As Google continues the trend to favour off page factors more than they previously have, link building strategieshave needed to become far more competitive and focussed. 2009 saw a great deal of change in link building and 2010 looks set to involve even more dramatic changes in the way we create our links and where we focus our efforts.

Off Page Factors involve less consideration of the content and quality of a webpage and focus more on the popularity of the page. Pagerank, built by combining the rank of pages that link into our target page, has its flaws in determining the actual popularity of the, page, in that one link from an authoritative site such as the BBC will outweigh a whole bundle of links from private sites. Now it is looking like part of the quality score for a page may come from its actual traffic. This could tip the balance back in favour of less authoritative pages and allow new content from new sites to gain rank, and move up the SERPs faster than before, and it will be these up and coming sites that will be the perfect partners for your linking strategy.

Google has always tried to find ways to place organic listings higher than those whose authority is based on paid links. While linking schemes are not going to vanish overnight the search engine’s tactics may start to make it more effective to concentrate on networking and receiving genuinely granted links from well respected web masters and content sources. Deepening these relationships and receiving links out of a genuine respect for the content could become a much safer tactic than paying for links if Google find a solid way to ascertain, and reduce the importance of, paid links to your client’s sites.

SEO Junkies are obsessed with increasing your position in the Search Engine Results pages. We can put together a well crafted SEO strategy for your site and train your staff in the art of keeping your ranking high with our SEO Training Days.