Create content or more link building?
-
For those of you who have been doing white hat SEO for many years, I'm curious what % of your time (and/or how many hours/week) you spend on 2 activities:
-- creating new, original content for your site
-- work on getting links to your existing content
I find that working at getting links via article marketing, guest blogging, forum posting, etc, is an open ended time suck that never ends. But maybe a necessary investment for sites that have fewer external links than their competitors (?).
Adding unique original content to my site is also time consuming, and I'm not sure about the short-term vs long-term benefit of it.
I'm curious if you guys who rank in top 3 positions of the SERPs split your time evenly between link building and content building, or if you spend more time on one than the other? And does the answer change for a site that's been around for a while and already has several hundred external links and several hundred pages of original content?
Where should I spend my time on a site that is 8 months old, has about 90 pages of original content (all with good on-page SEO), and several hundred external links (with mostly relevant anchor texts)? My goal is to rank higher for the key terms people search on to find a service like mine. Currently I'm on page 1 in SERPs but not in top 3.
-
Boy, this is a tough question because it varies from site to site, page to page, and keyword to keyword. We publish new content every day and much of it is exclusive to our site. Beyond that I focus primarily on creating content to capture long-tail traffic.
To begin with, I would ask myself the following questions (which you may have already done)...
- What keywords are really driving your business? Have you pinpointed which keywords are most likely to lead to conversions? Make sure you are building links for the keywords that lead to revenues...not just visits.
- Of the keywords pinpointed in #1, what does the competitive landscape look like for each? Be sure to prioritize which keywords/pages you are working on based on a combination of potential return and level of competition.
- What links do your competitors have? Is there an opportunity to catch up by getting the same links?
Second, there is always an opportunity to combine content generation and link building. Try to identify content other sites need or are lacking. Create that content and then reach out to let the site owner know so they can point visitors to the page.
Finally, to avoid the huge time suck (or to manage it), consider scheduling link building time and content generation time throughout the week to help yourself be focused and efficient. Jot down content ideas and/or potential linking partners whenever they come up. Then on during your scheduled times, work through your list of ideas / sites.
All that being said, there is no 'right' answer. Link building and content creation are both difficult tasks that take time. Which reminds me...have you considered hiring an intern to be your content writer? Just another idea...
I'm pretty sure this doesn't answer your question, but I hope it helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
I am looking for a software to keep track of the back links or link building
Hi Guys, I am very new hear. I just joined. I have a few websites that I need to manage. I am looking for a software that will allow me to manually add the links that I have been able to acquire. It would also be a bonus if it could search for the links to my site and to see if its still active. Because I have a freelancer working a few hours a week on link building and I need to keep track of the links. I am looking for something simple and good. Any suggestions? By the way, I used Raven Tools many years ago, and it had this feature. But since joining Moz, I don't want to be paying for 2 subscriptions. And I don't know if Raven still has this feature. Your suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you. Ryan
Link Building | | RyanNewman0 -
Page links, header links, footer links
HI I have been hearing about links, you should keep to 100 Just look at this url http://www.powerwale.com/store/acdelco-sealed-vrla-iacdv5l--b-5ah-bike-battery/77031 and go for Recommend section, where you same product applies to different vehicles 1. im confused, should keep it or not?
Link Building | | Rahim119
2. Header links are less, Footer links are less, and in the future, we are planning to add more, will this affect SEO more than 100
i see many ecommerce sites, has menu showing many categories, more 100 categories links
3. Wht about link equity? If I have more links in header and footer page(all this will follow in the rest of pages).
4. More links in the header and footer shows that you are big ecommerce site.. Pls suggest, which is right way and go gain SEO value1 -
What do you use to gather and build Links?
I was just wondering what do most people use for gathering and building links? Is OpenSiteExplorer enough? When I am analysing competitors, there are literally thousands of links, how do you scan them and select the ones you want to use? Any other tools?
Link Building | | moneywise_test0 -
Most significant link building factor
Am I right in thinking the most important link building factor is the number of unique linking root domains? Multiple links from a domain won't help me so much?
Link Building | | SamCUK0 -
Link building too quickly
Hi all, I have recently started trialing to outsource some SEO to a 3rd party, who obviously promissed white hat techniques and manual links etc.. All has gone well for the first month. But on speeking to another expert they point out that the search engines will spot inconcistencies in link building and penalise me. I know there will not be a know ammount but as we stand at the moment, what is the current feeling of too fast. Links built for me in one month were 100 directory submissions 80 bookmarks 16 search engine submissions 15 Article submissions 46 forum links 10 local classified searches Is this too fast? , If to do I stop and create more inconsistency or continue at a similar rate. Of course quality of link will be an issue, but how much. Many thanks from SEO jnr
Link Building | | smartcow0 -
Do industry Forums really help build links?
I've read that one way to build some links to your site is to contribute to a industry specific forum that is popular and pretty active. I've started doing this for about 2 months now. This particular forum allows your signature to include your websites name. When I look for links with the Seomoz tools and the new Bing tools I never see this forum appear(showing links to my site). So my question is should I continue to answer questions on this forum or is it a waste of time? And does this usually take a long time i.e lie years? Thanks, Cesar
Link Building | | teachcsg0 -
How to Build Links without content?
Apart from Directory submission Local niche specific directory submission Community engagement Niche specific blog commenting Can I know the other ways of Link Building when we don't have content.
Link Building | | Jaymoo0 -
Would you truste this link building buissness ?
http://www.actuallyrank.com/85.php i am working on french site and i don't have a tone of budjet. would you truste this link building buissness ?
Link Building | | martinLachapelle0