Part 2 – Getting Google to Like You
I mentioned last week that Google, much like a sophisticated lady, is a classy entity that does not favor just everyone. It is a respectable index that has, since the beginning, relied on its own set of rules in order to keep its reputation as the most popular search engine. If you play by the rules and stay patient, Google will notice.
We touched on the “Know” part of the “Know, Like, Trust” business model last week. We talked about SEO Keywords, Outbound Linking, and Readability. All three of these things play a part in letting Google know that your website is being taken seriously. Believe it or not, while it takes a lot of effort, that was the easy part.
Writing and editing your website does take effort, but there are tools, widgets and instructions that help. If you misspelled something, don’t have the right amount of words, or need to change your keywords, you can go in and edit it yourself. The “Know” part is the outcome of your actions. You aren’t paying for the consequences of anyone else’s actions or inaction.
However, the “Like” part of the Google equation is contingent on the actions of other people, and that is what makes it so hard. You have to convince other people, on the internet, to vouch for you.
Like
There is a universal truth when it comes to social interactions that most people learn about when they go through kindergarten or first grade. The harsh reality when it comes to social situations is that no one has to like you. There are going to be things that people are willing to do for you because they like you and there are going to be things that people won’t bother with because they don’t care about your needs. Add the anonymity of Internet users and you can see why getting people to vouch for your website can seem daunting. But, you still need those users to vouch for you. How do you do it? What can you ask of them, and how can it be accomplished? Well, according to Google you need Inbound Links from other reputable websites to vouch for yours.
What are Inbound Links?
Inbound links are when other websites link to your content on their website. When other websites link to yours, it increases credibility to your site and boosts your reputation when the search engines start to rank you 
against your competition. While the concept and the actions behind inbound linking seem easy enough, you still need to get people to care about your content enough to go through the effort. There are multiple ways to try and convince other users to show off your website for you, but Google still has a list of rules that you must abide by to get each one of them to count.
Don’t Cheat
If you wanted to date a girl or boy that you think you might like, but you do questionable things beforehand (stalking comes to mind), there is still a possibility of you reaching your end goal. However, that comes with a huge risk of this person finding out what you did. If they did, they’d call you a creep, dump you on the spot, and tell all of their friends.
Google operates the exact same way.
According to Google, there is a right way and a wrong way to get backlinks. If you try to break the rules of conduct, you will get penalized for it. Some of these are considered “common sense rules of the internet” but others are a little more surprising. A few examples of ‘cheating’ with backlinks include:
- Paying for Backlinks
- Auto Generated Links
- Hiding Links in CSS or JavaScript
- Low-Quality Guest Posts
- Comment Spam
If you want to read more about link penalties and what to avoid, check out here and here. They go into deeper detail about the subject matter.
Ways to get Inbound Links
The right way to gain inbound links takes much more time and effort but significantly decreases the chances of being penalized by Google. This can help you build further trust between Google and your site. These include but are not limited to:
- Create Consistent Content
- Encourage others to Share your content on Social Media
- Speak at Events IRL
- Offer Sneak Peaks or Free Samples of your Content
- Review Something Everyone is Talking About
Check out these sources here, and there. They go into further detail and offer a variety of ways to get other people to share your content!