1. BUILD LINKS
POST- PENGUIN
How to
A publication of
interm
edia
te
SEO
FROM THE
EXPERTS
series
By KELVIN NEWMAN, SITEVISIBILITY

2. seo from the experts: how to build links post-penguin2
www.Hubspot.com
Share This Ebook!
Introductory content is for marketers who are new to the subject. This content
typically includes step-by-step instructions on how to get started with this
aspect of inbound marketing and learn its fundamentals. After reading it, you will
be able to execute basic marketing tactics related to the topic.
INTRODUCTORY
IS THIS eBOOK RIGHT FOR ME?
Not quite sure if this ebook is right for you? See the below description to
determine if your level matches the content you are about to read.
Intermediate content is for marketers who are familiar with the subject but have
only basic experience in executing strategies and tactics on the topic. This
content typically covers the fundamentals and moves on to reveal more complex
functions and examples. After reading it, you will feel comfortable leading projects
with this aspect of inbound marketing.
INTERMEDIATE
Advanced content is for marketers who are, or want to be, experts on the
subject. In it, we walk you through advanced features of this aspect of inbound
marketing and help you develop complete mastery of the subject. After reading
it, you will feel ready not only to execute strategies and tactics, but also to teach
others how to be successful.
ADVANCED
THIS RESOURCE

3. seo from the experts: how to build links post-penguin3
www.Hubspot.com
Share This Ebook!
... brings your whole marketing world
together in one, powerful, integrated sys-
tem.
HubSpot’s All-in-One
Marketing Software.
Marketing analytics
Y
Request A Demo
Video Overview
Analyze your web traffic
and see which sources
are generating the most
leads.
N
Blogging
Create blog content
quickly while getting SEO
tips and best practice
pointers as you type.
M
email
Send personalized,
segmented emails based
on any information in your
contact database.
search optimization
s Improve your rank in
search engines by finding
and tracking your most
effective keywords.
U
Lead management
Track leads with a
complete timeline-view of
their interactions with your
company
q
social media
Publish content to your
social accounts, then
nurture leads based on
their social engagement.

4. seo from the experts: how to build links post-penguin4
www.Hubspot.com
Share This Ebook!
SEO from the experts: how
to build links post penguin
Expert Advice By Kelvin Newman
Kelvin Newman is the Director
of Strategy at SiteVisibility. He is
responsible for R&D and maintaining
the SiteVisibility web presence,
including the No.1 ranking Podcast
and Blog. Kelvin also worked for Emap
consumer media working across high
profile magazine titles and websites
including Zoo, Arena and Empire.
Follow me on twitter
@KELVINNEWMAN
Follow me on twitter
@Detectiveddubs
Designed By Desmond Wong
Desmond is currently a creative
designer and inbound marketer at
HubSpot. He has worked with a variety
of start ups, medium, and large sized
companies over the years with a focus
in branding and business development.

5. seo from the experts: how to build links post-penguin5
www.Hubspot.com
Share This Ebook!
There’s no question that the Google Penguin update, which was
created to combat manipulative link building practices, is one of the
biggest shifts in Google’s search algorithm history. Despite this huge
change, there has been a tendency within the search industry to
overstate its impact.
Most of the people who believe they’ve been negatively impacted or
penalised by Penguin haven’t actually been impacted -- they’ve just
been overtaken by more effective competitors.
The make-up of a good link building campaign has changed, but in
most cases the tactics that have been taken off the table haven’t really
delivered value for years. The people carrying out the tactics couldn’t
wean themselves off those approaches. Yes, they kept them busy, but
they weren’t delivering results.
Despite all this, in order to build links that work in a post-penguin world
and deliver value in the future, you need to evolve. If you want to get
traffic from search engines, the only thing you can be certain of is
change.
Introduction

6. seo from the experts: how to build links post-penguin6
www.Hubspot.com
Share This Ebook!
Every single time someone makes a search on Google, a competition
takes place. You compete against your rivals to rank and potentially
get traffic and business. The important thing to remember is that this
competition is with your competitors; not with Google. They’re the
referee, not the opponent.
Everything you do is in the context of your competitors, and this has
been emphasised more in recent Google updates. Your links are
evaluated in the context of your competitors. So, you need to understand
that landscape. You have to know how you compare.
Think of your links as an investment portfolio. Putting all your investment
in Oil wouldn’t be a sensible investment strategy, nor would relying on
one type of link.
Part One: Your Links in Context
Google’s search algorithm will rank links to your webpage based on how they compare in
the context of your competitors.

