Tuesday, December 23, 2003
If You Build It, Links Will Come: Why Content is Still King!
"Content is not king and does not help your ranking."
I read this quote in an article on how to get top rankings at Google. The author's premise was "why bother to write good content, when you can go the "miserable failure" route (see two blogs below) and just ask a ton of people to link to your site, using a desirable keyword phrase?"
I disagree strongly for one key reason: the tiresome link-exchange approach doesn't do anything to make your site better in the long term.
People are at search engines, looking for information. In my experience, links will happen when you provide good content. For example, when you have an interesting article at your site, people will link to it. If you market your site honestly through a press release and get articles written about you or your business, the links will come naturally.
And all without spamming people and begging them to link to you, when you've done little more than put up a 10 or 12 page site.
Artificially "stuffing the Page Rank ballot box" by begging people to link to you is not a sound strategy. It's exactly why Google changed its magic formula: to get link-exchangers to stop artificially inflating their importance and to start adding real value to their sites by adding content.
And that's why content is still king. Keep in mind: search engine marketing is a long term strategy, not a quick fix. People may come for the short term with a lot of hyper-inflated links, but without good content, they won't stay, they won't come back, and they won't tell their friends.
And they sure as heck won't buy anything!
Instead, try this link strategy: add value to your site by adding content that people feel inspired to link to. If you build a content-rich site, the links will come. ¶ 12/23/2003 10:32:00 AM
"Content is not king and does not help your ranking."
I read this quote in an article on how to get top rankings at Google. The author's premise was "why bother to write good content, when you can go the "miserable failure" route (see two blogs below) and just ask a ton of people to link to your site, using a desirable keyword phrase?"
I disagree strongly for one key reason: the tiresome link-exchange approach doesn't do anything to make your site better in the long term.
People are at search engines, looking for information. In my experience, links will happen when you provide good content. For example, when you have an interesting article at your site, people will link to it. If you market your site honestly through a press release and get articles written about you or your business, the links will come naturally.
And all without spamming people and begging them to link to you, when you've done little more than put up a 10 or 12 page site.
Artificially "stuffing the Page Rank ballot box" by begging people to link to you is not a sound strategy. It's exactly why Google changed its magic formula: to get link-exchangers to stop artificially inflating their importance and to start adding real value to their sites by adding content.
And that's why content is still king. Keep in mind: search engine marketing is a long term strategy, not a quick fix. People may come for the short term with a lot of hyper-inflated links, but without good content, they won't stay, they won't come back, and they won't tell their friends.
And they sure as heck won't buy anything!
Instead, try this link strategy: add value to your site by adding content that people feel inspired to link to. If you build a content-rich site, the links will come. ¶ 12/23/2003 10:32:00 AM
