When Link Building Think Relationships not Technology
When link building many stingy webmasters only want inbound links. In contrast they don’t link out.
They are even afraid that links from User Generated Content (UGC) – like comments – are draining their PageRank.
- Is your site authority leaking through comment links?
- Does linking out hurt you on Google?
- Are links dangerous?
Questions like these are really popping up everywhere. Website owners and bloggers are scared!
Even high profile SEO blogs like SEMrush add the crippling nofollow attribute to all their outbound links!
Linking Out is Good for You
Years ago Matt Cutts of Google confirmed that good outbound links are a positive ranking factor but few people did notice or care.
People are still stuck in the past.
Moreover most people wrongly focus on technology not conversation. It should be the other way around!
To succeed in a modern social media environment – where the social Web is
- all-encompassing
- self-evident
- taken for granted
– you need to focus on the human factor.
Some people already argue that the E in SEO stands for experience not engine anymore. Face the facts. It’s about
- humans not robots
- humans not tools
- people not Google
Modern search engine optimization is about conversation not technology. It’s even more than that, it’s about relationships.
Meeting People Online Leads to Connections
The people I “met” online back when I started out are mostly still around and I’m part of their virtual sphere. People still know and recognize me after years.
I can be silent for a while or they might have stopped blogging in the meantime but all the time the number of my friends online is expanding due to my sheer ongoing activity.
Having a link means having a relationship with another human being who edits a website.
Social media allows everybody to link in a plethora of ways. You can
- bookmark
- vote
- tweet
- like
- love
- share
You spread the news and good resources via a myriad of channels. The channels change over time. You can’t always build a new audience from scratch on each one of them.
- One day it’s Friendster
- The next it’s MySpace
- Then it’s Facebook
- A day later it’s Instagram.
It’s WhatsApp in the morning, Snapchat during lunchtime and Telegram in the evening. Social Media hypes come and go.
You can’t be everywhere all the time yourself and broadcast your content. You need other people who use these tools and genuinely engage with their audiences. They share your content! You can’t solely rely on self-promotion!
The relationships stay and the links to other people stay as well. Unless you think robots, tools and Google. They can dump or ban you anytime.
How to Connect with People
People can abandon you as well, but they usually don’t out of the blue. Even when supporters do leave you on the Web you won’t lose 2/3 of your revenue over night.
Make sure you listen to the right people in the conversation. Then make sure to connect with them, forge a relationship, create a link. A link is a real connection between people.
The HTML link that shows up on your website is just a manifestation of the real link between two individuals, the person who links and the person who is linked to.
What does this mean for blog comments? I don’t care if you just link your microsite which is unrelated to my blog as long as the link between us is a real and valuable one.
A supportive or also a critical comment will pay off for both of us, sooner or later, no matter what the robots, tools or Google have to “say”.
As long as you contribute something of value you deserve a link.
The only thing you must care about now more than ever considering blog comments and likewise user contributions elsewhere is the quality of links. With WordPress blogs it’s easy:
- Moderate comments with links
- Moderate all comments on posts older than a week
- Do not allow links to empty pages,
- Edit deep links (unless they’re relevant)
- Remove gambling/adult pages
- Delete automated “thank you, great post” comment without context
Nothing fancy here. Unless you are new to blogging you have encountered such comments already.
Being Anti-Social Hurts Yourself
Most of these comment moderation measures are common sense best practices and have been implemented by most bloggers already.
Also make sure to use one of the many “dofollow” plugins as long WordPress does not remove one of the harmful “nofollow, UGC” etc. attributes from the default WordPress package.
When using the anti-social nofollow attribute you hurt both your site and your commenters sites.
UGC is just another red flag for people not to count your links properly. I always check comment links.
For people who want to switch off comments altogether: Why are you on the Web? The Web is about sharing or at least offering information.
Consider this: everything you publish and share might empower others and hurt you so either you risk that and reap the benefits or you go offline, no need for a website then.
