How related to your industry do your links need to be?

[lezal]

Hello,

Some of the hottest link building techniques right now are guest posting, viral content, and link bating.

But I often see SEOs produce content that has very little relevance to the actually industry they are in. For instance, a dentist might build links by guest posting on a tech site, an attorney might create an infographic on color psychology, and an accountant might venture into celebrity gossip.

While more advanced SEOs try to make sure that the content they produce has some relevance to their industry (even if it's marginal), where is the line drawn?

[TomRayner]

As you may (disappointingly) expect, there is no definitive line in the sand on this, and it's very much down to opinion.

In my view, relevancy is a very important factor for links.  To that end, I would rather spend twice the time researching partners and producing content for a related niche with, say, a PA/DA of 45, than a completely unrelated niche with a PA/DA of 60 (figures off the top of my head).

Of course, there would be exceptions.  Should one of the sites I'm working on be included in a YouMoz post here and the post takes off, then there's no doubt the link would help, despite it not being that relevant at all.  Very high authority blogs are worth pursuing - provided, of course, you have something of worth to say.

There's also crossovers between niches.  Say if you were doing work for a dentist - a blog about social media might not strike you as immediately relevant, but it is if you're launching a new health awareness campaign, or a technology blog might be relevant if you're talking about how the business functions.  In this case, I'd say that DA/PA 60 blog would be worth investing that time in - but, once again, only if you have something worthwhile to say and isn't considered a stretch.

Just my two copper on this and would love to see your opinion and others' on the issue.

[Alex-Harford]

I prefer to think in terms of the audience where the backlinks are coming from. Will they be interested in what I have to offer? If not I don't see a massive amount of value in that link, so Google probably wouldn't either if they found a way to accurately judge that in their algorithm. I bet they're already capable of doing so by tracking bounce rates from links, and whether anyone bothers to click them. Of course there are exceptions; no one would say no to a massive viral hit that resulted in hundreds of links. Just think about whether it seems natural or not - Tom gives some good examples.

With your own examples, an accountant could have written about celebrity finances and a lawyer about how the colour of their office improved client's success rate in court...but again are these links for links sake or targeted to an audience who might be interested in your product?