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Posted by Hiren Vaghela
December 16, 2013
For all those pertaining to the SEO industry, the term link building has begun to lose its charm. Many online marketers and business owners think alike, as link building is not the same as it was earlier. Before the occurrence of the Panda and Penguin, link building was just that – getting as many links as possible from external websites, which point back to your site. It was quite easy to manipulate with the search engine spiders and the algorithms, in order to rank high regardless of your links and the content on the site, were below par. The whole scenario changed, with Google’s continual algorithm updates meant to recognize and penalize spammy ways of link building. This is why the whole perception of the online marketing industry has changed. SEO’s have eventually understood that link building is slowly and surely losing the lustre, making way for link earning.
Yes, link earning ads up to the credibility and brand reputation of your website. Understanding the value of link earning, let’s now focus on some of the preeminent online and offline link earning techniques, which could be utilized to top in the SERP’s during the rest of the year 2013.
Undoubtedly, getting more external websites linking to your site is a vital SEO factor, but it is more important to focus on the quality of the websites linking to the content. The quantity of the links does matter only if they are qualitative. One quality link has enough powers to outperform a dozen low-quality links.
In order to get backlinks from a high-quality website, it is inevitable to have high-quality content. The following examples will provide a clear understanding as to how you could push yourself up in the SERP’s by earning high-quality links from external websites.
•Content rules: Your target is to be right there on the top pages of search engines. For this, you need to strive to come up with content that deserves the first spot. It should be worthy of learning links from various high authoritative websites. If the content is generic, something that doesn’t offer fresh insight into a selected topic, it won’t create a spark amongst the audience. It may even cause the audience to repel from your website each time they see it in the results. Create something new, offering some valuable insights into your topic and industry.
The engagement ability of the content should be at an all-time high. This helps in identifying your business as an authority niche.
•Guest Posts: Guest post has already gained respect as one of the most sorted after strategies for link earning. If done on the right kind of authoritative websites relevant to your niche industry, it is indeed a link earned. It is vital to ensure that the guest posts are published on authority websites with high rates of social sharing. It ensures that your content reaches the right kind of audience, and most importantly, those who are related and are interested in your company.
•Social Media: You are already involved in social media if you are into the SEO of your website. Social media is increasingly becoming a source of interaction, not only on the personal levels but also for major and small brands. There are all chances that your prospects are utilizing the services of at least one of the prominent social networking sites, namely Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and Google+. They use these places to interact with people and share information with others. They share what they like and what they dislike, mentioning a particular brand and the products and services that they have used. By creating a presence on these platforms for your business, you could control the way people perceive you, the way you release information and content to the web. Your content and the information that you share would help in getting more likes, shares and comments from the viewers, making it a great and enjoyable link earning process.
SEO is not just an online game. There are a number of factors backstage that needs to be done to make the whole SEO campaign a success. These backstage activities are referred to as offline techniques for smart link earning. In order to build the authority of your website, there are a number of ways in which you can earn links offline. I have mentioned the most salient ones, and if you trust me, these offline link earning techniques do work big time if done smartly and effectively.
• Word of the mouth: Believe it or not, this plays a huge role in link earning/building. There are many instances where links have been attained from sources; you wouldn’t even have the least idea about. These links could have been earned as a result of interaction with people outside the web. Based on the impression that they might have created on your products or services, they may link to you under appropriate circumstances.
• Community involvement: With no thought of SEO in their minds, someone from the niche industry community may sponsor several events, just to give something back to the community. These events that get mentioned alongside a company’s name, results in links from the people, competitors or business associates who attended the event. Also, high authoritative news sources would give a real high-quality link to the website.
• Host an event: Hosting an event in your own city is another potential way of earning links through offline smartness. By hosting one and inviting influencers in your niche and media persons, you are earning a lot of valuable links through write-ups or by press coverage. Also if your competitors are impressed, they might give your brand a mention on their feeds.
• Contact Your Alumni Association: They are always eager to boast success stories. So reach out to them and let them know what you’re up to. Give them case studies, which could prove to be a very valuable source of information. Regularly update them about the happenings in your business.
This post doesn’t mean to say that all the link building tactics have gone extinct. There are certainly some wonderful ones that still do exist. But, by and large, the efforts of Google are directed towards renewing the practice of link earning and end the practice of link building. That’s the reason why so many SEO’s, of late, are welcoming content marketing with open arms.