Think Relationships not Technology
When link building you have to think relationships not technology! Why? You’re invincible.
No single tweak, small or big from Google or any other gatekeeper can hurt you.
Stay connected to your peers throughout the many social media platforms and using all the upcoming tools and never forget what really counts.
All you need is link love! Connect with the right people and success on Google and beyond will ensue.
Yeah. Many old school SEOs, even the good ones tend to geekify SEO too much.
Even SEO 1.0 was about link exchange where you actually had to attract link partners alas real people.
Good points Tad, thanks for reminding us to take our heads out of the programming cave and look at the overall picture.
A good point made. All good SEO’s that I know are great communicators. They are open, friendly and interested in everything new because this business is in constant flux and the only stable variable are your relationships. Lot’s of SEOs are totally wraped up in techie stuff and sometimes forget that a big part of our job is to make connections. With people.
Now you just have to remove the no-follow tags from your comment section Tad and the world will be an even better place ; )
@Tad – “Even SEO 1.0 was about link exchange where you actually had to attract link partners alas real people”
I must have been doing something wrong then because link-exchange has never been and most likely will never be – a strategy for my clients.
Why should my websites link to other people? Why?
Seriously.
A website for a small-business is nothing but a live advert. A box on Telephone Directory. A spread advertisement on a Newspaper.
The function is to get the client’s customer to call. To contact. Nothing more. Nothing less. Conversions.
Why should I allow traffic out? Traffic should come in.
If on the other hand the site is a directory, a library of resources, a blog, a news site, a discussion forum, an INFORMATIONAL website – sure.
Otherwise – I will not succumb to this new “link-baiting” fad – have lots of links – have lots of “”INTERESTING”” information.
Stuff that. If you want interesting information – go to Wikipedia.
But if you want a plumber next to your neighbourhood, 24 hours – here is the website: with the phone number showing first / big / bold / highlighted. Here is the address, here are the instructions. Here is a map. Here are the contact details. Here are the fees. Here are it’s credentials.
Simplicity.
Deliver the info that is very much needed. Don’t waffle crap. Dont’ add a blog FFS!!
Let the real people who want to write extra information, video streams, tutorials whatever gimmick do that out of altruism or experience , duty / whatever. Then links to other smaller websites.
But don’t force smaller sites to pollute and confuse the web with 2nd rate information – let them remain simple, functional.
The web is already littered with very bad annoying distracting confusing websites, don’t make matters worse.
Thanks for putting linking in perspective.
I think if you proactively market your business online using all the possible channels around you you will build your links and rank naturally. There has to be a large element of marketing and human interaction along with the technology aspect.
“but few people notice or care” I like that ! Many times I gave valuable SEO tips but people simply don’t care because it needed to reframe or it appeared to need more work. they keep on believing wrong seo advice because simply more people talk about.
I appreciate your comments on links
It does seem to make more sense to get your head out of the clouds and really see what your doing
“SEOs must become marketers.” That’s it, on the nose.
I’ve been a marketer since well into the last century and I’ve seen innovations come and go, with me scurrying along in an attempt to understand and employ them for clients. From catalog marketing to SEO, the technical people tend to be the “first in,” but the issues remain the same: you need to get someone’s attention, demonstrate you understand their situation, present a solution and motivate some type of action. The stuff of marketing, all of it.
I like the illustration about link and relations….
You right… Link’s like a relation… Same as ship’s anchor … The more chains that bound it will make the ship heavier, which causes the ship to remain silent place and not washed away the water … So also with the link, the more links that we get it will strengthen
…
This is a conversation with a friend I had last night. I’m eager to pick the conversation back up now.
Repeat after Tad:
* SEO is about humans not robots.
* SEO is about humans not tools.
* SEO is about users not Google.
Could anybody agree more with these points? Thanks for reminding us about the importance of blogging, i.e. writing for human beings and NOT for SE Robots! Thanks.