Link building is dead. There, I said it. Now, I realize you probably knew that already — or at least I hope you did. The fact is, if you’re running a Small Business Website and you want to improve your overall SEO performance, “Link Building” as we know it simply does not work. But to be 100% clear, I’m NOT saying that *LINKS* are not an important and valuable part of the SEO ranking process — they definitely are. But it’s this Old School idea of “Link Building” I’m going after in this post. Let me explain…
Why Link Building Is Dead
When I use the term Link Building, I’m talking specifically about the manual process of building a link. Links that you *build* are links that can basically be added manually by anyone and everyone to blog directories, article directories, content farms, and other similar websites that basically exist simply for this express purpose.
90% of the time these types of links will have zero impact on your long-term SEO performance. The other 10% I’m leaving open to two other possibilities — (1) these links may have short-term positive impact that will eventually disappear and, even worse, (2) these links may actually lead to Google Penalties and other long-term problems that could take months or years to heal.
Links are still extremely effective for increasing your SEO rankings and boosting your overall Web Marketing performance — just not the kinds of links that you BUILD. Rather, you need links that you must EARN by way of having great content.
Content Is King!
So, just to reiterate, link building is dead and content is king. Long live the king!
The reason should be obvious by now: You need great content to EARN those juicy, valuable links that boost up your SEO rankings. And you need these types of links to appear slowly, organically over time rather than all at once in some Link Building blitz.
Some people may take issue with some of my definitions here since, on one hand, I’m saying that “Link Building is dead.” But then, on the other hand, I’m also saying that “Links are still important for SEO.” Perhaps we simply need to rethink & redefine what we mean by “Link Building.” Rather than going out and manually planting hundreds & hundreds of links, instead we should think of Link Building as a process of attracting those handful of links that other people naturally build themselves.
What do you think? Is it true that Link Building is dead for you as well? Please leave your comment below.
