In a recent interview done for an article by Eric Enge at Stone Temple Consulting, Matt Cutts, the lead Web Spam engineer for Google, tells the industry that “link building is not illegal.”
However, in the same interview Matt goes on to state that there is a link building tactic that Google now considers web spam.
Links from press releases that are really written just to build links are no longer valued by Google. However if links that are generated by a news resource reading the press release and then contacting the business to write an article which then linking back to the businesses website would be a great way to build links. So press releases are not dead persay, just now more what they were intended to be; a way to let the press know of something newsworthy. Not a link building strategy unto itself as SEO’s have previously used them as.
Matt and Eric agree that one of the best Google-approved ways to build links is by having great sharable content that is followed, talked about, and cited on social media sites like Google+, Twitter, and Facebook. But, they both agree that just vomiting out links to your content on social media is not what they intend; rather audience engagement that is built around content which is then shared throughout followers networks.
If you are looking for a new content strategy for your blog and social media, we invite you to visit our website to find out more about how we can help you.