Removing Link Building From The SEO Equation

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

Eric Ward on Search Engine Land has written what is probably one of the best posts on link building and search engine optimization that I have read in recent times. His philosophy is to remove link building from the SEO equation, particularly when it comes to content creation. To quote from the post:

Link building is one part marketing, two parts public relations, and three parts common sense. If you have passionately inspired content that is of the caliber that it can earn and/or pursue links from sites that search engines happen to feel are trustworthy, then yes, there is an SEO component to link building that can be nurtured and maximized. But don’t put the cart before the horse. Creating content only for the potential links the content can inspire purely for SEO/rank is a sucker’s bet.

Think about that statement then re-read it! Creating content simply to encourage links can be challenging. You may often read about ‘link bait’ posts, posts written specifically to gain links and aid search engine rankings. These can work at times, other times they totally bomb. If you take the approach of writing content because it is what your readers want, it will naturally draw links. Why? Because it is good!

Your content is a representation of your business. It is a representation of you. Content written for search engine optimization purposes can often read and sound artificial and wind up not drawing the links you were hoping for. Remove SEO from the equation and consider your content as marketing instead.

Write your content to draw in more readers. The more readers you acquire, and more importantly, the more visitors who return regularly, the better the chances of gaining links. The common sense component stands out. Write for your visitors, they will return, they will link. From an SEO perspective, you are gaining links without trying; with those links come an improved search ranking and more traffic from the search engines.

Take the reverse of that scenario. Write content purely for search engine optimization benefit; few appreciates it; fewer people link; you gain little or no benefit.