Is Link Building Pretty Much Irrelevant Now?

[WebbyNabler]

When I ask this, I am not under the illusion that links do nothing.  I am more curious if from an SEO strategy perspective is executing a link building campaign a really unwise use of time and resources?  Currently my company literally has every single one of our SEO clients ranked on page 1 rank 1 for their most high value keyword and in the top 5 results for another 5 to 10 high value keywords.  we have almost done no link building for these clients. I mean we have established a handful of really good links, but thats it. I look at some competitors link profiles and they have hundreds yet our clients sites are outranking them.

I am almost at the point of not implementing link building initiatives. I mean we will still establish high quality links as they naturally present themselves, but as far as investing time and resources building links i am leaning towards not even doing that anymore or atleast for a while to see what the effect will be.

We seem to find better results when we spend our time building great additional pages and following all web best practices.

Just curious as to what other think?

Thanks SEOmoz Community!

[mike_sif]

Hi Webby,

Interesting observation there.  I've been doing very little link building and my clients also rank well.  I am relatively new to the industry so I cant really offer much input.  However, your post makes me feel better as I was noticing the very same thing.  I'd like to hear what others have to say.

Thanks for posting this question.

[TakeshiYoung]

It depends on what you mean by "link building".

If you're talking about going out and submitting your site to directories, commenting on blogs & forums, getting profile links, or otherwise manually "building" links in any shape or form, that is probably not the best use of your time (although some of those tactics can still work in moderation).

But there are still plenty of high value link building tactics. Having good content is great, but it won't do anything for your if people don't know about it. Putting that content in front of key bloggers & influencers in order to drive traffic and links is link building, and very much relevant. Forming partnerships with other top sites in your niche and linking to each other is good link building. Guest posting on high authority sites is good link building. Sending targeted press releases to journalists to get news mentions is good link building.

You're right that quality beats quantity when it comes to links, but you still need some kind of strategy to go about acquiring those high value links that goes beyond "building additional great pages". That's link building.

[Francisco_Meza]

WEBBY! Nice topic. Let me share something.  My clients have great rankings too. Yes there is always room for improvement, but how much? Get a REAL Google Analytics report to uncover opportunity.

In addition, look at your incoming traffic. I told my clients that I have to stop being so dependent on Google because a change in their algorithm can cause a dip in traffic. I started changing focus from link building to relationship building. Some call it community building, some build their Fabebook/Twitter account. I help individuals and try getting them to grow so I can get my clients repeat business. That's the key on my end, repeat business.

[EGOL]

I've not done any linkbuilding for five or six years.

I publish content that is usually one of the best pages on the web for its topic.  Those pages rank deep in the SERPs at first but slowly climb and in a year I check and they are often at or near the top of the SERPs.

Each one of those pages pulls in more daily traffic and as you get more pages up, more people see your stuff and that gets you exposure for likes, links, tweets, stumbles, etc.

It is really really slow to get that started but once you do it builds its own momentum.

[Francisco_Meza]

LOL! I haven't done link building in over 1 year. Once in a while I'll write a guest blog post with a link pointing back, but about once per month.

I weathered all Panda and Penguin updates. I still get links from other companies, but I don't make much effort building links.

What you are saying happens exactly to me.

[TakeshiYoung]

I'm sure that's a strategy that can work over time, but it's not one that I would recommend to a client or present as a link building strategy.

Great content attracts links and improve in rankings over time. That's the way the web works. SEO is about accelerating and amplifying that process for maximum results.

[EvolveCreative]

I have a hard time selling the "pay me to make friends in your industry" bit, so I hardly do it for clients anymore either. Making content for clients is a tangible asset that is

A. Easier to sell

B. A great long-term strategy on its own

[EGOL]

it's not one that I would recommend to a client or present as a link building strategy

I agree, I would not recommend it to most clients because most clients are not able to produce best-on-the-web content.  If they are producing pedestrian content this approach is not going to work.

SEO is about accelerating and amplifying that process for maximum results.

I agree here too.  I could make more money by promoting the articles, but I would rather spend my time producing content.

Once you have hundreds or even thousands of high quality pages on your site then you have a level of momentum that would be hard to reproduce with linkbuilders - especially after they have been working for a few years and picked all of the low-hanging links.

[rdreich49]

The responses to this question have been great.  While I have written some very good content, I have learned that "if you build it, they will come" doesn't necessarily apply to writing content.

My question is, once the content is written, what are the best ways of getting it "out there?"

[Francisco_Meza]

Build links to your blog post, not to your home page. Also, I use Hootsuite to put the same blog post one rotation, ie I tweet,fb, g+ the same post multiple times.

I guess maybe I have an unfair advantage in that I market a site that already has authority. There are many subjects in the webinar on this. The webinars are included in your SEOMOZ subscription: http://www.seomoz.org/webinars