How to Manage Bad Links and Boost Your Online Reputation

One of the most important aspects of search engine optimization is the quality of links pointing to your site. Herein lies a problem for webmasters. Anyone can link to your site, even low-quality sites or people with bad things to say about. Does Google take this into account when assigning your PageRank, even though you have no apparent control over it?

To some degree, you actually do have control over it. Here are 3 ways to manage your online reputation and avoid getting tangled up in bad links:

• Write good content. We really can't say this enough. This doesn't just mean writing interesting blog posts for your website, though. It means optimizing it correctly for search, syndicating to social media sites, and updating on a consistent basis. Good content will naturally collect good links for your site.
• Avoid paid links. We aren't talking about Google AdWords or any other PPC here. Those are legitimate avenues to bring targeted traffic to your site. We are talking about any unnatural, "spammy" links from or to your site. Don't ever buy links from a content farm or sell links to others. Google is smarter than you think. A few bucks for a link is not worth the rankings it could cost you in the future. Also, only link to sites you trust. Google is always paying attention!
• Quality over quantity. It is much harder to write one quality article than it is to bang out three crummy ones. You are much better off with less content if it's really good content. If you are in a competitive market and can't keep up, it could be time to hire a writer for your site. Content is king, right? Maybe we should say "great content is king."

Managing your online reputation is not as complicated as you might think. Just like your mom told you as a child: don't talk to strangers. If you don't feel right about a link or a piece of content, forget about it! Google is always checking to see if the sites that link to you are legitimate, and they are adamant about keeping their search results clean.

For more information about link building, SEO, and content writing, give us a call at 888-886-0939 or check out Tom Foster's free book The 5 Biggest Mistakes 99% Of Lawyers Make with Their Websites.