Spammy Linking Strategies: Just Stop It! Now!
Okay. I wasn’t going to say anything but this week’s experiences forced my hand. I’m still finding potential clients who come to us for SEO services suffering the ill-effects of spammy link strategies.
The bottom line is Google said STOP a long time ago and if that’s who you want to “impress” then it stands to reason that you should follow their lead.
Plus – SEO is so much more than that. Filling your website with thousands of people for a handful of keywords you think are cool is no closer to legitimate internet marketing than herding a crowd of people into your store with a gun (cue scene from The Simpsons where Homer tries to market the bowling alley he works at with a shotgun).
Okay, the last illustration was a little bit of hyperbole, however, the attitude behind it does sometimes ring true for people’s approach to SEO – as many people as possible for the highest traffic keywords that are vaguely related to the site’s content.
Without going into a rant about what legitimate internet marketing is, the bottom line is that you need traffic but you also need the “right type of traffic” (your website’s targeted demographic) which you then have to give the right experience to so that they complete “the most desired action/s” on your website (purchase, ask for a quote, enquire etc).
Tell Your SEO Company To STOP!
If you’re paying an SEO company good money to rank your website and they are employing a spammy link strategy – tell them to STOP!
- If they even mention outsourcing linking – Tell them to STOP!
- If they are sending you a monthly report which tells you how many links they got for your site – tell them to STOP! (note I said ‘how many’)
- If they are banging on about your PageRank – tell them to STOP!
- If you find your site linked from a random page from a UK site about quilting blankets for dogs – tell them to STOP! (unless of course, you sell quilted blankets for dogs)
- If you get emails from reputable directory websites saying that someone representing your company (generally with a poor handle of English grammar) tried to submit a listing for their directory which exclusively services X industry or X geographical location – Tell them to STOP!
- If the words blog comments, forums, profiles and links are contained within the same sentence when you have a conversation with them – Tell them to STOP!
If they suggest buying links, chances are you’ve strayed into the bad side of town without knowing it – back away slowly and don’t let them touch your website. (If you intended to buy links and know full well the risks – I’m surprised you got this far or even found this blog post – you can stop reading now.)
‘Nuff Said
I think it’s pretty obvious (and I thought it has been for at least 23 months) that linking has taken a different place within your website’s SEO strategy from the “Good Old Days”. Yes it still has it’s placed and is still important but your SEO company (or yourself if you’re DIY SEO-ing) needs to work harder to elicit high-quality relevant links through to the website. They should be doing this and so much more to market your website and anything less won’t cut it now or moving forward – that’s why you pay them the big bucks right?
