Backlinks = Rankings, Rankings = Traffic – Deal With It

Link building, done correctly, is hard work. It's laborious and filled with lots of rejection. In many ways, it's like telemarketing – nobody likes it, but it pays off. In fact, link building still works better than anything else to boost organic rankings.

Google's Matt Cutts recently confirmed the continuing value of links here and here. The key quotes:

...backlinks…are a really, really big win in terms of quality for search results ... backlink relevance still really, really helps in making sure we return the best, most relevant, most topical set of search results.

...backlinks still have many, many years left in them ... over time backlinks will become a little less important ... we will continue to use links in order to assess the basic reputation of pages and websites.

So what are the takeaways from these videos? Most commenters picked up on natural language processing and authorship, as probable ranking factors moving forward, without acknowledging the core message of the videos – links still matter a lot. And they will continue to matter for many years.

I don't blame anyone for chalking these videos up to Google FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt), but the evidence doesn't stop there. I'm sure that you're familiar with the Penguin algorithm. How about manual penalties, for unnatural links? If links didn't matter, would there be an entire industry dedicated to link audits and sanitizing backlink profiles? Would Google spend so much time and resources battling spammy links? Of course not.

Still, there is a whole contingency of "link deniers" proclaiming that "link building is dead." These folks are just as fervent in their beliefs as the "truthers" and "birthers" despite factual evidence that runs to the contrary. (There's a pretty good chance you will read their comments, below.)

So why are so many people running away from the single most important task in building organic rankings? The answer is pretty simple. Not only is link building hard, but if done improperly, it can result in a penalty and in the most extreme cases can even get you sued!

Can you blame SEO professionals for running away from that hot mess? Of course you can – and you should.

Every marketing campaign focused on building organic rankings needs a link building component. Thousands, if not millions, of pages of great content are published on the web daily – most will never be seen by human eyes. Great content alone, in a competitive niche, rarely ranks without links.

There's a big difference between link building (baiting, earning) and link spamming. The kinds of links that matter are the ones that are editorially given. Links with innate value, not necessarily SEO value. These links require human intervention for placement. A link that can be dropped automatically by anyone has little value and often leads to abuse and trouble.

So, what are some effective techniques for building links in 2014? Actually, the same strategies advised by Cutts way back on March 4, 2010 still hold up today:

• Create controversy: Use it sparingly like spice. The occasional rant is best and if over-used, loses its effectiveness.
• Use humor: Offered as a "softer" alternative to controversy. Can be equally effective – especially if original. (The Oatmeal has built a franchise on funny)
• Participate in blog and forum communities: Not as a spammer, but as an interested community member who gives back to the community by answering questions that help people. This builds credibility and opens up opportunities to attract links.
• Publish original research: Doing a little work to dig into a subject can get a lot of links.
• Use social media: Think about where your target audience spends their time. Is it Facebook, Twitter, Instagram? You need to be there as well. Like blog and forum communities, getting to know people via social media opens up link opportunities.
• Create a "Top X List": Like controversy, this is best used sparingly or it can get old fast
• Blog frequently and establish yourself as an authority in your field: If authorship had been in place when this video was produced, I'm sure that would have been mentioned, as well.
• Create how-tos and tutorials: They may not attract a ton of links, but a few good links can have a huge impact – especially on the long tail. These are also a natural for video.
• Create a useful product and give it away for free: Firefox extensions, Chrome extensions, WordPress plugins, anything open source.

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From Link Building to Link Earning: 3 Ways to Transition

Within the link-building era, life was simpler for an SEO professional. Everything was straightforward and the equation was simple – getting x number of links (let's say submitting your site to dozens of Web directories) equated with a certain ranking in search results.

A lot of search experts acknowledged that even though links aren't everything when it comes to search engine optimization, they carry a lot of weight in the search engine's ranking formula. From the need for better ranking results people developed lots of techniques to build links, either manually or automatically.

As you can see in the picture above, the overall interest shift from link building to content marketing is rather clear. Google wasn't too happy with the fact people were focused on desperately gathering links for their sites and forgot the fact that they should be focused on offering real value in order to earn those links.

