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Avatar Went Hot: February 26, 2008 - 7:40 pm
Posted By: DoshDosh 148 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://searchengineland.com)
Category: Link Building
"Content is king." If you're like me, you've heard that phrase more times than you can count. And for the most part, it's true. Truly unique content can make or break your link development campaign. If you have it, you'll find attracting quality links takes minimal effort for exceptional results. Without it, you'll find link development to be a daunting and uphill battle. But while content may be king, you'd be well advised to remember that even the best king can be dethroned.
11 Comments     

Comments

from linkmoses 148 days ago #
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Excellent points Rae and welcome to LinkWeek!!
The best content in the world is meaningless until
someone knows about it, and more importanly, links
to it.  Until then, it's just files on a server, growing mold.

Eric

from sza 148 days ago #
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"How depending only on quality content ..." would have been a less attention-grabbing, but at the same time also less deceptive title.

from Sugarrae 147 days ago #
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IMHO, you're just nitpicking the meaning... the title wasn't meant to be deceptive... it was how it came out in my head... "Why you shouldn't depend on your paycheck to build your retirement account" is no more deceptive than "Why you shouldn't depend ONLY on your paycheck to build your retirement account"... except that you're not looking at that one under a microscope...

from kevinheisler 147 days ago #
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Suggarrae - i think everyone would agree your title's not deceptive. Great post.

from baiduyou 147 days ago #
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Great post Rae

from sza 147 days ago #
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Nitpicking, perhaps.

The concept of quality content costing links is counter-intuitive, therefore it raises the interest. People see it and think, what the hell? (I did.)

On the other hand, the idea that you shouldn't exclusively rely on quality content but you should also actively promote it is good advice (and I absolutely agree with it), but it's common sense.

That's why I think the title without "only" is meant to be more controversial-sounding than the actual article is. And this is "deceptive" in my dictionary. The article itself is OK, it's only the title...

from hugoguzman 147 days ago #
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I like the column, but I feel like it's sort of restating a given.

The point here is that all things being equal, a site with quality content will facilitate link-building outreach much better than one with less (or no) quality content.

Put it to you this way, if two sites did little or no promotion (like the site referenced in this post) but one had quality content on an ongoing basis, and the other didn't, guess which one would probably attract more unsolicited links?

from aemberygood 147 days ago #
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Thanks for the article! It is a good read :)

@ hugoguzman - Marketing is all about soliciting and ultimately it is those who produce good content and network for links that benefit ;)

from hugoguzman 147 days ago #
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That's my point, though.

This article seems to state a given, but spins it as if it where an original insight.

from richiepear 147 days ago #
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Good post.  The last point is critical - you won't get links if you don't link in return

-  link out when it makes sense and follow up with notifications to companies or people who have been mentioned or cited in the article once it has been published 

from Sugarrae 146 days ago #
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>>>but I feel like it's sort of restating a given

If it were a given, in all honesty, I wouldn't have been able to write it because the other competing site (and it is a high dollar site, it's not a one man shop) would have done "the given" and gotten the links two days before me.

A lot of SEO is a "given". It is a "given" that you should have unique title tags on every page, yet, it is the most common error I see when looking at sites in site clinics from companies who care enough about/are into seo enough to pay to send employees to a conference.

The link within the post to the "unique content" article doesn't state anything more than the "given" either, but sometimes explaining something in a new way can make the majority who don't automatically get what a minority of us consider a "given"get it. Additionally, my other attempt was to get people to realize how many links you can actually leave on the table by depending on your content alone. Remember, the other site got 40 links - that isn't a bad haul at the end of the day and one a lot of webmasters would be happy with... but they left now over 1000 on the table...

@richiepear - agreed... we have had numerous sites this year telling us they'll link to us over the competition whenever possible because we at least do the same when they have something of interest, when the competition is extremely stingy with outbound link flow (and a lot of these are industries that don't "get" SEO... they simply do it to be stingy LOL).


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