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Link-building for SEO – dead?

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Do back-links still add value following Google’s recent updates?

Following significant changes to Google’s ranking algorithm in 2012, many SEO practitioners have started to question the overall value of back-links and if they still represent a strong ranking signal. The answer to this is an unequivocal “yes” although much more consideration needs to be given to the source of the link and how the link is configured. Do this shabbily and stand-by for Google ranking penalties….

A quick recap on the history of link-building

Link building has always been the primary component for off-site SEO. Google classes incoming links to a website as a vote of confidence and can improve your website ranking accordingly if it considers the links to be valuable. Good quality links i.e. from relevant and authoritative sites have always been valuable but up until recently lots of lower quality links could also work well – quite literally quantity being used to make up for a lack of quality.

Lots of SEO firms used the “quantity over quality” tactic to get decent results, usually by outsourcing the link-building to cheap offshore companies. However, Google caught up on this tactic in the early part of 2012 and handed out stiff ranking penalties to many websites who had pursued the technique. Overnight, SEO became more about removing poor back-links rather than building them! Even then, some websites never recovered their old rankings.

So link-building for SEO has been given a major shake-up and new strategies have to be employed.

Link-building – the future

Google has stated that forced link-building is contrary to their publishing guidelines and can attract ranking penalties. They advise that websites that publish high-quality content will attract links naturally and rise to the top. This is fine in theory, but in practice will small local businesses, including dentists, be able to produce lots of scintillating content consistently to attract sufficient links? The answer to that is probably not. Consequently there will still be a place for link-building but using more ethical, non-forced methodologies. Competent search engine optimisation companies have already completely repositioned their strategies accordingly.

Characteristics for links – 2013 and onward:

  • from good-quality, preferably “on theme” sites. For SEO for dental websites we recommend “health” related as a minimum, preferably dental – forget low-spec directories and article sites
  • mixed anchor text – use of contextually relevant anchor text, not just keywords
  • target pages – links should point back to a wide range of pages on the target site, not just the main headline pages
  • significant use the the company brand name and the plain website url in the link structure
  • “earned” links generated by broadcasting relevant content to social media channels – the best strategies moving forward will be underpinned by great content, blogging and active use of social channels to generate and earn links
  • “Likes”, “shares”, “+1’s” – whilst not links as such, it appears that Google is now giving increased value to social sharing, similar to the way it see’s a traditional link as a vote of confidence for you website.

Summary

Link-building for SEO is not dead – on the contrary it is still a very important factor. However, techniques used to gain links have changed significantly with an increased emphasis on quality. New factors are in play including the generation of content and the use of social media to help “earn” links and encourage social sharing.

For a no-obligation discussion about SEO for your dental website, please call us on 01332 672548.