Everyone knows that Google loves those websites that have a lot of social interactions about them. So, when someone posts a blog and there are many comments in the blog or when someone’s update on Facebook is shared far and wide or when someone’s tweets are retweeted by many it is taken as Google that that content is quality content and the website that gets the backlinks gets a nice PageRank score. But don’t you think it’s rather easy to manipulate and abuse these social media strategies? Even Google think so and this is why it came up with the Google Penguin update.

Google, on April 24 2012 launched the Google Penguin update that focuses on offering quality and relevance to its users. Plainly speaking, when someone searches for something in Google they should see those websites in Google SERPs that offer that something. Websites that abuse link building and basically indulge in link bombing and other black hat SEO techniques get flushed out by the Penguin update.

The Google Penguin update is important because it only values those websites that offer genuine quality. If you think for a moment about your search habits wouldn’t you always want the best resource when you search for something? There can be many debates about the pros and cons of the Penguin update but the fact remains that it has cleaned up the WWW quite a bit.

Those websites that abuse social media can easily get caught by Google. After all Google knows how many genuine backlinks social media marketing can generate. When someone’s blog is talked about online but backlinks are not generated for each mention it is considered to be normal. For someone to use unethical SEO to try and ensure that people read their posts and link back to their website is stupidity. This is simply because one hit from the Google Penguin update and a website could be ruined forever.

There are simple steps one can take to ensure that proper social media marketing is done keeping the Google Webmaster Guidelines in mind.

•             For blogs and articles the keyword density should be kept in the region of 2% to 3% maximum.

•             Social media buttons should be used when publishing content.

•             Content quality should be top notch and it should be fresh and updated.

•             Author rank is something to always think about and being focused on.

•             Links should always be analyzed on a continuous basis and any unnatural links or links from weak sites should be removed.

•             Anchor text in links should never match the exact keywords. Link diversity is important from Google’s perspective.

One shouldn’t shy away from using social media because of this update. In fact, those websites that use the social media intelligently will reap more benefits. Those that say that this update is rubbish are probably trying to hide something.

There are many SEO companies like Gamit that only perform ethical SEO. With their experience they can always ensure that social media marketing is done keeping the Google Penguin update in perspective.