Chapter 7: Link Building Shifts to Link Earning

Links have been a pillar of SEO since the discipline emerged. With the rise of social media and content marketing, it’s easy to imagine a world where links – which are perhaps the easiest factor to manipulate in SEO – are phased out.

But in a recent video, Google’s Matt Cutts puts that thought to rest. Google tried an experiment where they offered search results that based on all the factors of the present search algorithm, except backlinks. The results were, according to Cutts, terrible. Links remain an important indicator of what content is relevant and important. Here’s what you need to know about current link building approaches.

“Link Building” Tactics for 2014

Link building has been significantly impacted by the rollout of Google Penguin. Previously, many SEOs focused on building as many links as possible from different domains. Less attention was paid to the quality of the links, the quality of the sites, diversity of anchor text, and the manner in which those links were created. In fact, entire schemes such as link wheels (creating a ring of sites with the sole purpose of creating networks of links) became common. When Google pushed back, there was significant fall out for many sites.

Techniques that had worked in the past, even though some were acknowledged as being somewhat shady, came under close scrutiny. A long list of approaches fell quickly onto the Link Building Tactics to Avoid list.

6 Link Building Tactics that are Dead in 2014

• Buying links
• Trading links
• Link wheels
• Using blog networks
• Anything that smacked of spam, such as excessive or poor quality blog comments and article marketing
• Links from low-quality or irrelevant sites

From Building Links to Earning Links

There’s been a paradigm shift that occurred as a result, moving from building links through the tactics above (or more ethical approaches) to thinking about earning links. In other words, could you earn links by:

• Creating epic content that was so engaging people naturally linked to it in the course of their editorial and online work;
• Promoting your content so that it gets in front of the right people, who are naturally motivated to share and link to your content;
• Building relationships that give influencers in your space comfort in the fact that your work is high quality and valuable enough to share.

Earning links still requires a strategic approach, but it’s less about creating artificial structures that result in links or treating links like a numbers game. The focus, as with other areas of SEO, is on quality and value. Still, there’s an active place for building: instead of focusing on building links, focus on building your brand. If you’re creating high quality content that you’re placing in priority outlets, links will naturally follow as a byproduct of that work.

How to Assess the Quality of a Link

Google’s Penguin update underscored the importance of the quality of your links. Nothing can damage your site’s credibility and rankings faster than sketchy links. As a result, it’s critical to assess the quality of a potential link if you’re working to cultivate those connections. Here’s a quick guide of questions to ask before actively pursuing a link to your site:

• Is the site topically relevant to my content?
• Is the design and organization clean and professional?
• What’s the quality of the content that it publishes?
• Is the site overrun with advertising?
• Does the site have an active community, as evidenced by comments, social media engagement, and mentions?
• What does their incoming link profile look like?
• Is there a clear editorial hand at work developing and selecting content?
• Would I be comfortable associating my brand with this site?

By shifting your focus away from tactics that build links and instead investing in earning them, you’re creating a foundation that help you attract links from the top authorities in your space. One of the best strategies for doing so is through content marketing; in the next chapter, we’ll take a closer look at what you need to know about content marketing and inbound strategies that work.