In my years in SEO I've really noticed a trend with webmasters that's stood out recently as one of the biggest reasons most sites really never take off.
You get 2 main classes of webmasters.
Those that are disillusioned with link building and become overly obsessed with content.
And those that are too blackhat and just fill their sites with garbage content then blast it with pbns.
Neither of those strategies are particularly good.
For some reason very few people seem to want to invest more heavily in a content strategy, but also go more aggressive with their links. Perhaps because they're investing more in content they are more fearful of link building.
You NEED links. Despite some of the crap you read on the web about links only playing a 15-20% role in SEO. That's utter garbage. If you've got your on-page setup correctly(And most don't know how to do on-page, and by most I mean 95% of people) and keep sending strong contextual links every month you are going to see your site grow HARD.
Content is a funny one however..
Higher quality content does work better and it's more sustainable.
You can certainly reach page 1 with crap content, because, Google is just an algorithm.
It really doesn't know the difference between crap content and great content. It really just looks for relevancy signals, which is keyword usage, placements of those keywords and keywords it knows through the rank brain are related.
All that changed from 2010 to today with on-page is that Google now has the rank brain, so it knows "best toaster" is the same as "toaster reviews", and it knows when an article has more words like "top", "best", "great", "good", "reviewed", "picks" it's it's all related to reviews.
Even using a bunch of LSI's related to "toasters" isn't going to significantly increase your rank for "best toasters". Google doesn't want content that's related to fixing toasters, making toast, buttering toast, eating toast or any other type of toasting activity. It literally just wants pages that are reviewing toasters, and it'll try its best to identify the pages that are a really close match for that.
Even all the fancy user intention stuff doesn't change the game.
All that's doing is helping Google match up more obscure queries like "jaguar" with a specific keyword group. Ie, is "jaguar" part of the "what is a jaguar cat" keyword group, or is it part of the "jaguar cat pictures" keyword group, or the "show me jaguar dealerships" keyword group, or the "tell me about the jaguar car" keyword group.
However.. Most keywords are not obscure like that.
So the key to your content is to have both high quality content, that readers will enjoy and get value from, AND optimizing your content for the keyword group. Here's a little bullet point summary of the most important "content/on-page" considerations with the "why" behind it.
Back to the main point of the article..
Generally you get the people who are very quality focused, and they produce great sites, and have decent on-page, but they are just afraid to pull the trigger on links..
Their sites grow, slowly, making them a little money.
If you want to see some really distinctive results in SEO you need to invest in both.
Love your site. Treat it like your baby. Put time and energy into it.
But then juice her up with some links. She needs to grow.
Of course, this doesn't mean you go and buy every pbn package on the forum. Far from it.
Add 5-15 good contextual links per month. 2-5 the first 2-3 months, then 5-8 month 3-6, then from month 6, anything from 5 to 15 per month for as long as your site is alive. Don't ever stop adding links.
Use pbns to get your site up there and earning. Don't rely on them. Add 4-5 good pbn links per month for 6 months, then switch over to guest posts. You will never have any problems with 10-15 pbns. If it was that easy to get someone penalized you could just add a dozen pbn links and your competitors would be finished. 100's or 1000's of pbn links on the other hand is asking for trouble. I personally would never recommend more than 50 for a big site you want long term, or 30 for a smaller one.
There are exceptions, and some niches are just impossible to get guest posts for and all your competitors are using pbns. In these cases go more aggressive. I'm talking more about your regular clean authority sites that you want to build out and last for years. If thewirecutter.com had 50 pbn links no one would even notice. You won't hurt your authority site in the long run adding 30-50 pbn links. Don't be afriad to pull the trigger.
You get 2 main classes of webmasters.
Those that are disillusioned with link building and become overly obsessed with content.
And those that are too blackhat and just fill their sites with garbage content then blast it with pbns.
Neither of those strategies are particularly good.
For some reason very few people seem to want to invest more heavily in a content strategy, but also go more aggressive with their links. Perhaps because they're investing more in content they are more fearful of link building.
You NEED links. Despite some of the crap you read on the web about links only playing a 15-20% role in SEO. That's utter garbage. If you've got your on-page setup correctly(And most don't know how to do on-page, and by most I mean 95% of people) and keep sending strong contextual links every month you are going to see your site grow HARD.
Content is a funny one however..
Higher quality content does work better and it's more sustainable.
You can certainly reach page 1 with crap content, because, Google is just an algorithm.
