What a few days it’s been in the world of SEO. Firstly, let’s start with the obvious – a massive funding round signed by SEOMoz which was described over at Forbes. Even more astounding is the fact that this is the largest single round that Foundry have ever invested which is something that shows both the strength of SEOMoz as a company, but also the industry as a whole. Think about it: If someone is willing to invest that amount of money in an industry that has, historically, been seen as being a bit dirty and not entirely ethical then things must be looking up!

The reason for this, in part, is the way that Rand and his team go about their business – they’re open, know what they’re doing, and want to do things the right way… which is exactly what the search engines want from the SEO industry. There’s a lot of hyperbole about what you should and shouldn’t be doing as a professional SEO but (for the most part) I’m on the side of the ultra-white-hats.

If we take Panda 3.5 and Penguin as a couple of algorithm examples they’re all about rewarding sites who produce great content and do things the right way. De-indexing blog networks like ‘Build My Rank’ and trying (although not always succeeding) in removing spam from the SERPs is another big step towards cleaning things up. No, this hasn’t been perfect (far from it), but what they’re trying to do is the right thing.

So, how do you keep yourself out of the clutches of a panda and penguin? Simple: Be Better. Distilled recently posted a great innovation guide which shows how they come up with fresh, new ideas while not sitting around thinking all of the time. When you think about it, that’s kind of key to the success of an SEO nowadays. Yes, writing guest posts will get you so far but coming up with great viral content – such as infographics – is a far more clever way of going about things. Create a piece of content, market it, get loads of traffic and links. Kind of.

Finally (and kind of unrelated), for anyone interested in CRO, here’s something to keep you busy on Twitter.