While trying to bounce back from the impact of Google’s recent Penguin update, many webmasters have serious questioned whether link building is still a valid SEO strategy.
The truth of the matter is that quality link building techniques are still relevant, and likely always will be.
In fact, if done correctly, your link building efforts will fly right by any future Penguin updates.
During our recent SEO Roundtable: How iGaming Affiliates Can Recover from Google Penguin, we asked Bastian Grimm; Kay Schaefer; and Dave Snyder their advice on building a future proof link building campaign.
Quality is the New Quantity
For years, link building has been an exercise in volume. The more links you had, the better off you were, period. That concept is long gone now that the Penguin is running the show. But that may not be such a bad thing because, as Snyder points out, it levels the playing field between big companies and one-man operations:
Right now it’s more about quality than quantity. So the argument, ‘I need thousands of links to compete just doesn’t hold. Thousands of links could actually kill you (SEO-wise).’
Grimm agrees and adds his experiences with clients who just don’t believe this is actually true. He said:
It’s more quality than quantity. I still get these comments like, ‘Really, one link can be better than 10?’
In short, all that bulk link building just isn’t going to cut it in the world. So what will? Quality links and quality content.
Quality Content Attracts Quality Links
All three moderators agreed that quality links and quality content go hand in hand. Here’s Schaefer’s take on the subject:
If you produce content that can attract a variety of different links from different sources that…Let me put it another way; if you don’t have the content you won’t get the links.
What else did our panelists have to say about beating Penguin? Check out Is Link Building Really Dead?
It Won’t Be Easy
Finally, our panelists (and everyone else who has been rebuilding link networks) agrees that future proof link building is a manual, very labor intensive job. Again, this is something that’s actually going to make smaller sites more competitive in the long run, as Grimm explains:
Building links means budgeting on one hand, or time on the the other. If you don’t have the budget, invest the time.
What are your thoughts on creating a link building campaign that can withstand Penguin and whatever else is coming down the line? Post your thoughts in the comments section below.