Secrets of how to escape the link building trap now

It is now pretty well accepted that many SEO technicians consider link building to be the most important part of the service they provide. Link building is more important than keyword research, more important than measuring conversions and return on investment, more important than managing crawl and indexing, more important than increasing search visibility and referrals.

How do you build links? Do you drop them in social media sites, blogs, and forums? Do you send out emails to unsuspecting Webmasters, asking them to link to your site? Do you buy or rent links? Do you swap links with other Webmasters through reciprocal programs?

Every one of those practices has its defenders and detractors. They are all unethical and they are all ethical. They are best practices and worst practices.

About the only thing they have in common is that they are expensive, inefficient methods used to optimize for search.

If you’re looking for quick effective ways to build relevant, value-passing links without spending a lot of money, here are three suggestions. They come with no guarantees. They don’t violate any search engine guidelines. But you can almost bet your front teeth that someone will object to them.

Create microsites – I have not articulated my microsite vision very clearly for a variety of reasons. The most important reason is that microsite methodologies vary. Some of them suck and some of them are mediocre and some of them rock. Personally, I find microsites to be time-consuming and high maintenance but they can still provide you with all the link love you need if you do them right. “Do them right” includes using them only where appropriate, which means they don’t work well in all situations (that goes back to the “some (microsite methodologies) suck” part above).

When To Use Microsites
–When you have two or more sub-brands worth building dedicated sites for
–When you have a marketing plan for those two or more sub-brands
–When you have the resources to build those microsites in a timely fashion
–When you have the resources to maintain those microsites

Pros of Microsites
–You control the resources and so you set the standard for quality
–You can place or update your links on your timetable, not someone else’s
–You can always ensure your links are relevant

Cons of Microsites
–You cannot build enough of them for competitive queries
–They are high maintenance, meaning you should update them at least once a year
–They need marketing strategies in order to succeed
–They siphon off resources from your main site and its marketing plan

Create blogs – The difference between a blog and a microsite is that a blog is an application you place anywhere. A microsite is a Web site. You might create a microsite that is nothing more than a blog. You might create a blog that is nothing more than a microsite. Yes, there is some overlap.

Blogs work best when they are updated often, when they ping, when they have interesting and coherent content, and when they are focused on the content (advertising-free blogs are the best resources for link making).

When To Use Blogs
–When you have a lot of copy that can be easily categorized
–When you have the resources to create blogs (or you are comfortable using free services)
–When you really don’t have any idea of how to organize or present the copy beyond the simple tagging and categorization the blog facilitates

Pros of Blogs
–They are usually easy to set up and low-maintenance
–They are more powerful and flexible than widgets, gadgets, gizmos, and plug-ins
–They allow you to populate multiple domains/subdomains quickly

Cons of Blogs
–They require regular posting in order to work efficiently
–They require regular maintenance for security and performance
–They limit your presentation and organization

Blogs are not miracle tools. They require a lot of hard work but you can create a lot of value-passing links through blogs.

Subscription Article Distribution – In other words, joining a network like Fantomaster’s 10 Links A Day (which, so far as I know, is not associated with the several years’ old 10 Links A Day blog). Free article and press release distribution have been available for years and many SEO technicians still use them.

I don’t really like free article distribution. I’ve experimented with free article distribution (you can find some articles I submitted to EzineArticles.com, for example). I’ve also distributed press releases. I just don’t feel like they provide the oomph I want.

Now, I don’t know how many networks like the 10 Links A Day service exist. Fantomaster pioneered the concept with the experimental 20 Links A Day service. 10 Links A Day seems to be the post-beta fully commercialized Version 1.0 rollout of the service.

How does it work? You buy a monthly subscription to the service. Once you join, you submit original, human-composed articles to the service. They have to be coherent and sensible — no machine-generated mush, no spammy mashups. You have to meet minimum quality standards (I know of no exceptions). The articles are reviewed to ensure compliance with the standards and then published somewhere on the network — you do NOT get to pick where the articles go.

