Is Natural Backlink Development Still Worthwhile Or Now A Waste Of Time?
Many search marketing consultants have been commentating recently on the impending end of natural backlink gathering as a way of developing the of a website’s pages. There are many suggestions that increased use of social media is now more important. One expert has recently published a major article detailing an exercise he carried out to illustrate how tools that have been successful previously to accumulate backlinks now seem to have a lesser influence, even if one follows the guidelines created by Google.
It is estimated that about twenty percent of backlinks associated with a website arise from accepted tools such as composing promotional features on off-page blogs intended to influence search engine positioning even though most internet users are not aware of them. This leaves four times as many backlinks that must be accumulated from other sources. Most of these could be named editorial backlinks, where someone connected has somehow found something of interest on your website and has chosen to make a reference to your site from his. This whole concept leads to several questions. There is the assumption that you have produced content on your website on a direct blog that others want to read. This content will certainly be found from a search, so what has been produced still needs to be optimised for keywords.
The heaviest users of direct blogs are special interest groups – such as search engine optimisation experts. One will publish a feature on his blog commenting on some aspect of search optimization, and this article attracts editorial backlinks from other optimization experts all complementing each other’s work. On the face of it, these backlinks are no more worthwhile than those obtained from off-page search optimization articles. If special interest groups start using social services more, it appears as if it will be more self-serving references but just inside a different network.
For a small organisation, maintaining a direct blog is difficult to justify. A local plumber is going to attract more trade through a local keyword search than by creating a weekly blog on plumbing techniques that another site finds interesting enough to reference. For a small organisation, editorial backlinks are already difficult to obtain so will have little influence on its rankings. It is also hard to see how social media references will make any difference. Should the local plumber open a Facebook page to gather members who are satisfied customers? This is easier to justify for a large organisation with a known brand, who can support those members.
The factors that affect search engine positioning are always changing. Social media may now be a greater element, but it is too soon to say that backlinks no longer matter. For small enterprises it is hard to justify a presence in a social network and to appreciate any benefits. Backlink numbers and quality are still very important to search facility ranking, and while that remains so the use of search engine optimisation plans to elevate the natural rankings is still worthwhile, and backlink gathering stays part of it.
