Link Building has been Dead After Hummingbird?

There is no doubt that Panda squashed poor quality content and Penguin squashed low-quality links. Now, Hummingbird is expected to eat link-building. Hummingbird is not just another algorithm update, it is more of re-tooling that is done behind-the-scene to make Google smarter and faster. Wondering what exactly is hummingbird and how it will affect your blog? Read below.

What is Hummingbird?

Hummingbird is the new engine that is built on existing and new parts, organized in a way to serve the newer search demands rather than one created few years back, with the old technologies.

Hummingbird is a big step by Google to deliver the best and fastest results to users. The ultimate goal of this update is to understand the real meaning of the words in search queries and accordingly deliver results.

Hummingbird and Link Building

It is speculated that Hummingbird will kill link building, but the fact is that it will only refine it. While Hummingbird might have limited direct effects influencing link building, but indirectly it will change a lot that we’ve gotten used to with SEO. Earlier, SEOs tricked Google to believe that their website is helpful and authoritative than their competitors. But tricking Google is no more possible. With this update, link building with poor content is sure to fail. Google will now keep a track of high-bounce rates, lack of social sharing in addition to other quality signals.

One effective link building formula is to develop interesting content, know the niche influencer, contribute to communities and share valuable content. You must adopt a new link building strategy for gaining effective page ranking with Hummingbird. Here are some of the link-building tips to keep in mind:

1. Build Rich Content: Content on your web page has to be rich to make it more relevant in the searches. Google algorithms have been tending to move away from just informative searches to more graph based searches. Design quality will also have an impact on the page rank like before.
2. Build more social sharing options: Google takes into account the number of searches in social space to find the quality score of the web page. Thus, it is very important for the page to have the capability of social share. It is important to know who the influencers are in the area which your web page caters to in order to make it more viable socially. Google+ is sure to gain popularity after Hummingbird as social sharing will be significant for link building and SEO.
3. Make the link building process organic: Rather than going for an aggressive campaign for link building it is important to make the link building process natural. It is very important to contribute about the page on different communities, on forums and on Web 2.0 so that the link building automatically gains momentum.

Hummingbird and Long Tail Keywords

“Long tail” refers to the use of broad search items used by a broader set of people. Hummingbird is going to make the long tail keywords search more effective and produce better search results for long term keywords in a much lesser time. For example a search for “Best pizzas in Rome, Italy” will be queried something like this [How can I find the best pizzas in Rome, Italy?] = [best] + [pizzas] + [Rome, Italy].

This is only one example but it’s indicative of howHummingbird will make the long tail queries more understandable and rephrase them while searching to make it more funneled and closer to the best results.  Therefore it is very important for business owners to learn and master SEO Skills for Entrepreneurs, so that right keywords can be used.

Link building is still critical but treating it as a strategy can prove to be dangerous. Integrate link building into the overarching content marketing and marketing is the sure-shot way to open new opportunities.

Post By Mumtaz Ali

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