We have recently heard Matt Cutts’ comments on the falling value of guest posts and with the increasing comfort level of some SEO’s who are carrying out ‘negative SEO‘.

I foresee Google being slowly prompted to devalue the benefit of link building. As it stands links are still incredibly valuable and in my opinion Google have not quite achieved what I perceive was their original goal following the Penguin and Panda updates.

However, it has effectively steered the industry down the desired path towards quality content through Panda and natural, high quality (non-commercially focused) link building through Penguin, but Google’s original problem still exists and a new form of negative manipulation was created alongside the Penguin algorithm.

Taking stock of some of the changes I have seen in client’s accounts over the last year, there is a clear trend forming, which takes search engine optimisation far away from where it originated.  

These changes are transforming SEO into a user-centric strategy, with a growing dependency on site management, user experience (UX) and customer focus.

Changing trends

Away from:

  • Commercially focused anchor text.
  • Follow links.
  • Out dated web design.
  • No follow internal links – internal link sculpting.
  • Thin and duplicate content.

Towards:

  • Quality content.
  • Peer reviews driving click through rate (CTR) increases.
  • Uncluttered and focused design – increasing page engagement and conversions.
  • Responsive design – adjusting to our changing device habits.
  • Good semantic markup/code.
  • Comprehensive on page SEO / housekeeping.
  • Owning your niche with content tailored to your customer’s needs.

If I had to bet on it and I do… I would be leaning towards a reduced value of links over the next year or so, which would be replaced with an increased value of following metrics:

  • Trending / Viral nature traffic.
  • CTR’s.
  • Bounce rate.
  • Time of site.
  • Overall traffic.
  • Page depth.
  • Social signals.
  • Site maintenance.
  • Obviously including the stable quality content, tailored to user’s expectations, requirements and ease.

Most of the above metrics already play a part within Google’s current algorithm, but I anticipate the weighting ratio being adjusted further and with the inclusion of social signals.  

I have personally seen CTR’s and site maintenance making what I believe to be a significant contribution to organic positions; above the level that I would have anticipated.

Bear in mind that it will be a considered task for Google to include social metrics into their ranking algorithm due to the high capacity for fraud and manipulated signals, it is difficult to forecast what metrics will ultimately be included.  

Personally I would recommend implementing a social strategy, which complements and incorporates your other marketing strategies and activities, building your social presence naturally if none exists. 

If you are looking to future proof your 2014 strategy I would recommend integrating your offline and online channel marketing efforts together to drive traffic online.  

I believe increasing your overall non-paid traffic contributes to your organic ranking positions, this illustrates how developing valuable and relevant social campaigns with a viral nature can become a worthy exercise.

With all of this in mind I think a few more exercises should be included in our SEO housekeeping list.  

I’m often shocked at how many new clients come on board who have many of these standard issues and once they have been rectified the rankings increase steadily. 

House keeping list and plan of action:

Keep your website software, code and website design up to date and fresh

      • Meta Descriptions, Title tags etc.
      • Site map.
      • Robots.txt not blocking incorrect pages.
      • Correct use of canonical tags.
      • Run a Screaming Frog crawl to check what the search engines will index.
      • Search “site:www.yourdomain.com” to verify the amount of pages and if it’s incorrect investigate. 
      • Site framework updates e.g. WordPress.
      • Server software updates to ensure security.
      • Review Google Webmaster Tools for issues.
      • Keep on top of 404 Errors – over 200 errors drops organic positions.

Ensure your page layout is user friendly and does what it says on the label

      • Strong calls to action.
      • Encourage deeper page views with internal links to related information.
      • Understand page hierarchy and positioning to achieve your page goals.
      • Clear focus above the fold.
      • Avoid heavy ads.
      • Decide on a primary focus per page.

Build your sites perception and authority through

      • Design.
      • Content.
      • Video.
  • Set up Google Authorship.
  • Tie in any reviews or awards – star ratings. I have seen the CTR increase by 60% with this alone.
  • Add Value with helpful content and resources.
  • Social channel development and tie in your other marketing initiatives. 

Monthly backlink ‘new link’ reviews, removals, disavows.  

Each tool has different data you will need to merge your exported lists to get a more accurate account.

      • Majestic SEO.
      • Ahrefs.
      • Open Site Explorer.
      • Google Webmaster tools.

Analyse your data.

Know your conversion rate, check your bounce rate, time on site, page depth.

      • Look for issues.
      • Room for improvement. 

Staying on top of the above and with a well thought out SEO and social strategy you will be in a good position to adapt and benefit from a change in Google’s algorithm which reduces the overall value of links.