7. seo from the experts: how to build links post-penguin7
www.Hubspot.com
Share This Ebook!
Penguin exists with one simple purpose, to ask the question: is this an
un-natural link? It’s an algorithm, a piece of software based on rules and
patterns. We could try and replicate those rules and patterns, but the
algorithm is created to understand human behavior, and nobody is better
at that than another human being!
It’s difficult to make hard and fast rules about which links could harm
you/have no impact, but some important things to think about are
Will the link potentially send traffic?
Will the traffic convert?
How similar is your link portfolio to the ‘market’ ?
Does the link look like it exists for SEO reasons?
Can you be proud of that link?
Part Two: What’s an Un-Natural
Link?
That last point is really important and gets to the core of what link
building post-penguin is about, every link you build you need to be proud
of. No more links hidden away in ten tabs deep in an excel spreadsheet
or part of an aggregate number of new links. You

8. seo from the experts: how to build links post-penguin8
www.Hubspot.com
Share This Ebook!
want proper links you can send to your boss or client and say “Look at
this link we built”. These are the kind of links that even people with no-
appreciation of SEO can see will have value.
A well built link is almost self explanitory in the way it uses proper keywords and
how it is laid out. See how the keywords and structure of the links above correspond
with the keywords in the meta description.
How is the trust of your links distributed? How does that differ from your
competitors? Spreadsheets like the one below from Tom Anthony do
a great job of visualising how your links differ from your competitors.
Whose links have outliers? Why do they tend to attract links of certain
levels of trust? What sticks out like a sore thumb?

9. seo from the experts: how to build links post-penguin9
www.Hubspot.com
Share This Ebook!
Each competitor is represented by different color on the line graph. Notice how they each perform a bit
uniquely from one another.

10. seo from the experts: how to build links post-penguin10
www.Hubspot.com
Share This Ebook!
While understanding that you need to be proud of the links you’re
building helps you avoid the links that won’t help, it doesn’t help you
attract inbound links. That requires insight and understanding, in
addition to appreciating a problem that others actually want to link to.
Think about who you want linking back to your content, and create
content that directly helps accomplish that goal. Those problems may be
straightforward ones such as
My website needs more traffic.
I want to produce content that resonates with my audience.
.What perm is best suited for my hair.
Where can I buy girl scout cookies.
I want to know more about marketing.
You can help these visitors solve these problems, usually with content, and the
link will follow. Creating helpful and relevant content for users will enable you
to build effective links.
Part Three: The ‘How’ Part of Link
Building

11. seo from the experts: how to build links post-penguin11
www.Hubspot.com
Share This Ebook!
Sometimes the problem you’re solving can be more
complex. Here’s an example:
Imagine there’s someone at a university careers service who
has a glut of talented graduates interested in engineering but
struggling to find a job. There are a few different ways you could
help them solve that problem. Perhaps you could write an ebook
to help them improve their cover letter, or arrange a face-to-face
mentoring session to guide them into their new career. Perhaps
they need a seminar that reviews the extra work they can do
to make themselves more employable. All these different types
content ideas could help lead to links and long-term value.
Here’s another example:
What if the audience for your website is first time homebuyers
struggling to navigate the jargon, plethora of services, and financial
implications of purchasing their new house? Could you work on an
interactive tool that takes them through a decision tree to navigate
some of the difficult decisions they have to make? You could
produce a checklist of all things they need to get sorted before
they move – especially if you put them in sequence and help them
input the details into their iPhone diary. You may want to help them
escape all the paperwork and help them dream about how they’re
going to turn their house into a home.

12. seo from the experts: how to build links post-penguin12
www.Hubspot.com
Share This Ebook!
Every situation will be different. But if you understand who you’re trying
to attract a link from, what type of topics they’re interested in, and their
different pain points, you can use that information to create content
people are really engaged with. This helps to attract links, social
signals, and everything the search engines love.
Here’s one last example:
Maybe your target audience for linking back to you is a small
business owner who knows they should be doing more to market
their business but doesn’t know where to start. Can you produce
a super-in-depth questionnaire that really helps them understand
which social network they should be targeting? Consider a series
of podcasts that they can listen to while driving to their next
meeting that helps them make more intelligent buying decisions,
or a blog post full of ideas that they can use as inspiration next
time they brief their agency.
Create content that you know your audience will be interested in and searching for.