It really doesn't know the difference between crap content and great content. It really just looks for relevancy signals, which is keyword usage, placements of those keywords and keywords it knows through the rank brain are related.
All that changed from 2010 to today with on-page is that Google now has the rank brain, so it knows "best toaster" is the same as "toaster reviews", and it knows when an article has more words like "top", "best", "great", "good", "reviewed", "picks" it's it's all related to reviews.
Even using a bunch of LSI's related to "toasters" isn't going to significantly increase your rank for "best toasters". Google doesn't want content that's related to fixing toasters, making toast, buttering toast, eating toast or any other type of toasting activity. It literally just wants pages that are reviewing toasters, and it'll try its best to identify the pages that are a really close match for that.
Even all the fancy user intention stuff doesn't change the game.
All that's doing is helping Google match up more obscure queries like "jaguar" with a specific keyword group. Ie, is "jaguar" part of the "what is a jaguar cat" keyword group, or is it part of the "jaguar cat pictures" keyword group, or the "show me jaguar dealerships" keyword group, or the "tell me about the jaguar car" keyword group.
However.. Most keywords are not obscure like that.
So the key to your content is to have both high quality content, that readers will enjoy and get value from, AND optimizing your content for the keyword group. Here's a little bullet point summary of the most important "content/on-page" considerations with the "why" behind it.
- High Quality Content
- Why? Because when you reach page 1 other factors become important to reach the top 3 like bounce rate and time spent on site. You won't stay in the top 3 if people keep hitting the back button. Also, once you do start ranking, you will get natural backlinks to your site if your content is good/helpful. (In most niches. This doesn't apply to local business sites, that just won't really get links)
- On-Page Optimization
- Why/What? You need to have your keywords used enough, and in the right places. Headings, first couple of paragraphs, and some variations. This is actually more of an art than a science. Don't spam a keyword dozens of times, but if you have a 4000 word article and you've got "best toasters" used twice, once in the title/h1 and once in the body, then you've failed at on-page seo.
- Internal Links
- Why/What? Super important and I see about 1 in 20 people actually doing it right. IF that. You should have virtual silos setup(unless your entire site is just 1 topic), and be linking around to other articles within that virtual silo. Link more to important pages and use aggressive anchors. 80-90% should be targeted anchors. One with "best toaster", one with "best toasters", another with "toaster reviews", another with "the best toasters", another with "we reviewed the best toasters" and so on. Don't be afraid to re-use "best toasters" 2-3 times though. You won't get penalized unless you go crazy and create dozens of articles all with the same exact anchor linking to your article. Even then, I don't know HOW aggressive you'd have to go to hurt your site with internal links. I've never seen anyone do it.
- Keyword Cannibalization
- Why/What? This is where you have 2 or more pages targeting the same keyword group. It's fairly common. You can only avoid this with experience. It's a hard one to teach. You have to look at what's currently ranking to figure it out. Ie, if you have(completely fictional example), "best toasters under $1000" and "best toasters under $900", then you have to look and see what ranks. Try to work out if google considers them different, or if many of the same pages rank. Tip: For most of the under $x they are in fact considered separate keyword groups
Back to the main point of the article..
Generally you get the people who are very quality focused, and they produce great sites, and have decent on-page, but they are just afraid to pull the trigger on links..
Their sites grow, slowly, making them a little money.
If you want to see some really distinctive results in SEO you need to invest in both.
Love your site. Treat it like your baby. Put time and energy into it.
But then juice her up with some links. She needs to grow.
Of course, this doesn't mean you go and buy every pbn package on the forum. Far from it.
Add 5-15 good contextual links per month. 2-5 the first 2-3 months, then 5-8 month 3-6, then from month 6, anything from 5 to 15 per month for as long as your site is alive. Don't ever stop adding links.
Use pbns to get your site up there and earning. Don't rely on them. Add 4-5 good pbn links per month for 6 months, then switch over to guest posts. You will never have any problems with 10-15 pbns. If it was that easy to get someone penalized you could just add a dozen pbn links and your competitors would be finished. 100's or 1000's of pbn links on the other hand is asking for trouble. I personally would never recommend more than 50 for a big site you want long term, or 30 for a smaller one.
There are exceptions, and some niches are just impossible to get guest posts for and all your competitors are using pbns. In these cases go more aggressive. I'm talking more about your regular clean authority sites that you want to build out and last for years. If thewirecutter.com had 50 pbn links no one would even notice. You won't hurt your authority site in the long run adding 30-50 pbn links. Don't be afriad to pull the trigger.
