Couldn’t Think Of A Decent Title
Hi. Pull up a chair. Pour yourself a drink.
I’m going to ramble for a bit. This post is more for my benefit than anyone else. I know, another shit personal opinion post plugging up the SEO sector. Close is top right.
SEO appears to revolve around 3 areas:
- Editing pre existing content (relevance)
- Creating new content (relevance)
- Building links for both types of content (popularity)
Yes there’s technical SEO changes to optimise a site, research to review sectors/competitors, social ‘stuff’ and much more but I’m talking about SEO at it’s simplest form.
Link building = Fucked
Over the last year or so we have seen previously successful link techniques become decimated overnight and link profiles ripped up to be started again. In my honest opinion I think this is a good thing. Despite paying for and manually creating low level links I’ve always hated directories, forum comments, article submissions etc. I’m sure you’ve said it before to yourself but who the fuck really uses a directory?!
This doesn’t necessarily mean that I love infographics or guest posts. In fact people are spending too long reviewing competitor link profiles, guest posting on crappy websites and building infographics that nobody see’s. There are companies out there who know what they are doing but online you can smell the fear of people trying to define strategies in new areas where they are clueless. I can only imagine the amount of money going to waste in online marketing at the moment. Oh well…
Google have pretty much promised a war on infographics and guest posts (did I just make the latter up?) yet the industry is still ploughing ahead. We know the ship is going to sink but we’ve have to do something, anything, right?
Basically, link building at the moment is a bit of a minefield and that’s before we even begin to discuss anchor text.
Editing Content = Unstable
Bill Slawski (SEO genius) recently wrote a very interesting post about how editing documents to incorporate certain keyword terms could be seen as ‘rank modifying spam techniques‘ and not only result in no movement but have a detrimental effect on rankings and traffic to your website. Risky business eh?!
So where does this leave us? Both link building and editing pre existing content to reflect chosen terms can result in penalisation. There’s only one real road to walk down.
You know what it is.
I hate it as much as you do.
Open your eyes, it’s beautiful.
We are left with producing quality content to attract users to a website.
*Long pause for effect*
Content Creation = Win
Why should you look to produce content for a website over actively link building or editing existing content?
- The world of search today is a dangerous, unpredictable place and as a supplier or website owner you should be looking to minimise risk and the possibility of penalisation.
- Writing something of actual value will gain links
- Writing something of actual value will attract organic search visitors
- Writing something of actual value will improve the brand of the website
- Writing something of actual value is a million times more fun than writing outreach emails to blog owners.
Why people are afraid to produce content for a website over actively link building or editing existing content?
- My client won’t ever sign off my ideas/dislikes my content
- I don’t have time for it as I’m link building/editing stuff
- I can’t write well
- SEO blogs are telling me that I should be using my time to actively build links/relationships!
To be honest I don’t care how you get around these obstacles, the important thing is that you do. Personally I see the future of online visibility revolving around your content and how popular you are socially.
Of course I’m full of shit, so if you disagree what do you think is the future of search?
Couldn't Think Of A Decent Title,
Yes crappy directories, article marketing & low quality ig’s/guest posts are Dead!!
But as you allure to in your post & as Big Daddy Kane once said “Content ain’t easy…”
Link Builders need to learn more from PR & community colleagues. Outreach skills are in demand we can’t just allow content to become a build it & they will come type of affair.
SEO’s need to grow up & come sit at the big boy table & talk about budgets, profits, ROI… If a business has budgeted $X for advertising/marketing, then SEO’s had better make sure they are putting forward a serious business case for a larger slice of that pie.
But hey I don’t have all the answers
“Yes crappy directories, article marketing & low quality ig’s/guest posts are Dead!!”
I wish this were the case.
Looking at the search results is incredibly discouraging. While I don’t disagree that quality content is the only future of SEO, and that it does work today, many very competitive phrases are still dominated by unknown brands—with 98% of their link profile being blog comments and directory submissions.
Totally agree with you regarding the PR side of things and ROI. There is a reason PPC gets a significantly higher budget than SEO.
I always enjoy reading your thoughts Chris and totally agree with you in terms of improving outreach skills and getting bigger budgets. You know any decent posts about how SEO’s can step up to get a bigger piece of the pie?
You know what I don’t have any good examples of SEO case studies or blogs but there are tonnes of blogs on getting a bigger PPC budget, marketing, social media or email budget… Interesting?
