SEO is like the butter to blogging as both goes hand in hand. The concept of SEO is so vast no one can claim to know it all. But having a good knowledge of SEO can put you on the top spot of the search engine and the only way is having knowledge of the latest SEO changes. What may seem important last year may not have any effect any more this year, so keeping tabs on the latest SEO trends is very important if you are to peak ahead of your competitors.
Now you may be wondering, “What has changed in SEO this 2013”? That’s what this article is trying to explain. SEO is on steady changes as Google themselves agreed to have at least 500 – 600 updates every year and every update is an SEO move. Though most of them are minor updates, but having the slightest idea still matters in this competitive business – Blogging!
In 2013, SEO is still divided into two – On Page SEO and Off page SEO, while the On Page SEO has to do with everything you do from choosing a keyword to publishing an article, the Off Page SEO handles other activities outside your site that could help improve your site’s ranking in search engines.
How SEO Has Changed This 2013
Author Rank:
The year 2012 saw a major SEO shift and this year 2013 is going to consolidate on the changes. 2013 is going to see “Author Rank” assume a major role in how posts will rank in search engines. Google will assign an Author Rank to every author based on parameters like niche authority and domain expertise. Authors with higher rank will see their posts rank higher in search engines and Google is bringing in the Google+ profile into SEO, so you have to claim your Google authorship now and also improve your social media activities especially on Google+. Here is a post I wrote on how you can claim your Google authorship and its benefits.
Google Disavow Tool:
Another SEO move in 2013 is the Link Disavow tool. In previous years we only believed backlinks are all that matters and now Google has redefined that to say quality and varieties of the backlinks are all that matters and not the number of backlinks. Bloggers and webmasters started cheating about backlinks until Google said “enough is enough” and slammed penalties on links they considered as spam and irrelevant. The Google Penguin update was born and algorithmic penalties were dished to defaulters and this was a major SEO move in precious years, but Google has tampered justice with mercy by rolling out the disavow tool so you can clean up the links and maybe get your site back to life. Take advantage of this tool if you were affected.
Must Read: Local SEO – Best for Small Businesses To Get Success
Social Media:
Social media will have more effect this year than it has ever had in previous years. The growth of the Social media networks will have heavy influence in SEO in 2013 and beyond, so if you are not participating in the social media networks, you better get out there now and join as much as you can, use it to share contents and socialize with your visitors. I am already using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn and the almighty Google+. Just as we know that news are spread via the social network so do Google also know that like minds share interesting contents and if you can generate traffic from such sharing, then your content must have been relevant to your visitors.
Link Building:
Any link building practice that involves mass or viral article submissions or any automated link postings to effect high ranking in search engine that ever worked in the past will NEVER work in 2013 as Google and other search engines have seriously clamped on this in 2012 and will continue to do so in 2013 so as to keep the search results relevant and honest. So I will recommend you desist from any search engine optimization practice that involves any automated method, be it link building or link submissions it will only drag you down with it. Manual link building is the only acceptable means of building backlinks, let your content be relevant and rich enough to attract you natural backlinks.
Must Read: On-Page SEO vs Off-Page SEO: Which is more important?
Conclusion:
This year may not see any major SEO move as Google itself has announced the release of the last Penguin update called Penguin 3 on October 2012. Except Google and other search engines implement a major Penguin update for 2013, there may not be any major SEO move. Quality content still remains the major ranking factor for search engines. To remain at the top of the search engines, you need to publish quality and interesting contents shared and discussed by users on the Social media networks.
In 2013, SEO rules no longer involve building mass low quality backlinks and content, it is about building quality. SEO is no longer about ways to trick search engines into ranking your pages high, it’s about quality content creation and marketing strategies that delivers valuable information consistently to your readers.
