Back-links or incoming links to a website is one of the most important factors for ranking high on search engines. Most search engines including Google, Yahoo and Bing use back-links to determine the value and relevance of a website and use it to decide if your website is the right match for a given search terms.

SEO experts across the world have been devoting a large share of their time on link building. Up until recently, this has been the most effective way to improve the rank of a website on search engines. But this has now changed.

There is more to link-building than working aimlessly to obtain as many inbound links to your website as possible. Although the total number of incoming links is important to some extent, the quality of the links plays an even greater part in determining your rank.

The days of aggressive link building schemes are gone. Today, search engines, in particular Google, have become smarter at detecting low quality links that are obtained purely for the purpose of influencing search engine rank. These links are now discounted and have little to no impact on your website’s rank. In fact, too many poor quality or irrelevant links can hurt your SEO efforts and even result in the loss of ranking and authority.

The Old Way to Build Links

Up until a few years ago, SEO primarily involved working actively towards obtaining links from relevant websites. SEO experts worked tirelessly towards negotiating and obtaining inbound links from as many relevant websites as they could manage. This strategy worked for many years and many websites were able to rank at the top of Google on the back of aggressive link building schemes.

However, all this has not changed.  Google has become much smarter at recognising such tactics and this has led to a major shift in link building and SEO. This has forced businesses to find new innovative ways to build links.

The New Way

Recent changes to Google’s algorithm have had a big impact on the SEO industry. It has completely changed the way link building and SEO are performed. Many of the methods that previously yielded good results have now become ineffective and in extreme cases can get your website penalised by search engines. This can be detrimental for your business and can be very difficult to recover from.

Today, in order to be successful with SEO, businesses must adopt a more indirect approach to link building. The focus must be on creating valuable content and resources that attract quality one way links purely because others find it useful enough to link to. This content driven approach to attracting links is the best way forward and produces far better results.

Content Marketing – The Way Forward

Many marketers today see content marketing as the new SEO.

Businesses must focus on producing and distributing quality content to attract back-links and improve their SEO instead of taking part in link building schemes. Focusing your efforts on content marketing instead can prove very beneficial for your business. Producing quality content on your website will not only attract quality one-way links to your website and improve your search engine rank, but will also contribute to your online authority and reputation.

You will also benefit from direct referral traffic whenever your content is reprinted or reference on other websites and blogs. Content marketing is indeed the best way forward for businesses that are serious about their online presence. It is the best way to promote your business online and also the best strategy to improve your search engine.

What About You?

What link building methods do  you use to promote your website? Are you still relying on old link building tactics to improve your website’s rank on search engines?  We would like to hear from you. Please add your responses by leaving a comment below.