Measuring the Value of Link Building
April 4th, 2009
During a link building campaign, a topic that almost always comes up is the value of a link. While folks in the search marketing community have a decent grasp of why to build links, SEO buyers and business associates sometimes struggle with the value links provide.
After some deep thought, I thought it would be helpful to illustrate the role links play in an SEO campaign. Each function of search engine optimization has it’s role in gaining visibility.
Technical – Technical recommendations are the foundation of SEO, allowing your Web site to be crawled and indexed by search engines. Improving your site structure helps search engines and visitors find information they need more quickly.
Page Content – Without quality content on your site, visitors and search engines will fail to see value in what you have to offer. If they don’t see quality content, they may visit but not come back very often.
Link Building – Links are the most effective way to gain traction in search engine results. Good content and technical fixes will only get you so far. Going from #8 for a given keyword to #3 can sometimes mean big gains in traffic. To reach those levels for competitive keywords, links are the driving factor when all else is equal.
After some deep thought, I thought it would be helpful to illustrate the role links play in an SEO campaign. Each function of search engine optimization has it’s role in gaining visibility.
Technical – Technical recommendations are the foundation of SEO, allowing your Web site to be crawled and indexed by search engines. Improving your site structure helps search engines and visitors find information they need more quickly.
Page Content – Without quality content on your site, visitors and search engines will fail to see value in what you have to offer. If they don’t see quality content, they may visit but not come back very often.
Link Building – Links are the most effective way to gain traction in search engine results. Good content and technical fixes will only get you so far. Going from #8 for a given keyword to #3 can sometimes mean big gains in traffic. To reach those levels for competitive keywords, links are the driving factor when all else is equal.
That is a very clear explanation of how to build online search presence. Thanks for the clear visuals.
Measuring the value of “anything online” is now easy and quantifiable the good news is you can change the direction of your efforts and push towards what works best for you.