Life After Penguin - The Seven Types of SEO

OK, so the dust is starting to settle a little bit about Google's Penguin update.

It looks like one of the key factors going forward is diversity. Diversity of links, diversity of anchor text, diversity of methods. I especially appreciated an article that SupaH and dmtaylor247 pointed out: Penguin analysis: SEO isnt dead, but you need to act smarter (and 5 easy ways to do so)

I recommend using all seven different types of SEO:

1. Off-Site SEO

This consists mostly of off-site links you make or pay for. If you pay for them, then make sure that the outsourcer follows your instructions closely. Some of the places for off-site links include:

• Press releases
• Blog comments
• Guest blogging (HIGHLY recommended, keep everything original and choose on-topic blogs)
• Articles (but NO spinning!)
• Document sharing sites (again, NO spinning!)

Remember what the article pointed out - you need a variety of link anchors, and keep your links on the sites which are on-topic.

2. Viral SEO

This is where you get other folks to link to you. In the old days we called it "link baiting" but the concept is very similar. Viral content can be:

• Funny
• Bold and Brash (opinionated expert)
• Give something away
• Write about something happening now
• Produce reference material (101 ways to ....)

3. Social SEO

Participate in the various social sites and social bookmarking sites, AND make it especially easy for your users to share your content through those sites easily. Biggest sites to consider:

• Facebook
• Google+
• Linkedin
• Pinterest
• Digg
• Slashdot
• StumbleUpon

4. Site-Wide SEO

Do those things that count for your entire site:

• Get a good domain name (not necessarily an exact match domain (EMD), but one with the primary keyword in it)
• If possible, domain should be a couple years old, and should have an expiration point as far as possible in the future
• Use subdomains for loosely related topics, and subdirectories for tightly related feeder topics
• Make your site as fast as possible
• Use sitemap.xml and robots.txt files as well as a sitemap page for humans

5. On-Page SEO

The idea is to be Google-friendly, not trying to "fool" Google. WRITE FOR HUMANS, not Google. Don't write every page as SEO perfect - vary what you do a bit.

• Target a specific keyword for each page. Ideally, these are related to and support the overall keyword for the site
• Put the targeted keyword in the URL and Page Title (but both should sound natural to humans)
• Use a keyword density of about 2%
• Use LSI words in your articles (great source Latent Semantic Indexing)
• Put the keyword in h1, h2, and h3 tags
• Use images (put the keyword in the alt tag with other natural text)
• Use videos

6. Local SEO

This (obviously) doesn't apply to everyone, but is important for a local presence.

• Use your locality (city) in your domain name and URL
• If targeting multiple localities, put up microsites with localized info as feeder sites to your main site
• Use Google Places
• Use local review sites such as epinions
• Consider using Groupon

7. Search Results SEO

Make your search results look attractive. Typically, Google will use the page title as the text for the link, and the Meta Description tag for the description. Keep both short and sweet, and attractive for humans.

Using a variety of methods will multiply your effectiveness and will keep your site statistics looking more normal to Google.