Original content vs Backlinks??

Hi guys
I have a business and my only way to get clients is thru internet.
The keywords i am fighting for is a very popular one and my competitors wont be cheap to pay SEO experts just to get on top.
Now thru backlinks from forums and local pages i have managed in 8 months to stay on the first page in google but then it gets tough because, 5-6 of my competitors have been in business longer then me and i am sure these companies pay SEO companies to stay where they are. (they have hundreds of blogs of their own to post their links)

Now i dont have the money to compete them with ads but, my strongest point is that i can write articles related to the field and i am very good at it.
My site is wordpress and i left a blog space in purpose so i can fill my site with original content and may be slowly google will recognize the efforts.

Whats better? Having original content in your site or backlinks? Would it pay off? How long would it take if lets say right now im 6th on google?

Any suggestions ?? ( What else can i do with these original content except article submissions to other sites? ie. ezinezrticles )

Use the original content on your site - always. Backlinks aren't very good if they pump a page that gets a 100% bounce rate. When up against bigger companies you're going to have to do what you feel is most beneficial to the business/customer. Give them great content and focus then on backlinking it. If it's any good you have social plugins to use that people can help promote it.

You can do article submission, build web 2.0 pages ect with your content. Just remember, if your not playing the 10M link spam game, it's quality over quantity.

Why don't both original content and backlinks? In my opinion both plays a vital role for the betterment of site. But better to make quality backlinks after putting a minimum unique content at your site.

I agree if you have to choose original content or backlinks choose content.

Original content is the first. With good content, you can still rank better than sites with thousands of backlinks. Without original content, backlinks are worthless.

Content is always important.We need to give priority to the good quality content.If the content is good then it will help to improve your PR.This will help to get more back links form the high PR sites. Automatically your key word count will be more.

Content is the KING but the importance of keywords can't be ignored as well.If you could use both of the things smartly then its best for your site.

Original and quality content as everyone says.
Now you can also start a blog network. If you are so good at writing, start writing articles and spin them. Now go and signup for blogs and then start posting on blogs with the use of different ips (you can use UltraSurf soft. It is free and reliable or you can go for HotSpot Shield or any proxy website)

Post a version of your article to 10 or 12 blogs and the second one to another 10-12 this way you will be able to build backlinks from your skill of writing and you will not have to pay a dime.

There is a guy on BHW named wickedguy. He is giving away a plugin with 100 credits that is wonderful and have great reviews. The plugin name is WPSYNIT.

Use it on your WP site and go rock.

Things needed
# Dedication
# Writing Skills
# Proxy (to avoid goog recognize ur footprints)
# WPSYNIT (U can do it manually also)


NOTE: Do not just link each and every article you post on the blogs to your website but also interlink them to the other blogs of yours.

Later on you can use a SB blast provided by any of our fellow BHW members to make 2 tier links to the blogs to gain reputation in the eyes of Big G.

SEO is nt costly it is just boring. One more thing . You can buy a.edu backlink packet from BIG BUDDy. He is great with.edu links.

This will help you gain rep from GOOG.

Only Content is weak but Good Content with a few Backlinks is great

One fellow Smart BHWer said "Content is King, Backlink is Queen and Together They make Great Children"

HIDAYAKUMULLAH

Content is still king, regardless if it is used as original content on your site or used to self-promote through back linking. However developing a Content Strategy is what I see many people missing and something you might want to consider:

Developing your content strategy should have you consider the following:
- Platform
- Theme, messaging and brand
- Keyword Targeting
- SEO

From the looks like it you have your platform in place, you sound like you have the ability to craft reasonable well written content. How about your SEO and Keyword targeting?

Have you thought through what you want to write? Is this a competitive niche? Are there low hanging fruit you can build the site's authority with?

There is much to be said about proper SEO in these forums, so search around for more answers related to that, but YOU MUST follow some basic SEO practices to get your site to continue to build authority.

Once you consider the above you can then develop a content strategy that then is based around a systematic approach which would include:
- Content Analysis - Determine keywords, theme, brand and messaging
- Content Crafting - Write, Write and Write some more; you can 'write' even more using things like Dragon Naturally Speak (increased my writing production by 400%)
- Content Management - SEO Practices, meta, descriptions, tags
- Content Publication - Develop scheduling for content releases.

The above Content Strategy is super basic, but simple can become profound if done right.

Don't forget, content doesn't just mean articles, consider YoutTube video promotions as another way to attract visitors; it might just be something your competition is missing and you can dominate in that area.

Hope that helps!

Thank you guys for taking the time to reply.
I am going to give you some more info about the site, keywords and what ive done so far.

Site is wordpress i hired someone to customize it and adapt it to a medical/dental looking theme.
Since it is a dental service site there is not much content i can add in the main site itself. You how it is.. People just want to see how much and what quality of service before and after pictures etc. Someone suggested videos youtube. Yes i am starting to implement this strategy.
So regarding articles i have three choices

1. Have a BLOG category with posts in the main site
2. Create 4 other blogs and spin them around the main one ( i know how it works but never done it before. If i screw something up i risk sandbox)
3. Take these articles and post them to other sites

Just for your info i had a WP site before with more then 300 articles original content.
Maximum hits a day 150 to 200 PR1 and i wasn't making any money. In 1 year i have only cashed one cheque of $100 from google. I wasnt doing any tricks. It was straightforward: Post an article and let google do whatever. May be a backlink here and there but thats it.

So if i take the KING way (original content) What is the best way of doing it right?
If i post them into the main site can i just place them into a hidden category accessible for serps but not visible for the visitors that enter the main page?


Key words monthly hits
globally Locally
673,000 301,000
33,100 22,200
40,500 9,900

There's no substitute to backlinks. No matter how good your content is, you simply need to have at least a substantial amount of backlinks. The upside is, you don't have to generate the backlinks yourself or pay for them. Just provide the option for others to backlink you through facebook or twitter, and encourage people to show their appreciation by backlinking you. If your content is really good, you'll have plenty of backlinks over time.

For me, backlinks, because you will be seen faster from Google

cheers

I always prefer original contents than backlinks between these two. Google always wants original contents. So it will be better to follow original content for you.

Search engines want original content that makes sense but they can't recognize it so they use the number of backlinks as a hint, the idea being that people will link to good stuff and won't link to crap. But SEs don't give the people a chance to see the content (with the exception of the newbie domain bonus which is not working all that good).

So it comes to link spam to rise to the top and good content to stay there (in my experience). The logic is, once I notice you I may quote you on my site. When this starts happening you may throttle back the link spamming. With good content other factors will start working for you too, like e.g. low bounce rate.

Naturally this will not work with viagra or impotency style money making but your niche doesn't sound to be of that kind.

I wrote more extensively about this covering another topic here:
http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/black-hat-seo/283128-overstock-google-sandbox.html#post2726276

You can also read the whole discussion for more insight.

Monrox is 100% right, until the search engines can rate quality in an algorithm, without manual review, one of the ways to let them know about your site is to backlink to it.