I think I might have to look into these one day
Exactly what I’ve been working/thinking/testing on these past few months. We really need to step out of the traditional link building game – but not necessarily to stop doing it. Many are already using (abusing) infographics and guest blogging as a technique, and that’ll just put those methods in Google’s radar.
Personally, I don’t just want to embrace content marketing, I believe that it’s best to really understand your clients’ businesses and the real value of their products/services, and become an evangelist of their brand(s). That way, it’ll be much easier to help them promote themselves.
Jason,
I agree getting in with your clients and really giving a shit will be a great long term strategy.
I think with Link Building it’s always been an easy KPI…
“I built 10 links today Mr Client that will be $XX please” and those links were easy to then correlate to increases in rankings/traffic. The equation was pretty simple Links = Traffic = $$ => more links => more $$
With Content Marketing a whole new set of KPI’s need to be agreed upon e.g. Branded Search & Direct Traffic immediately spring to mind.
Our new metrics need to be aligned to our clients revenue as well as are our Content Marketing efforts offering a lower cost of acquisition than PPC or TV for example.
Bloody hell this is a bit serious for Sean’s blog!
Ummm. Piss and Poop and OTHER STUFF!
Oh they’re definitely on Google’s radar
I really need to remember this.
Yep I think you made up the guest posting bit
– but its gotta be on the cards. There is so much shite disguised as guest posts with commercial anchor text its all going to come crashing down. Good content writers will soon be charging a fortune… like us!
Yeah I thought I may have… Gareth you are too kind, I’m an awful writer. Enjoy your fortune!
I really enjoyed reading this, Sean #forreal (I feel we need to prereq sincerity with one another because we so often stray down sarcasm boulevard..)
You pretty much deconstructed link building in modern times..
PS.. “some people think I’m mental, they don’t know I’m (very) sentimental..”
Cheers Anthony. I will be using the following as a testimonial:
I’m pretty much an SEO genius.
(I will read that email, apologies)
Where is the like button for this. Totally agree. In fact I am meeting with all my clients this week to educate them on this.
Haha, give it a nudge > http://inbound.org/content/2012/08/an-seos-personal-observations-towards-current-online-visibility/#respond
Good luck with the education!
The problem is we are heading towards products that have short, concise, informative, helpful descriptions being replaced by descriptions resembling war and peace.
Instead of a description for a washing machine telling us the load capacity, energy rating, spin speed, washing programs, colour, etc., etc. we will end up with 2 or 3 parragraphs of text saying it is a cheap washing machine, the latest washing machine, a Hotpoint washing machine a WMAL621P washing machine, and *whatever other keywords you can get in front of washing machine* washing machine.
It’s no wonder there is so much bull on the Internet Google encourages it.
Haha, very true. Who needs concise, compelling content when you can have keyword stuffed blurb?
Sometimes I hate working online.
Let’s create a good site first.
I mean, sometimes I’m reading people talking about SEO for sites that are really shite, and they don’t understand why their brand new link building technique is not working.
Have you ever thought your site is the problem? not matter how many links you create around the globe, your site is not interesting?
We focus so much to jump on conclusions for every Google updates and stuff, we don’t even think that the user maybe doesn’t like the our site.
Honestly, when in meetings I hear “link juice” , the only thing I can think of is something porn. And honestly, this thought is making the meeting more interesting.
Haha, welcome Alex
To be fair I can imagine a lot of SEO’s trying to talk their clients into a new website or a refresh if they thought it would benefit applications/purchases!
I haven’t really thought about it. I mean it’s a paid theme so it could be worse, right? I know I’ve been writing a load of crap recently but the anti hero post was good?
“What’s that on your trousers?”
“That? Oh it’s just link juice”
Directories, forum commenting, article submission and do follow blog commenting are the real shit… Yes, Google have a great war against Infographics and Guest Posting and may be they won’t be as effective as they use to be in the near future.
I am not sure if the future is revolving around content or not but one thing is definite that the WIN in the online marketing is going to be based on the ‘ACTUAL VALUE’ that you are creating for your visitors and people visiting to your site.
If you are one of those who do not provide any real value to your visitors then digital marketing might not go easy with you.
It may be content, social or anything, if you are creative value to your audience and build positive reputation then business WIN in just next to you.
Hey Moosa, thanks for dropping by
I like this:
I think a few people are adapting!