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Hi there , this is surely an awesome post I really enjoyed reading it and I learnt lots of thing that I didn’t know before thanks for sharing and god bless :D
Shared your post :)
Yes. As algorithm got smarter the SEO turned more towards the genuine content. All those tricks are decaying. Now the great content, authority and social influence is going to be major ranking factors. I’m still confuse if Google counts Facebook, Twitter influences or just the Google+. Sometimes, it appears as if Google is trying to push its products more.
Thanks Nwosu for this nice post.
Thanks Anis for your comment, i hope you learnt enough to remain on top of the search engine results.
Nice article,Still i don’t use Google Authorship…..Is their anyway to know what Google thinks about a specific Author?
From the much we have seen Google do especially towards promoting its social media (they just rolled out a Google+ comment for bloggers, wont be surprised to see a WordPress version soon), one will begin to understand that Google will do anything possible to make Google+ survive even if it means giving it more value. They have talked of author rank and this is also based on Google+, so my brother if you are not involved with Google+ now, get busy.
Nice post bro,
I really love the read that much bro. SEO is getting extinct and webmasters following the trend will only get hit again and again and again. The best way to get organic traffic is high quality article like this post. Thanks for the lovely article and do have a wonderful day…
Yes there are ways to know what Google thinks of an author and its called Author Rank. You better claim your Google authorship now.
Thanks Babanature for your compliments, its wonderful to get compliments from a blogger like you. Just like i said in the article, the best SEO strategy is quality content.
Hi Nwosu,
Google keep updating its algorithm in order to provide good results as from social signals,author rank and so on until they find right solution for users really awesome post thanks for sharing it
Thanks Shameem for your comment
Great to see an updated post on SEO. I love Google Disavow Tool but sometimes I feel very difficult to update links on that tools. can I suggest me an easy way to use it. Or it would be good if you write a tutorial on Google Disavow Tool. ;)
Thanks for sharing such a wonderful article on SEO. by the way I love SEO. hehehe
Thanks,
Amrik!
Very excellent and needful post for the bloggers.
Learned a lot of new stuffs here and will act according to it.
Yeah, am concentrating on Social networks and quality link building for better seo of my blog.
Thanks Amrik, i promise to write a detailed post on the Google Disavow tool in a few days to come, always check back for such publication.
Am glad you liked it @Nirmala, SEO is always changing and so we much keep tabs on it to know what changed. Thanks for your comment.
Great Post Nwosu,
it is true that search engine algos are changing quite frequently but to be sincere, I dont like most of these changea.
I like the Google Link Disavow tool, its really handy and I still believe link building works if you can back it up with quality content and act smart.
You cant be smarter than Google for long…you just have to follow the rules.
Hello,
Excellent post! you’ve covered all the major changes of seo in 2013, i think all the changes are pointed to one thing i.e is google updates. Since google has major several changes to protect or provide quality to its readers.
thanks for the tips.
Thanks Sarvesh Darak for your contribution.
Hey Nwosu, I’m a new blogger and totally new in this field. I didn’t know about the on page and off page SEO and I am surprised that you describe it in sort and very simple way. I’m sick to death of reading blogs with low quality content and this is a kind of stuff we all need. You hit the nail on my head and its working. Thanks
Thanks Noyal Dasot, i am glad you liked my style of writing and i hope you can learn from my SEO tips and improve as a blogger. I will be glad to answer any questions you may have about blogging. You can always contact me privately via the contact us page if you need any tips/help.
Desmond, this is a detailed article, i love the social media idea
Thanks Donatus for your comment and yes i agree with you about the SEO changes.
Yeah, I agree with you here. SEO has changed a lot in 2013. Google has changed the algorithm. Spammy posts or low quality backlinks are major no no.
Thanks for your contribution Rahul.
Seo has changed a lot but the basic are still the same.
Thanks for your comment….
First i would like to give you thanks for sharing this informative words. Building quality content is like SEO now a days in era of Panda and Penguins. Useful tips you have shared for us.
Thanks Noyal Dasot for your compliment/comment.
Great article with good description. Thanks a lot for writing this post.
Thanks for your compliment…
Such a great and very useful article. Thank you for sharing this to us.