How Randomizing SEO can Help You Succeed

The following is a guest post from one of our readers

I’ve been doing search engine optimization for many years, but it seems that Google has become increasingly intelligent about detecting link building. The panda update of 2011 and the penguin of 2012 are reminders about how much Google has evolved (or devolved depending on your viewpoint). They have certainly made mistakes and SEO is seemingly more complicated than it has ever been. Nonetheless, SEO is about innovation and being one step ahead. One method that has helped me to stay a step ahead of Google is to just be disorganized. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but bear with me for a second.

Randomness Leads to Success

Many of the Google algorithms are able to detect “unnatural link building” because they see patterns. Patterns for keyword anchor text, patterns of link building to the homepage only, etc. etc. The best way to beat this is to simply be random. Have random anchor texts that include everything within your niche (longtails), naked URL links, and even “click here” and “read more”. That being said, you don’t have to be all that organized about it either. Just sprinkle a bunch of each every now and then. Make it random and you will have success.

Successful Inner Pages

Too many people dedicate all of their link building to the homepage. For many sites that is understandable given the monetization model. However, if you can put your monetization in a side panel (an advertisement or contact form) then do it! Then throw links at all the different inner pages and be totally disorganized with your link building.

I built a website that consisted of a homepage and around sixteen to twenty different inner pages. For a span of three months I did link building to specific inner pages in an almost completely random order. I never sent any backlinks to my homepage at all. When penguin hit and all my friends were devastated, I took a look at my website that had somehow boosted in ranking!

Inner pages are powerful, but more importantly they are disorganized and random. If you consider a website such as CNN or Tech Crunch, you will realize that most backlinks are offered for a specific purpose of sharing that article. More often than not, people are sharing the inner page articles rather than the homepage and that is something you should do as well.

Tweet it, Like it, Share it

As described in other articles on Anti-Career, the importance of social media is becoming ever more apparent. However, anyone who does use social media should be as random as possible. Real websites have a totally random social media presence as well. The better articles provoke a larger outcry, go viral, and cause much more commotion. Other articles are barely even noticed in the social media world.

When you create articles you should replicate the same thing. Every other article you can send some social signals to your article, but every once in a while just go all out. If it is random in natural link building then you should do that as well.

The Power of Video

When we talk about link building most people forget about videos, which are some of the most important and frequented types that people use. After all, we all know how popular YouTube is, right? Many websites show that they have tons of backlinks with a great social media presence, but somehow have never had movies made or shared with their link. One way to build links to your site using videos is to create a very simple video in Animoto with some pictures and music that fit your niche. Then distribute the videos to YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, and others so that you get some links in the descriptions.

Most people do not recognize the power of videos, but firsthand experience has taught me how important they are. One SEO client of mine was unable to get to the first spot on his largest keyword. When he hired me to get him to that coveted spot, I immediately threw together some videos about how to consolidate payday loans and then randomly entered his homepage and inner pages to all the different descriptions. After a span of two weeks he had reached that top spot without any other type of link building. The power of video is often overlooked, but you can take advantage!

Disorganization is Key

It is so counterintuitive to think that disorganization can actually help you build better links, but it is the truth. Link building is a totally random process when done naturally so an artificial link building strategy should be built around the same principles. If you want to survive the next Google update you are going to have to include my random principles to everything that you do.