With Penguin and manual penalties, Google started annihilating these shady techniques one by one. Even so, a few manual link-building techniques still work. The transition is more of a mentality transition from the concept of constructing link profiles to investing time and effort into growing them organically.

Why Link Earning?

While everybody's proclaiming that "content is king" and how link earning will change the face of SEO forever, it becomes pretty clear that very few know exactly how to get there. In all the hype and all the enthusiasm over the next trend, people are more confused than ever as to how are they going to transition from the old ways to the new.

I can't recount how many times I've read about quality over quantity, without seeing some reasonable and graspable meaning for it.

It's obvious that the mentality of creating relevant and meaningful content helps, both you and the community. But how do you end up to earn links?

Everybody expects relevant results from Google. Having irrelevant or shady sites ranking in the top of the search results helps neither you, the visitor, nor Google the search engine. This is one reason why Google works hard to improve their algorithms in order to rank those that deserve to be there.

If you aren't fully committed to this new method of obtaining organic inbound links, you should ask yourself how you would feel if you knew Google's Matt Cutts was looking at your site's links.

If you have any second thoughts about showing any of your links to Cutts, that means your site might be in trouble sooner or later.

Key Differences Between Link Building and Link Earning

Link building and link earning really aren't two different concepts – they are two sides of the same coin. Link earning is higher on the evolution ladder than link building, because you actually have to prove to be more resourceful and offer helpful information to the searcher.

One key difference between these two concepts is that link building is based on your obvious intent of finding websites that would place a link to your site, voided by relevance or value. On the other hand, link earning starts with a brainstorming and creative thinking process.

Figuring out your content strategy and putting ideas on paper should be your first step. You need to keep in mind that real value is relative to your target audience and to other websites or influencers that will want to share your content.

3 Link Earning Tactics

We've written a lot about earning and building links and how they differentiate from one another and why you should choose link earning as a way to increase your link portfolio. Now it's time to show you some methods that you should start to apply in order to earn those organic links.

1. Amazing Content

This is the most conceptually simple, yet hard to implement, efficient link-earning technique. You can dodge it or ignore it.

The creation of amazing content is absolutely vital to earning links. You should conceive this amazing content to not only provide usefulness to readers but also to be shareable.

Once you build something searchers are finding useful on your site, be sure they will gladly help you spread out the word and link back to you. Amazing and engaging content can prove to be very efficient if done properly, as it will spread like fire on sites, blogs, and social media platforms, without a too much of a manual hassle.

2. Engaging Contests

Another good link-earning idea would be to create engagement within the community through contests and giveaways. Host contests on your site and then promote it online. Networking with influencers and website owners and ask them to pass on the information to their readers.

You could say asking other website owners to post information on their site on your behalf would seem like an unnatural link building technique, but it's not the case. It's an experience from which everybody gets to earn something. Especially you, since you're going to have a lot of coverage, which will generate many organic links.

3. Awesome Free Resources

The most compelling reason for people to start talking about you and share links that point to your site would be freebies. Nobody will pass the occasion to get some useful free resources. And by resources I mean some form of content or an app that is not very hard to produce and users may find very useful.

If you want to be successful with this technique, you need to really understand your target audience's needs.

Conclusion

For the moment, Google still ranks sites with shady link profiles. In my opinion it is only a matter of time until the SERPs are cleaner and sites that use shady link-building techniques can't rank well. There are various creative ways in which you can make link building work for you without putting your site at danger of being penalized.

Webmasters should tend to focus less on manual link building and more on delivering awesome content and community help!

Overall you'll have a lot more to earn if you invest a lot more of your time to earning links and dishing out information that people actually want to link to. Besides getting links you'll also raise your brand awareness and you're going to consolidate a strong position in your niche. You'll get ranking, new visitors, and a social presence!

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Social Signals and SEO are Officially an Item

What do well positioned Google pages have in common? More importantly, what factors set these pages apart from pages with lower rankings? A recent study conducted by Searchmetrics uncovers the most relevant factors in search rankings in 2013.

