June 2012 was the best and worst of times for webmasters. After the Google algorithm updates some websites found they jumped up the rankings, whilst others were handed serious penalties.

The SEOMoz team has been looking at various ways to ethically link build both online and offline. With informative guides and frank opinion this month’s SEOMoz blogs make for great reads.

The Month’s News from SEOMoz

Identifying Link penalties 2012

This month saw webmasters go through good times and bad. After the June Google algorithm updates some websites jumped up the rankings and overtook their previous competitors, whilst others were handed costly and time consuming penalties. So how do you know if you have been penalised and once you know that you have been, how can you deal with and fix it? Ryan Kent goes into detail for you.

The Impact of Authoritative Links, Mentions, and Shares on Rankings

Google loves fresh content and when an article is good enough for people to share on Twitter, Facebook and Google +.

Google has more than 200 signals that affect rankings some of which being:

• Quantity
• Diversity
• Quality
• Relevance

Philip Petrescu, researches the effects that social media and sharing has on Google rankings.

Getting the Maximum Number of Links from Your Infographic

Infographics or information graphics are visual representations of information data or knowledge. They act as the shorthand visual version of what could be complex and long texts.

Design soap has created an in depth guide on how to make the most out of your infographic and ensure the best possible distribution and links.

This comprehensive guide has some great infographics to look at, as well as the technical know-how to successfully use them.

The Complete Guide to Link Building with Local Events

I really enjoyed reading this blog. It looks at link building using local events. Hosting local events is an excellent way to build links both online and offline. This comprehensive guide looks at the advantages of hosting events in the real world to result in a bigger on-line presence and more clicks. Part 4 – Competitive Analysis is a great chapter.

The Guide to Developing a Content Strategy for « Boring » Industries

Creating a content strategy for any market is difficult but Stephanie Chang looks into trying to create just that for ‘boring’ industries. As the SEO world slowly moves away from manual link building and starts thinking of longer term and forward thinking approaches, people are starting to figure out how to set up a framework to create a content strategy for all websites.

How to Write Email to Get a Better Response Rate

“A successful SEO campaign is the perfect combination of all strategies. Whether you’re working with on-page optimization, content development, social media, or link building, all of these factors contain equal value. When it comes to picking the most difficult SEO strategy, I will always give my vote to link building as this part is one of the most difficult, boring, and time consuming strategies you can implement.”

Moosa Hemani,

This blog is focusing on how a link-builder can write effective emails to other webmasters to ask for links. It is a great informative blog on the technique of writing emails to receive a higher response rate.