These days, there are lots of ways a small business website can increase its organic visibility and rankings in the SERPs (search engine results pages). One big deciding factor Google’s algorithm relies on in determining rankings is links.

Links help Google understand what content may be valuable and helpful to its users. And, as long as links are natural and well-deserved, they can be helpful for a website’s organic visibility.

However, just like with keyword optimization, there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about link building for your website. If links are not annotated properly or link building is overdone, it could violate Google’s quality guidelines.

Last week, Google started rolling out its latest update — the link spam update. Just like it sounds, Google’s most recent update is designed to make its algorithm better at identifying and “nullifying” spammy links.

Link tag best practices

To protect your site’s organic visibility with Google’s latest update, it’s critical to ensure that you’re properly annotating your links, particularly when there’s a value exchange between your website and another website.

Specifically, Google’s new algorithm focuses on links from guest content and sponsored content, as well as affiliate links.

Affiliate links

If you have an affiliate program, Google recommends qualifying your affiliate links — both manual and dynamic — with rel=“sponsored.”

Guest post links

If you trade guest posts with a partner or complementary business, Google recommends marking up your links with rel=“nofollow.”

Sponsored post links

If you have links that are paid placements or advertisements, Google recommends marking them with rel=“sponsored.”

Organic visibility is essential for small businesses. So far this year, more than 70% of all desktop search traffic went to Google, with 360 billion searches conducted (IMPACT).

More often than not, when someone is looking for a local business or shopping for a product, their search starts on Google. If your small business doesn’t have a visible presence on Google, you’re missing out on lots of low-cost, high-quality leads.

The algorithm Google uses to determine its search rankings is constantly updated in order to provide its users with the best possible results and experience, which could make an impact on your website’s organic visibility.

If you need help keeping up with the algorithm updates or any other aspect of SEO or content marketing, Marketing 360®’s Content Marketing Specialists are here to help. Learn more and see our plans and pricing.