We have said it from day 1, and we will continue to say it. Content is King when it comes to your digital marketing strategy. Over the past couple of years, Google has continued to make subtle changes to show that quality and relevant content should rank at the top of your priority list.
Clients often ask us to focus on link building rather than content marketing, and it can be a very dangerous game to play when you do that with your digital marketing. Our recommendation and preferred strategy is natural & organic links that will offer the user a way to view and enjoy the content.
Recently, John Muller, Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst advised SEOs to avoid heavy link building strategies. When asked if link building was “in anyway good?” he replied:
“In general, I’d try to avoid that. So that you are really sure that your content kind of stands on its own and make it possible for other people of course to link to your content. Make it easy, maybe, put a little widget on your page, if you like this, this is how you can link to it. Make sure that the URLs on your web site are easy to copy and paste. All of those things make it a little bit easier. We do use links as part of our algorithm but we use lots and lots of other factors as well. So only focusing on links is probably going to cause more problems for your website that actually helps.”
So, what does this mean for your digital / Internet marketing strategy? Provide quality, organic and evergreen content that is easily shared; but don’t discount link building all together. Do it right. Build high quality links that make sense. If you are a bakery in south Georgia and you are trying to build links to a technology company in Egypt, it doesn’t equate to relevant or quality. Build links that make sense to not only your business, but also your target demographic.
Remember that cute boy / girl that got away in middle school because you tried too hard to be cool? Same thing goes for link building. If you’re natural about who you are, then your link building efforts will prevail. Great content gets shared, and shared content brings in natural links.
“It’s about can you get your idea to spread or not.” – Seth Godin, talking about the invention of sliced bread. Click here to watch Seth Godin’s TEDTalk.
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XOXO,
Monique