When to use Subscription Article Distribution
–When you want a lot of relevant links in a short period of time
–When you don’t have much of a link budget to work with
–When you can produce a lot of well-written copy quickly

Pros of Subscription Article Distribution
–You know your content will be placed next to content that had to meet the same editorial guidelines
–You control how your links are embedded in relevant copy
–Your links will come from many domains constantly acquiring trust and PageRank

Cons of Subscription Article Distribution
–It’s too expensive for only occasional article writing
–You have no idea of where your articles will appear in the network
–Some people question what happens after you stop paying
–Search engines have not endorsed the concept

A Word About Fantomaster’s Service
First of all, let me say that I have used the original 20 Links A Day service. Being one of Fantomaster’s customers, any recommendation I might make about the service would be biased — not because he would reward me (he had no idea I was going to write this article and I expect no compensation and really could not accept any if he offered it) — but simply because I would have a vested interest in seeing other people support the service. Keep that in mind.

A Subscription Article Distribution service needs a minimum number of clients in order to succeed — they have to populate a lot of Web sites with a lot of original copy. Fantomaster, being who he is, had an advantage over anyone else who might want to launch such a network. He’s well known, highly respected, and has the programming resources to make this kind of service work. But if I tell you to join the service I’ll benefit because I know the service will stay in business and its inventory of original content will continue growing.

So I am NOT telling you to join the service. You have to make that decision for yourself. If you’re spending money on links you’re taking risks and spending money on links. Maybe this is a better alternative.

I have checked out the promotional “page” Fantomaster put up for the 10 Links A Day site and I must say that he has proven that ugly, endlessly scrolling pages can still work (actually, he breaks all the classic Web marketing taboos by autolaunching an audiofile that tells you to watch the videos before you sign up).

It’s only a matter of time before someone starts up a competitive service and I think the model could well speed the end of traditional link building. It’s a lot less expensive, a lot less tedious, less risky, and you get results faster than through all that “please link to my Web site” begging many SEO bloggers still advise you to do.

You’re paying for access to an elite network. You’re not guaranteed that every article will be published. Some articles are rejected (you should read the entire FAQ — it covers a lot of issues). You can always rewrite any rejected article, of course. And I’ve heard some concerns about what happens if you stop paying (NOTE: the articles and links stay in place).

Nor does the service guarantee that any search engine will find and index your content or allow the links to pass value. Sure, that’s the point of the service but Fantomaster has been around long enough to know better than to offer bogus guarantees.

And the site pitches some other stuff I have not checked out. I don’t know anything about the “bonus” materials they have thrown in to the Version 1.0 service.

Wrapping Up

Finally, I do NOT get all my links from any one methodology or resource. Sometimes I do stuff just to see if it works (I’m a theoretician, after all — an algorithm chaser). You won’t find everything I do here on SEO Theory.

But the three methods I’ve described in this article are without a doubt powerful, effective, cost-effective, efficient methods for “building” value-passing links. These three methods are — in my opinion — more ethical than dropping links in forums, compliant with search engine guidelines, not risky, and more efficient than all the link baiting, social media manipulating, script-dependent, invasive, intrusive, abusive link building techniques that the majority of SEO bloggers advocate today.

No one can guarantee you that any search engine will index your content or allow your links to pass value. But if you create original content and promote it fairly, the search engines really have no reason to ignore your sites. If you have the ability to create 100 blogs and post original content to them on a frequent basis, there’s nothing unethical in doing so. If you have the ability to create 1,000 static Web sites with original content, there’s nothing unethical in doing so (but keep in mind I am NOT recommending you interlink them all together).

If you lack the resources to “build” links in volume, there are alternatives to the expensive, risky, spammy techniques in widespread use today. I as a Webmaster absolutely detest receiving email from strangers telling me I should link to their sites (especially when they include some stupid reference to Google’s Toolbar PR). I hate not being able to control the quality of the sites that provide the links I acquire. And I just don’t want to see any more link drops in forums, either my own or other people’s forums.

Truth be told, I’ve discussed all of these techniques in the past, but I think it’s time people really began to see what search engine optimization really is all about: it’s all about the content, it’s all about the content, it’s all about the content.

If you create content, you should be creating links, too. When you understand how to leverage your content you’ll never wish for links again. They’ll be right at your fingertips. You cannot get better SEO advice than that in this day and age.

You don’t have to ever “build” links again.