Almost every SEO I know spent the better part of last week discussing recent changes Google made to its ranking algorithm. This update hit some webmasters hard while others went unscathed, and results still seem to be settling out.

Nothing I’m working on was impacted (knock wood) probably because I tend to use a wide variety of linking tactics over a broad spectrum of sites. I think it makes a lot of sense to diversify my linking efforts,  if any of my partner sites are dinged in an update, I’ll be fine since I have a lot of additional links out there working for me.

This week’s blueprint tactic is known as “utility linking”, it’s a great way to increase your backlinks and help insulate your pages from algo shifts. (Previous article: A Link Building Blueprint: The Foundation.)

The basic premise behind utility linking is simple: using various pre-set phrases plus your keywords, you find sites to add your content to.

Sounds pretty straightforward right? Well, yes and no; some of this is simple URL submission, but some of it involves being a little creative and working beyond straight link submissions.

To illustrate, I’m going to use the phrase “dog grooming” as my keyword and go through several ways you can increase your backlink counts through utility linking. Read more at searchengineland.com