What if your content is getting social shares but no links?

[ProjectLabs]

Suppose you have a weekly blog article and sometimes your articles earn social shares (e.g. 23 +1's on Google Plus on one article but normally 3-5 social shares). One out of 10 earns an organic link from a random blog. Would you continue publishing these blog posts?

[ajfried]

It really depends on what your strategy is here, but I would strongly look into revamping the kind of content that you are publishing and focus on something that your audience is really looking for.

While the social shares are nice, the links are important. And I am not saying there is no value in the social shares, but with those kind of numbers, I think there is more you can do to possibly improve on the content, and make it slighly more targeted to what people are looking for.

I would even go as far as to say, that the links are not the only reason you should be writing. It should be more around thought leadership, attracting a bigger more committed and passionate audience.

Content for the sake of content is not a good practice. It makes it thin, and then you have bigger problems

[maestrosonrisas]

I my experience a had two pages with same competitive keyword and: one http://www.propdental.es/blog/odontologia/ortodoncia-estetica/  had just google+1 and no other social shares and the other http://www.propdental.es/ortodoncia-estetica/ lots of facebook ant twitter shares but no +1. No external links. Actually I had them actualized and more shared so it is different now.

The one just with google +1 was in front page and the other did not appear. So i think with social shares can be enough if you have a good domain authority.

I mean i think with good content and social shares could be enough to reach good audience to your website especially if that social share is on google plus

[KaneJamison]

I agree with Aaron here. Both elements are important. If there were quite a few more social shares then it would be easier to ignore the lack of links.

Do a test for a couple months - rather than posting weekly, post every other week and make the content more substantial - longer form text, lots of good formatting like h2/h3s, bullets, photos, etc. Target a higher value term. Also consider running a small Facebook ad ($15-25) or Twitter/LinkedIn featuring that post, and targeting it towards the exact type of demographics you want to see it.

I think you'll get a lot better return from this type of approach.