Comments on: Writing Great Content Will NOT Get You Links

By: Scott Stembridge

Scott Stembridge — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 10:42:52 +0000

Thanks Patric great article,

I think with the intersection of social media, Googles hormonal issues and human evolution, the general theme that runs through the internet today is if you what to share what you’ve got with as many people as you can, it boils down to creating relevant, quality content for your audience.

When you give out value that is what you will eventually receive.

By: Grace Maintenance

Grace Maintenance — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 09:25:24 +0000

Great article. As mentioned in another post already, Iam really impressed by the guest blogging tip. It would really require a lot of courage to publish our article in somebody else’s post. But the idea is really good. I would try it out one of these days. Thanks for the insight.

By: Patrick Hathaway

Patrick Hathaway — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 13:50:35 +0000

Hi Sun,
I wouldn’t really recommend that as an SEO strategy. I would setup WordPress on your site (under example.com/blog) and go about producing high quality content for your blog that will hopefully start to attract links. This way you could end up with plenty of links pointing into your domain, rather than the single link you would get from the separate blog.

In regards to setting up a little network of blogs all linking to your site, I also would not recommend this as a starting strategy. You could certainly guarantee links this way, but they would be very low quality links and not pass a great deal of value.

I think the main issue is thinking of your blog as ‘a means to an end’, the point of my post was to think of it as more than a link building method.

Thanks,
Patrick

By: Sun Martial

Sun Martial — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 04:18:52 +0000

Hi Patrick
Great article…very helpful thanks.
I am just launching a new business (and website), and one of the SEO strategies I’m looking at is to set up a separate blog on WordPress, do all the things you talk about in your blog, and then link to my website from my blog, to hopefully get a good quality link.
Have you got any comment on this strategy? If my ultimate aim is to improve the SEO on my website (not my blog – that is just the means to the ned), then should I be setting up different blog sites to get more links to my website. (I do take your point about developing relationships rather than seeking links, which I’m guessing is all about improving the quality of the links that you do actually end up getting.)
Appreciate your feedback.
Thanks
Sun Martial

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:07:43 +0000

Great words of wisdom Patrick… I’m particularly intrigued about the guest blogging tip. It seems this is really catching on, although I haven’t pursued it yet out of fear of the ‘unknown’. I guess I’m rapidly becoming one of those bloggers on the ‘left hand side’ of that ‘visitors overview’ chart above. You’ve described the benefits of guest blogging well, but do you have any recommendations on how to get invited, or where to look for guest blogging opportunities (easy one’s to start out with and to build confidence) 😉 Thank you…

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 03:31:55 +0000

Thanks for this. As a writer, I fell into the trap of thinking just writing great content was enough. It was a “build/write it and they will come” mentality. Sure I knew about SEO and figured a couple of fiverr gigs would take care of link building. But over the last couple of months, I’ve come to realize that my content is my most important asset and that my best creative efforts can’t stop when I click the “publish” button. Thanks for some great ideas on how to take promoting my content up to the next level.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:01:07 +0000

I love this article! This is a step so many bloggers (myself included) often omit. We hit “publish” on our posts and call it a day. Brian Clark from Copyblogger used many of these promotion techniques to grow his blog, and I’d say the effort worked pretty well for him.

Thanks for the great information!
Jenny

By: Ally @rta cabinets

Ally @rta cabinets — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:40:00 +0000

Great article! I agree.. you can have all the great content you want, but without promoting it, no one will see it. Very inspiring tips… esp the Google Analytics graph at the end.. thanks for sharing!

By: Patrick Hathaway

Patrick Hathaway — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:06:23 +0000

In reply to James Debono.

Thanks for the comment James, getting an audience engaged in the first place is a hard slog, but can be more than worth it in the long term.

By: Patrick Hathaway

Patrick Hathaway — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 11:03:53 +0000

In reply to Brent Truitt.

Hi Brent,
Thanks for the comment. Your example is interesting, I would love to know the specific blog?

However I wasn’t trying to say it is impossible to get links solely from good content, simply that relying entirely on that tactic is not advisable in most cases (would you disagree with that comment?).

It is also fair to say that the social landscape has changed somewhat since 2008, and most ‘proper’ blogs require a level of social interaction so that the community does not feel empty.