SEO has taken a turn over the past year. Marketers who resorted to black hat are literally shoved into oblivion. However, some black hats still survive but not for long. Looking back over the past year I reckon the complexities involved in SEO. Marketers would ponder for hours planning strategies. Some would go further to kill their competitors (negative SEO) though that didn’t help them through SERPs. However, the recent Penguin Update has showed the future face of SEO.

Future Face of SEO

It is evident that future SEO will emphasize more on readers. As updates keep on rolling search engines are imitating humans much better. Of course making the search engines to view as humans can never be flawless. There might be some loopholes present in the industry of SEO. However, utilizing these loopholes and attaining temporary success is not SEO. You need to stand firm no matter what sort of update is rolled in.

Be on the Safer Side

It is time you thought about how your site will stand in the future. If you had resorted to some real, dark tactics then clear them up. When Penguin rolled in several sites took a massive hit. In the blogosphere there was may hem. Some SEO specialist said that this would pass. Yes, it’s true that it would pass but on what cost? If you ever get the chance to ask webmasters or marketers how they cleaned the mess, you will notice the regret of opting black hat. Therefore, it is always better to be safe than sorry.

Which is the best practice?

Let me tell you an interesting thing. Some of the big brands and sites never resorted to SEO but were naturally SEO’d. Do you understand what I am trying to say? Although they never used any SEO tactic, it was naturally done. It took years and years of readership building and providing services of fine quality.

I, however, do not ask you to write an enticing post/copy and wait for audiences to pick up. There has to be some sort of link building. Talking about link building; do not consider directories. Links from article directories do not carry the same weight as it did in the past. If you are looking for an effective link building campaign then try guest posting. There is triple benefit from guest posting. You get traffic, link juice and brand exposure.

Anchor texts are vital element of link building. Without them, your backlinks will be naked. An anchor text tells the search engine what the page (which is linked to) is about. The error most people make is that they just stuff in the keyword on which the post was written around. Imagine anchor text as a two/three word description of your page. Find what suits the best and finally the search engines will decide on its own. Soon the page will rank in the SERPs for various terms.

There is a practice in the SEO industry to maintain the keyword percentage to some range. Some are so precise that they will mark a certain percentage. I do not know the intensity of truth involved. Personally, I have never seen a certain percentage of keyword rank better than other has. While writing a post I just ensure that the keyword is present. This practice has showed better results than the one of maintaining certain percentages.

These were just the basic but sufficient to boost SERPs. Yes, the function of SEO is to boost your SERPs. It’s your content and the way in which readership is built that affects the rest. So, next time you resort to SEO think long term. They are not only easy but also safer and undeterred.

Richie Richardson is an SEO consultant and provides small business seo service. He also runs guest posting service helping business in marketing.