Change Your Mind-Set for Better Results

byLeviSteier

395 followers

Updated 10 years ago

As Internet marketers, our livelihood depends on search rankings. Much of our time is spent on doing relevant keyword research and developing strategies for incorporating them into our content.

We then work to optimize our pages and ensure that Google and the other search engines can easily understand what our posts are about. While this is an integral aspect of the process we must also keep in mind that search engines are constantly looking at the quality of the content to ensure that they are returning the best possible results for their users (AKA – web searchers).

One of the key factors influencing how they determine “quality” is back-links. They idea is that if people are linking to your content, it must be pretty good. As such, a strong back linking strategy needs to be incorporated into your efforts.

The Importance of Link Quality

A recent question posted here on WA asked about the usefulness of SEO programs that guarantee high rankings. In my experience, most of these systems help you spin (rewrite the same article many times in different ways) articles and deliver them to huge numbers of content sites.

This process is automated and can be done very quickly. So, it appears that they will get you a lot of back links very quickly.

And it might work. At least initially.

But there’s a problem. Google and the other search engines don’t like it. They have made it very clear that they want to see natural, high quality links that come about because your content is excellent, not because you blasted it out to hundreds or thousands of content mills.

And guess what? They spend a lot of time and money on making sure their search algorithms can detect such tactics. They will always have more resources than you and they will figure it out. And when they do, any of your gains will be lost and your site will be penalized. Maybe even banned.

So what can you do?

Obviously building links and promoting your site is a good idea, but they key is to change your mind-set. An article by Eric Enge at Search Engine Watch discusses how this can be accomplished.

View the article here: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2330361/Link-Building-in-2014-is-All-About-Building-Your-Brand-Reputation

Grange recommends asking yourself the following questions to help you change your mind-set when building links. Ask yourself the following questions whenever you are trying to build a back link.

1. Would you want the link if it didn’t help you with SEO?
2. If you had to show the link to a customer or potential client, would it embarrass you?
3. Is the link a genuine endorsement of your product or website?
4. Does the link need to be justified, or is the justification obvious?
5. Is the link useful to consumers of the content?

Change Your Mind-Set, Then Start Building Those Links

Once you start thinking about your linking strategy in a way that focuses on providing your potential clients or audience something of value, you will find that much of your back linking happens naturally and automatically because your content will improve and the back links will flow as a result. With this mind-set, you will be able to build high-quality links and improve your reach. And more importantly, you will be helping people find the information they need and increase your authority and/or brand in your chosen niche.