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization is the process of increasing site visibility across the internet. Several factors play a role in SEO and ranking, including both onsite and offsite efforts. SEO is essential for a successful eCommerce website in order to increase conversion and revenue. It’s plain and simple, if customers can’t find you or if your website does not come across as valid, chances are shoppers will fall right into the arms of competitors with better search rankings. Well positioned eCommerce sites not only average more in sales, but they become the authority in their specific space. 33% of traffic goes to the top listing in Google’s organic search results. From there, 18% of traffic goes to the second position and then the rest decreases from there. So, what’s my point you ask? If your site doesn’t appear on the first page of search results you have got bigger problems than getting a handle on shipping logistics.

The main factors that determine search rankings are backlinks, quality content, and (dare I say it) social signals. In previous years, studies focused on the importance of keywords. Today, this factor is becoming less and less relevant. Keyword use in the URL/domain no longer determines SEO ranking, and excessive use of keywords can now have a negative impact on your ranking.

Backlinks still remain immensely important when it comes to search rankings. The fact of the matter is, the more quality backlinks your website has, the higher you rank in a search. Content also plays an interesting role in SEO. Sites that are consistently pushing out quality content to audiences are more likely to be higher in rankings than sites that push out unnecessary or poor quality content.

“On average, social signals are the domain with the highest correlations. Websites that rank in the top positions on Google usually have a large number of social signals. In other words: well-ranked URLs have many shares, likes, comments, plus ones and tweets.” – Searchmetrics

The study uncovered a direct correlation between social signals and strong SEO. Yes, ladies and gentlemen there is now proof that social presence is essential when it comes to search engine optimization. Sites with a strong social presence and a high amount of social user engagement rank higher. The more likes, comments, and tweets you have a site, the more powerful your SEO becomes. Additionally, there proves to be a correlation between sites with a low ranking on Google, and low social presence/engagement.

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Geolocation Changes Google Keyword Rankings 69% of Time [Report]

In 69 percent of cases where a company’s website ranks in the top 30 on Google for one location, it doesn't rank for that keyword across all other locations, according to a new report from Linkdex. Their study also included an examination of ranking variations across 10 different geolocations, in that case finding that ranking deviated by average of 11 positions.

Geo-Variance Research Explores Search Results Across 10 U.S. Cities & Towns

Linkdex tested 2,000 keywords across a mix of 10 major U.S. cities and smaller towns and found that at higher levels of variance, the majority of the results in Google’s top 10 changed completely, depending on the searcher’s location.

One particularly interesting section of the report demonstrates how select verticals including restaurants, furniture, used cars, flights, and credit cards behave.

Linkdex notes, “When we began our research, and when we selected the verticals to look at in greater detail, we expected to find a different level of variance across different verticals. We did encounter this, as shown above, but not all of the results were as anticipated – some selected verticals are less affected by geo-variability than expected, and some more.”

Ranking Variances May Not Be in Verticals or Niches You Expect

For a deeper, look, they broke down the ranking reports of each market, looking at the 15 websites per vertical with the best visibility on the first page of results (position 1 through 10). This approach favored sites with multiple locations, therefore decreasing variance.

However, they did notice that high variability sites, like listing site Menupages.com, may struggle to rank across geo-locations.

“Menupages recorded 14 top 3 positions in NYC, and none at all in San Francisco,” Linkdex found. “In positions 4 through 10, there are eight keywords ranking in New York City, but none in Chicago.”

Marketers still need to monitor geo-variance across all sectors, they caution, even though some verticals show less variance than others. There are niches within each sector that buck the trend.

We spoke with Linkdex VP of Product/Marketing Matt Roberts, who believes the research raises more questions than answers, for marketers. They’re important questions, though.

The local question is a troublesome one for many and understanding how visibility changes allows marketers to spot opportunities. Typically, he said, even when people could find the information, it’s been incredibly difficult to collect and manage it at any scale.

While the best data is always going to be your own, Linkdex offers a big picture view of the problem, thanks to their capability to capture these insights across different geos. To that end, they said, “We believe geo-ranking insights will give people the understanding of what markets and groups of keywords are affected by variations in geo-ranking. They will then be able to develop geo-optimization strategies that maximize the opportunity to grow traffic and revenues.”

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