The Penguin update to the Google's search engine algorithm was introduced in April 2012. It was designed to downgrade websites that used artificial link building techniques to boost their position on the search engine result page. I have already covered, on the previous page, what some of these methods were. Information on how small business website owners can start a safe link building program that follows Google's Webmaster guidelines is hard to find online. It seems that good White Hat SEO companies keep this information top secret so they can charge clients a lot of money. To do safe link building properly does take a long time. If you are employing some one to do this work for you it is only correct that you pay them for their skill and time. These costs are normally too much for a small company, a mummy blogger or trades man. Over the next few pages I hope to open your eyes on the different ways you can safely obtain links to your website by doing it yourself. There is no quick method. It is going to be hard and frustrating work but the end result will be worth all the effort.

If you have a great text rich website full of interesting useful informative content, visitors to your website will tell others. They will either recommend your site by adding a link to it on their website or use social media to send links to all their friends and followers. It is one of the easiest ways of attracting links. This is what Google wants to see and is the idea behind why Google use links as a way of finding out which sites are better that others. The Search Engines want people to recommend good quality websites so they can use that data. When your website receives a link like this it is called a natural link.

Because the link spammers placed links on thousands of unrelated websites Google has used this fact as an indicator of artificial link building. It would look un-natural if a washing machine company website had a link to my fly fishing website. Washing machines have nothing to do with fishing. Pardon the pun but if this happened Google would think there was some thing fishy going on. What Google's search engine algorithm has been trained to look out for and reward are relevant links. If your e-commerce fishing website had links from fly fishing lodges in Scotland and Montana they would be classed as relevant links. If your restaurant had links from your food suppliers those links would by okay. If you are a plumber and the local plumbing supply shop had a link to your website that would look like a recommendation. The link would be relevant as both companies are in the same industry.

The above image shows two website pages. The one on the right is my travel tips website that includes a positive review of a hill top hotel called Amaya Hills in Kandy, Sri Lanka. If the hotel placed a link to my review on its website this would be a relevant link. Both pages talk about a hotel in Sri Lanka. The one on the left is trying to get visitors to make a booking and the one on the left is giving advice on the service and quality of the hotel so travellers can make an informed choice. I have a question for you. If you run a shop, hotel or restaurant would it harm your position on Google's search engine result page if your satisfied customers added links on their company websites to your site?

The answer is yes if they just added a link on their link page with no explanation why and their company is not in the same line of business as you. Google's algorithm would find this strange. If the link was on a page that had an article on how good your company was and talked about your company then that would be okay as the algorithm would be able to detect the relevancy.

REMEMBER - Concentrate on link attraction by having fantastic content rather than link building.