tell your brain where you are going so that it can formulate how and when
it needs to get there. Take these steps and then go from there. Write out an action plan
each and every week to spend 10 or 20 minutes on your SEO. It will all add up very
quickly and since you are smart enough to take action every day, you will almost be
guaranteed to have amazing results.
I look forward to hearing about your successes and watching you dominate the search
rankings like I know you can.
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