Healthy Link Building – Content Is King
Posted : 04/4/10 7:29 PM
I’m sure all or most of you have heard the cliche “content is king” when it comes to link building. But is it true? The simple answer is yes. Having quality original content on a website, or blog as it may be, is vital to the success of the site. Good content can help build solid back links, keep visitors coming back, and draw in new unique visitors. But what constitutes quality content? And even if the content is the best out there how are people going to find it? These are a few of the questions I plan to answer in this article.
What constitutes quality content?
The sad and sometimes horrifying truth is that quality content is subjective from person to person. What one person may think is the greatest article or post ever written another mite think is the biggest piece of garbage on the Internet. You must accept and come to the realization that no matter what you write not everyone is going to like it. However, you shouldn’t be out to impress everyone, you should be out to write content that is unique, original, and that you feel would be beneficial to the readers you are trying to attract. Doing this may be a bit of a challenge, but here are a few tips to help..
1. Be original : Original content is some of the best around. Write about something that no one has written about before. It could be a personal experience, a bit of research you’ve done in to something, or an extension or personal view on someone else’s work. Whatever it is though make sure it is your own original work, contains your own views and opinions, and portrays you, your business, organization, or other as a unique source of information.
2. Be beneficial : Most times people will come to a site to find some sort of information on something. The content they’re looking for will obviously vary by niche / category, but there is one thing every post / article / or other work should have in common, and that is that it should offer something beneficial to the reader.
3. Write to your audience : In order to write to your audience you must first know your audience. Find out who they are, where else they visit on the Internet, and what they like and dislike. There are various methods you can use to do this ranging from the use of forms and analytic tracking software to researching market trends but such content doesn’t fit within the scope of this article. However, I will be covering this in the Healthy Link Building series so check back for future posts.
Once you know your audience you can write content that is appealing to them. Do they like an informal style of writing? A technical writing style? A business writing style? Or something entirely different? Do they like pictures and videos? Are they looking for opinions, new research, or something completely different? These are all questions you need to know the answers to in order to write to your audience.
How will people find my content?
The answer is content. But not the content you write on your own site, but rather content you write on other websites or “off-site” content. This type of content can range from press releases and article directories to blog comments. The same methods mentioned above for “on-site” content ( content you write on your own site ) are still applied to “off-site” content.
1. Be original : Make sure your content is unique. Don’t read someone else’s work, paraphrase it, and then claim it as your own. Write from your own mind. If your content is unique people will be more likely to consider you an authority, and be more likely to click over to your site.
2. Be beneficial : Whatever you write make sure it would be beneficial to the reader. A good way to do this would be to answer questions. Often times on blog and forum websites users will ask questions. If you know the answer, post it. Maybe even leave a link to your own website where you have a post or page explaining the answer in great detail. If you answer the question properly people will remember you, recognize you as an authority, and be more likely to link to your answer and any links you leave in your post.
3. Write to your audience : If you’re leaving a comment on a blog or forum write within the style of the page. If it’s a technical website write with a technical writing style. If it’s a personal blog write with a personal or informal writing style. Doing so just mite entice people to click over and link to your website.
Concluding thoughts…
“Off-site” content in general relies on your “on-site” content, and in many ways your “on-site” content relies on your “off-site” content. Your “off-site” content will bring users in to your own website, but if your “on-site” content isn’t up to par people won’t link to it. Your “on-site” content can be truly amazing, unique, and beneficial, but if your “off-site” content isn’t very good ( or is non-existent ) people may never know it exists. A balance between the two is required to help build solid back links.
Thanks for reading this post. If you like please link to it. What I just did there is a form of an SEO tactic called “link baiting.” Check back for our next post which will go in to more detail about “link baiting” strategies. Hope you enjoyed this post everyone and as usual feel free to leave comments.
Great article. I’m still fairly new to blogging but I just started my own on blogger and have been looking for ways to spread the word. I’ve been reading through forums and other blogs looking for any good ideas and I have to say your Healthy Link Building series has been a big help ( if not the biggest ). I’ve learned a lot and I’ve seen an increase in viewers to my blog. I’m going to keep following your advice because so far it has worked and I’m confident it will continue to work. Thanks for all the great posts and I look forward to your next one on link baiting.
Ah, I’ve been waiting for this series to pick up again. Your Healthy Link Building series is such a great series of posts, but you got to post them more often. Anyway, I really liked this article. I’ve always been a firm believer in the fact that content is king but have always been unsure on what exactly good content is and how to get my content noticed. I loved the part where you stated….
That’s so true and it’s nice to hear someone finally say it. I also enjoyed your “off-site” content strategies. I’ve used blogs and forums for a while now and they’ve been pretty helpful at building traffic but not neccessarily back links. Guess that mite mean my “on-site” content needs some re-working. Well I’m starting to ramble so I leave you with this. Great post and can’t wait for the next one.
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One of the most important thing to make real dreaming about 1st page of google is diversity of link sources, and all backlinks of course should to be dofollow.
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These are the best ways to generate content for your blog. It is advisable not to go with the automated path. If you do select to do that, you will probably have lots of content- but the substance of the text is unlikely to increase traffic for you. Putting in some lovely, old-fashioned content work will yield better results for you. As the expression goes- “you get out what you put in.
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The easiest way to drive traffic is through backlinking from different sites. It only signifies that accurate backlinking will make your site popular in no time. Its value is truly immeasurable if we are talking about traffic. High quality backlinks is a plus. Although there are many kinds of backlink but I prefer one way back links. Although there are many ways to drive visitors, but for me, I personally choose backlinks because in this way your site will flood out of visitors and the more traffic, the more revenue
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I really enjoyed this post, especially the “examples in this post” portion which made it really easy for me to SEE what you were talking about without even having to leave the article. Thanks
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