Links Aren’t As Important As You Thought

Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Sunday, June 28, 2009 Comments (11)

I read this interview by Ruud Hein of legendary SEO and Internet marketer Fantomaster, aka Reg Tegtmeier. I was struck by the simplicity and honesty of the answer to the first question asked by Ruud.

What was the question? Listen:

You’ve said “links simply aren’t everything if you want to achieve rankings” yet the majority of SEO these days is built on links, links, links. If links aren’t everything, what are those link-focussed people missing?

Of course, we all know how important links are, right? But Fantomaster blows that myth right out of the water. Here he is in his own words:

For one, the good old classic SEO rules still apply and have actually never stopped doing so – build web sites with good, useful information or content; make your pages light and fast to load; use keywords in your title tags and text headers; use meta tags: sparingly perhaps, but intelligently as well; attend to usability as much for your human visitors as for the search engine spiders hitting your site, i.e. don’t make things difficult to discern for either of them; make sure you optimize your on site navigation and linking structure.

Should we agree?

Actually, I do agree. On-page ranking factors are far more important than links. But Fantomaster never says links are not important. He does recognize their importance, and so do we, but he says they are overhyped. That much is true. Too many SEOs place too much important on links. You are much better off focusing on your on-page ranking factors and getting those right. Then … then, you should start your link building as a support effort.

It is still possible to achieve page 1 rankings, and even No. 1 rankings in Google, simply with on-page search engine optimization. But it has to be good SEO. You can’t moderately and with mediocrity perform SEO on your web pages then build links and expect to retain long-term rankings. But if you do great on-page SEO then build solid links to those pages, you can do very well over time.

Comments (11) Category: Content Development

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11 Comments

Comment by Mikey

Made Monday, 29 of June , 2009 at 4:15 pm

Absolutely agree. Search Engine Optimization is an integral part of your strategy prior to starting a marketing campaign including links and backlinks.

Comment by Nick Stamoulis

Made Monday, 29 of June , 2009 at 4:28 pm

@Mikey – Thanks for reading and your comment!

Comment by Christopher P West

Made Monday, 29 of June , 2009 at 10:27 pm

Onsite optimisation is always important, but I have a counter question to pose – what is better for link building: directory submissions or Articles…

Comment by Jason - SEO Derby - Brooks

Made Tuesday, 30 of June , 2009 at 1:36 am

Very out of the box and totally against the current mindset. I do strong onsite SEO but find that it takes the links the to get the major push. Can’t have one without the other in this competitive landscape – even for secondary keywords these days!

Comment by Nick Stamoulis

Made Tuesday, 30 of June , 2009 at 8:15 am

@Christopher P West – Thanks for your question, here is a an entire post to answer your question…hope it helps! )
http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com/2009/06/30/building-links-2/

@Jason – SEO Derby – Brooks – I agree with you 100%, you need both aspects as part of your total long term SEO effort, please refer to the last sentence in the post:
“But if you do great on-page SEO then build solid links to those pages, you can do very well over time.”

Thanks for reading!

Comment by Shadab Malik

Made Wednesday, 1 of July , 2009 at 8:13 am

Well this all very logical. However, there is just too much theory on Links now. I can quote SEO giants and gurus offering advise of concentrating just on links for better rankings especially when its a new website. However, what I have been noticing is that SEO has become more of a domain age factor keeping every other aspect normally equal.

Comment by Nick Stamoulis

Made Wednesday, 1 of July , 2009 at 9:47 am

@Shadab Malik – Very good point, domain age is very important since this impacts the trust factor in the eyes of the search engines…

Comment by Stacey Morgan Smith

Made Thursday, 2 of July , 2009 at 8:22 am

It’s crazy to pursue quality links anyway if your site has poor content, duplicate page titles, and slow loadtime.

A pleasant side effect of onpage SEO is that a site then builds links naturally.

Comment by Nick Stamoulis

Made Thursday, 2 of July , 2009 at 9:01 am

@Stacey Morgan Smith – Great point, building links naturally is the name of the game!

Comment by Dustin Radin

Made Friday, 3 of July , 2009 at 1:15 am

Interesting discussion…it reminds me that search engines don’t want one factor that can be consistently duplicated to gain high organic rankings. Whenever such a factor is discovered it gets abused (i.e.- meta tags, keyword stuffing, links, no follow) and Google quickly intercedes to stop the manipulation. Its a whole combination of factors.

Comment by Nick Stamoulis

Made Friday, 3 of July , 2009 at 7:37 am

@Dustin Radin – Very true, I think it will always remain a combination of factors…