The best article I’ve read on this topic is still by Ian Lurie. I suspect the majority of UK Digital Agencies fall into all of the traps listed.
http://www.portent.com/blog/internet-marketing/content-marketing-good-enough-isnt.htm
Have to say, I genuinely enjoy reading this blog. Long may it continue!
Reading through the post now, I forget how good Ian’s articles are. I like that he combines honesty, knowledge with the ability to take the piss out of himself.
Cheers Andy, I enjoy writing it as well
Damn right you’re full of shit.
But it smells nicer than some of the other shit out there.
Yep, seen many a link profile completely die in the past 6 months-year and I’ve had to dig them all up and…
Yeah, put good content on your site, write for the sake of writing and having something to share with the world, even if it is just your opinion (my site is a game review blog – my opinion is basically the only thing on there). Brands, build a brand, get people to link to you because you produce something awesome for yourself, not because you produce someone mediocre for someone else.
Nice post dude.
Cheers Emma, this makes me think about 2 things:
1 – How often guest posts are of a lower standard than content that people would put on their own site. I’m not saying all but I’d bet the majority.
2 – How good the super agencies are at building brands because they usually start with one. Working with Coca Cola must be cool but their brand already exists. How good are these agencies at creating a brand (apart from their own) from scratch? I’d love to see a case study on this.
100% true, Link building has taken a turn for the worse like the rest of the SEO industry. However I still think it takes hard work and determination to become a good link builder.
Look at some people on Twitter they are not all about content but still rock in Link Building
No doubt man. I think it takes more hard work, skill and determination to link build in this current climate than it did previously. In fact I’ve got a link building survey post out soon that confirms this.
Liked. Tweeted. +’ed.
Link building like a big ninny was always doomed to get your arse kicked, eventually. If it isn’t today then it will tomorrow.
If you can’t create something useful online then you should piss off and go and buy some ppc, or rent a billboard or two or force feed your audience with TV ads or Radio Ads which will hopefully murder the budget of your crappy product and send you to a well deserved business graveyard.
It’s funny to think that nigh on every piece of useful content on the planet was borne out of this crazy notion that giving a reader what they need might just be appreciated and might just gain them a little attention. It was earth shatteringly radical for sure.
Meanwhile, many of us jumped on that theoretical BS wagon and upset those purists at Goog and started to try and mess with that wonderfully crafted citation graph through echoing what we thought were the best types of signal. Of course, this was to be expected and Goog should have seen this coming and in many ways did and in other ways still are (catching up).
Agencies, in house and individuals were of course more than happy to play the game and stretch the model that supposed put in £x and get back £y through increased traffic and sales which of course is a bit of a slap in the face for a Google that doesn’t really appreciate billions of £’s flying out of their front door without so much of a sniff of the revenue.
Bean counters internally must be apoplectic to see all that potential adwords budget go down the pisshole and in to other peoples pockets getting rich on the back of subverting their index with products that in its eyes don’t really merit being there, at least not by any genuine metric that they’d prefer.
It’s getting a little circuitous of course because they (Goog) created this mess with their idealistic model that relied on ranking factors outside of their control. The sad thing is that when they decide to flex their muscles (as they must periodically) then in the main it’s the small mom and pops or aspirant players who get dinged in the process. Brand survives, coz most of them throw a few quid at Google or (shock horror) happen to be pretty kick arse in their niche and add real value.
Anyhow, I’m getting a little state the obvious so I’ll shut up.
Truly magnificent. Thanks for the comment Rob, a post in it’s own right!
Link Building is defiantly becoming harder, so it should to be honest. The lucky few that can grind and build real relationships with authorities and industry sites and surrounding topics will rise to the top. Think of wikipedia the pages that are linked to other topics get the most visitors.Its network science google aren’t doing anything unjust or playing unfair, they are just following the natural rules of networks. Bad news for the agency link builder but good news if you know what your doing as you can pip the competition.
Building these relationships requires quality/tailored content that will have value to their users and yours. Martinez has been saying this for years.
Hey, I like the Fallout image of the Ghoul.
The best game I’ve ever played except Tetris. If people find it too hard or get bored they get unfollowed.
Fallout 3 is magnificent – I preferred it to New Vegas. But best game ever? That’s some bullshit right there.
GTA San Andreas. Phenomenal.
I didn’t say it was the best game ever! (but it probably is)
Yeah but I was ignoring the Tetris comment because you don’t really mean it. Tetris might be the most addictive game, but not the best. Anyway have you not remembered all the GTAs yet?
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