Most Search Engine Optimisation experts focus hard on link building to gain good positions in search engine results pages. But are inbound links really all-powerful?
A links attitude problem
I’ve got an attitude problem. I find it impossible to make myself do boring things. And I find link building super-dull. So, apart from a handful of quality semi automated directory submissions every now and again, I don’t do it.
Despite having very few backlinks, my freelance copywriting website has consistently appeared on page 1 of Google for my top key phrases for more than two years… and counting. So are backlinks really as influential as they’re cracked up to be?
This is exactly what I do to keep my copywriting services site on page 1 of Google:
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add a single page .pdf newsheet to my freelance copywriting news page every month
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put fresh links on my copywriting portfolio page as and when I finish a suitable project
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update my facebook-style ‘status’ line on the index page every day
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update an interesting word of the day line on my SEO page daily
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write blog posts once a week, sometimes more
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update my on site marketing ebook offer every month
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add new testimonials every time a customer says something nice about my work
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incorporate my keywords in all of the above except my ‘status’ and interesting word of the day lines
What’s going on?
I have a theory. I reckon search engine algorithms place much more importance on fresh, relevant, regularly updated content than many of us realise.
It seems to make sense. Google loves fairness. And it encourages quality. Any SEO expert will tell you that it’s fairly easy to automate backlinks, building hundreds or even thousands in minutes without Google ‘noticing’. Quality site content, on the other hand, is harder to manipulate.
It’s only a theory. But it seems to fit what’s been happening to my freelance copywriting dotcom site. The same goes for my ebooks website and my dotcodotuk SEO copywriting site, both of which I’ve got onto P1 Google using the same methods.
