Building Links: Quality Vs. Quantity

Saturday, April 3rd, 2010 at 8:05 am

By Andrew Hansen

It’s been the case for so long that to even bring it up in a post seems trivial.

Yet, despite everything it seems that new and intermediate marketers never quite stop falling for this SEO trap.

“Hundreds Of High PR Links For $29″

“Get Thousands Of ONE WAY Links To YOUR Website”

Sound familiar? That thinking is the trap.

People get so worked up doing everything they can to get as MANY links as possible to their sites as possible, confident that if they can only get enough links, they’ll be guaranteed rankings.

Despite how widespread that notion is, it’s simply not true. Great SEOs have told us for a long time that it’s the QUALITY of links that counts, not the quantity.

“A small number of the most high quality most targeted, authoritative and relevant links will do more for your rankings than 1000 crappy, irrelevant links.“

I can think of at least 3 ways this thinking is not only unhelpful, but alot of times downright dangerous for your sites and your rankings.

1. It’s a waste of time. Why build 1000 links when you can get the same results building an awesome 10? Even if you’re using an automatic submitter for the 1000 and emailing the 10 people manually it’ll probably STILL take you less time. Why do things the hard way? Haven’t we got enough work to do?

2. It’s a recipe for come and go search rankings. If Google can see your links growing disproportionately to your traffic, you’ll look unnatural and may be penalized. So why risk penalty for a technique that’s wasting your time anyway?

3. “Link Only” Links. All these links, whether they’re from social bookmarking sites, directories, “hubs”, network profile sites, or plain old link directories on some random blog… they’re all “link only” links. They provide a link and it might boost your search rankings after time, but you’re not going to see a visitor from it. For pretty near the same effort you can get links in ways that can bring traffic AND a link… and a better link at that…

A content trade, a guest post, a sponsored link, there’s a big list of ways to get “traffic AND link” links that might be worth putting into your marketing arsenal. I’m not saying those other kinds of links are worthless, all have their place, they all help, but their NUMBER is not to be obsessed over.

Finally, to seal the deal, we have to talk about that all important factor of relationships.

If you’re only focusing on that mass form of link building… where are your relationships? In the same amount of time you spent submitting to 1000 social bookmarking sites, you could have started relationships with 3 or 4 highly authoritative websites in your market that could provide links and traffic to your sites FOR LIFE. Not to mention partnerships, joint ventures, revenue swaps, and so many more opportunities for revenue it’ll make your head spin!

Bottom line, don’t get caught up on the numbers with your link building. Build quality links, build the RIGHT links and you’ll save time and money on your journey towards bigger online profits.