The black-hat strategies such as spammy content, hidden links, paid link systems and link farms are usually noticed bothering link building. But, after the origination of Penguin algorithm updates in the year 2012 by Google to hit those strategies, the dart transformed its target towards white hat methodologies and best quality content.
But, this doesn’t make the topic of link building end for now. Some of the SEO people are on the side of policy violation and proactive link building types, believing them the most legitimate piece and the valuable part, which belongs to SEO strategy. Simultaneously, on the contrary, some are upset with the same. So, who is right?
Argument On The Quality Content
During SEO Fight Club at SMX Munich, Ryte Marcus Tandler’s Managing Director revealed his general yet controversial behavior through a tweet said, “Of course, taken out of context, this one quote from my 66-slide presentation might be quite misleading maybe even dangerous advice,”.
He too added, “The old SEO advice to write content for users rather than for search engines also applies to link building. Don’t build links because it might yield a certain ‘SEO value,’ build links that drive targeted traffic to your site.”
On the way towards his session, Tandler through the link building approaches felt the spam generated along with the post-PageRank initiation of “arbitrary metrics” which leads to the blur separation between what serves the best and what not.
In an attempt to influence SMX Munish attendees, from the prominent figures of SEO named, Jono Alderson, Matt Cutts, and John Mueller, Tandler entreated the quotes and definitions to save his position that by definition, not organically bestowed, any link comes with an intent to violate guidelines of Google webmaster.
Additionally, to pull out the comparing attitude of developing the best quality links, he too mentioned the growth of the other techniques, like internal building.
Tandler too recommended, “If your team has limited resources (or maybe you are the whole SEO team), I would advise investing time in creating really great content, rather than in link building,”.
And also advised giving the time in offering a better user experience and to be addictive about meeting the user intent. In his words, the target should be to offer the best outcome genuinely. Also, we should strive to be an expert in our respective field. He urged to stop the link building and set to earn from them.
Argument On The Organic Visibility
In the niche with high-competition, to distinguish the content, many supporters belonging to the practice area require to build the links.
The owner of Link Fish Media, Julie Joyce said, “The problem with a lot of content is that no one sees it. If you don’t socialize it or directly reach out, you’re missing out on a lot of great linking opportunities,”.
She too added, “Recently, I secured a great link for a client after I reached out to a blogger in the same niche and pointed out some content that I thought would fit in nicely with a piece he already had, and he thanked me. When someone says, ‘Hey, thanks for sending that!’ you really realize how easy it is for people to miss out.”
President of Alliance-Link, Debra Mastaler shows her unbiased thought towards targeting on the content with narrow vision. She said that the quality content can be employed as a ‘hook’ or we can say a tool that may magnetize the attention and the links, but this is not the much.
She too stated, “Your quality content won’t generate the desired outcome unless it’s promoted with a combination of tactics to influence behavior. This is where a lot of link building campaigns fail, time is spent creating content but little thought is given to where you should promote and to whom.”
Both Mastaler and Joyce admitted that the link building is a technique plus an investment.
It’s Not About Black And White
Tandler stopped being shy of condemning totally the link building.
He also told, “There are a lot of very talented link builders that can build links which appear perfectly natural. There are also a lot of very creative agencies which create superb link magnets,” he said.
He too appended, “But, apart from companies that understand the value of great SEO and invest large amounts of money into it, there are hundreds of thousands of businesses, from one-man-shows, local store, and restaurant owners to the big corps, who are chasing a low-budget SEO approach.”
On the contrary, let’s read out the words of Joyce also, “Sites can rank without great links, but generally speaking you aren’t going to find sites consistently ranking in the top 10, or even top 20, results.”
Being the marketers, we work to reach particular KPIs on the limited resources or attain brand awareness. The most productive placement of those resources is believed to be at the center of this past and long conversation that gets revived occasionally by correlative studies, algorithm updates, and also the tweets by stardom SEOs.
The comparative modest purpose of the link is dominated by the discussion itself when this actually happens, not to tell the search rankings, but to offer the users with the resources and context they are seeking.
Tandler also said, “If a link to my site brings in targeted traffic, ideally with long dwell time and multiple page impressions per visit, I consider it to be a good link,”.
Mastaler words also stated, “As I’m fond of saying, ‘links help get you ranked but clicks show you deserve to be there,’”.
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