13. seo from the experts: how to build links post-penguin13
www.Hubspot.com
Share This Ebook!
Now let’s review different content types for link building.
Part Four: Killer Content Types for
Link Building
Surveys, Insights, & Data
Survey results are news-worthy – so long as the results are significant.
Something that’s news worthy will naturally be link worthy. Starting a
survey is simple; it’s getting that survey promoted to the right people and
enough people that’s difficult.
If you already have a mailing list and a potential gift to give away for
those who fill out that survey, you’ll be able to attract a good number of
people in no time at all. If not, it’s still possible to conduct research.
Avoid the temptation for “Eight out of Ten Cats” statistics and try and
conduct respectable research.
When you conduct
relevant and respectable
research on topics that
are interesting to your
audience, your content
will be naturally link
worthy.

14. seo from the experts: how to build links post-penguin14
www.Hubspot.com
Share This Ebook!
Whitepapers & Ebooks
A thought leadership whitepaper can be a perfect example of this link-
building tactic in the B2B market place.
With a little bit of imagination, the whitepaper can also work in B2C
applications, though it’s likely the content will go by a different name. At
SiteVisibility, we’ve done well with consumer facing whitepapers, though
we’ve called them ‘Downloadable Guides’ or ‘Print and Keep Guides.’
Audiences love resources like whitepapers, ebooks, and downloadable guides.
Creating this type of content is a helpful link-building tactic that will attract visitors,
establish though leadership in your industry, and develop your link authority on those
topics.

15. seo from the experts: how to build links post-penguin15
www.Hubspot.com
Share This Ebook!
Podcasts & Video Content
Podcasting and audio isn’t particularly fashionable at the moment, but
it still works. We get around seventeen thousand listeners per show of
the Internet Marketing Podcast. That volume dwarves the readership of
many blogs.
On the other hand, video is very popular and can also attract great links.
If there is anything we’ve learned from the internet, it’s that videos have the potential to
become extremely viral content. Adding podcasts and video to your content library will
allow you attract more effective and shareable links.

16. seo from the experts: how to build links post-penguin16
www.Hubspot.com
Share This Ebook!
Blog & News Content
If you can be the first to cover some breaking news (also referred to as
newsjacking), everyone who subsequently covers the topic will refer
to the originator. If you want to regularly attract high quality links, you
need to do your best to be the originator as often as you possibly can.
If writing swiftly isn’t your style, spend time writing articles that are more
research or thought based, but are unique and the best of its kind.
Utlising a blog as a content creating machine and news source is one of the most effective
ways to build high quality links that rank well and develop link authority.

17. seo from the experts: how to build links post-penguin17
www.Hubspot.com
Share This Ebook!
FAQs & Resource Centre’s
Everyone was a beginner at one point or another. In every sector, there’s
someone starting out who wants to pick up the basics as quickly and
painlessly as possible.
There are always people on the internet looking for quick and simple solutions to their
problems. Providing visitors with a simple webpage with answers and helpful tips to
common questions and issues can put you at the top of their search listings.

18. seo from the experts: how to build links post-penguin18
www.Hubspot.com
Share This Ebook!
Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is a very common tactic being used to build links. This
is where you provide an article or blog post in exchange for a link. It’s
recently come under a lot of scrutiny as a viable link building option, and
Matt Cutt’s did a video with his own advice on how best to implement it.
Here are three quick tips to keep in mind when it comes to guest blogging:
Quality of the site providing the link is key.
Anchor text should not be your primary concern.
Consider to what extent Authorship may help provide a quality
stamp.
Guest blogging can be
a beneficial link building
tactic for both parties
involved. The authors can
beneifit from having links
on authoritative sites with
large volumes of traffic,
and the website can
benefit from having high
quality content to share
with its audience.

19. seo from the experts: how to build links post-penguin19
www.Hubspot.com
Share This Ebook!
Infographics & Interactive Content
Infographics and Data Journalism have become some of the most
wide-spread types of content generated for link building. This has led to
backlash, but in the same way there are good blogs and bad blogs, there
are good infographics and bad ones.
Recently we’ve seen more success with interactive infographics that are
built around sharing data or information.
Visual and interactive content is both highly shareable and lovable. Use this form of content to
help improve your link building efforts.

20. seo from the experts: how to build links post-penguin20
www.Hubspot.com
Share This Ebook!
Now that you know about building links, learn how HubSpot can give
you insight into your SEO. Click here to start a free demo.
GAIN INSIGHT INTO YOUR
SEO STRATEGY WITH
HUBSPOT.
SEE HUBSPOT IN
ACTION TODAY.
http://bitly.com/10HVpW3