I’m not happy. Not happy at all. I think I have taken a hit from Penguin. The traffic to my detox blog has dropped off again in spite of the SEO back links I have been building since Google’s Panda.

Google launched Penguin, their latest algorithm change, on April 24th and I have noticed that my search engine traffic has been going down and down since then.

Some of it may be the time of the year of course as the majority of people are searching for information about detox in the earlier part of the year. Still it makes me wonder.

Penguin, according to Google, is an algorithm change that’s aimed at webspam and, more specifically, “sites that we believe are violating Google’s quality guidelines”. To the best of my knowledge I am not violating their guidelines.

I was on one of James Francis’s coaching webinars the other night and he mentioned that when it comes to free traffic Google does not like sites with popups.

One of the things Google looks for is a site’s visitor  usability. Google thinks that popups annoy people so give these sites a black mark, as it were.

I aked him about the PopUp Domination plugin that I and a lot of other Internet Maketers use and was surprised that he said he doesn’t like it and has never used it. He thinks that any type of popup or exit script really annoys people.

So, as an experiment, I have turned it off for the time being while I work on trying to get my traffic back.  I am going to continue to build more good quality backlinks.

The best way to build seo back links following the Google Panda & Penguin algorithm changes seems to have  become a major concern for many website owners.

A Few Of The Most Common Ways Of Building SEO Back Links That No Longer Work

Some of the most common methods taught in the online marketing industry, especially for affiliate marketing,  are now being seen by Google as an indication that you are trying to manipulate your search engine rankings.

And as a result of this unnatural link building behavior, Google’s algorithm is now configured to penalize sites that have been detected using these methods.

Using link networks

This was often done to get a lot of high page rank back links for a new site in a very short time period. Another example would be taking a site from having a few backlinks one day to all of a sudden having hundreds of backlinks the next day with no continued supporting back link growth.

Google has apparently identified a certain pattern or characteristic that link networks use, which their algorithm is now capable of detecting.

Getting all of your backlinks from one source

An example of this would be submitting hundreds of articles to an article directory for the majority of your back links. Or getting all of your back links from hundreds of forum post. Now instead of each of your links counting individually, you are most likely only getting credit once for each link source.

Over optimizing your anchor text

Always using the exact keyword phrase to link back to your content is apparently also being seen as a signal that you are constructing your own back links and not getting them naturally. This also may be causing you to only get a reduced credit for the duplicate anchor text links.

Now lets take a look at some of the things that you can do to help improve your sites search engine rankings.

Here Are Some Of The Best Ways Of Building SEO Back Links That Do Work

This is not an all inclusive list mainly because Google will not reveal what all of its ranking factors are and they will most likely change them in the future as new technology and new user trends develop and change.

But,  at this point I think it is safe to say that these are factors that Google is currently viewing as good indications of a good website for their search engine rankings.

1. Number of backlinks and link growth rate

If your site is consistently getting more and more different back links over time ( and not a static amount like 10 new backlinks a month, every month) those are the sites that are getting more credit for their links.

2. On page inter-linking and on site navigation

How good is your on site navigation ? Do you have good on page inter-linking so that users can easily navigate all of the related pages throughout your site ?

A good example of how this is done would be the Wikipedia website where each page has in content links to other related pages. A good example of how poor content interlinking is being done would be most article directories where in content interlinking is often not allowed at all.

3. Anchor Text Usage

Having your exact keyword for your anchor text appears to be viewed as a way of detecting unnatural link building. To avoid this problem you should vary your anchor text so that you may only have a slightly larger amount of your anchor text being the exact keyword phrase that you want to rank for.

The other times when you do not want to use the exact anchor text you should try and use a natural variation of your keyword phrase. In some cases you may also want to use a completely neutral anchor text link like “click here” however this should definitely be done sparingly.

4. Quality of links

The biggest factor here is the site that the link is coming from. Higher page rank authority sites are considered the highest quality sites to get links from. The location of the link is also a big factor. For example, an in context link coming from within an article or blog post is going to be considered of higher value than a link in the footer or sidebar.

5. Back Link Relevance

Is the site that the link is coming from in the same or related market or niche ? This may also play more of an important role in scoring or ranking your webpage or your website.

6. Link Juice from the linking page

If a page is well interlinked on a website, like Wikipedia for example and then there is a link coming from that well interlinked page going to your website, this will be considered to be giving your site some of its link juice.

Additional Ways To Increase Your SEO Back Links

Develop a strategy to integrate as many of the following different types of content as possible :

Link bait

This is content that quickly catches the attention of other viewers. Things like a top ten list for your market or something that your audience would be interested in. Most popular (blank, blank, blanks) , interesting surveys or user opinion polls can also make great link bait.

Viral Content

This is usually in the form of funny or inspiring content such as a baby playing a prank on his parent or a pet doing something exciting or unusual.

Pillar Content

This is also know as evergreen content. It should be well written and interesting content written about unchanging methods, concepts or principles for your market or target audience. Tutorials often make great pillar content because once you do an excellent job of explaining exactly how to do something then that content is likely to be referenced for a long time.

By avoiding the old way of link building and moving forward with the new way that Google views its ranking factors you can confidently work to improve your sites rankings. That’s what I am going to be doing in earnest.

If you have any tips to add for improving your SEO backlinks then why not share them with my readers?