Which One Is More Important In SEO? Link Building Or Quality Content?

There is always a confusion among the people regarding what they should follow for SEO, either the content marketing or link building. We have created this post to guide our readers about the confusion. First, we will talk about SEO, link building, content marketing, their benefits and lastly which is the better option.

SEO

SEO is the abbreviation of search engine optimization. This a complete and a detailed process used by the people to improve the website rankings, increase organic traffic and sell more products or services. There are a lot of things integral for SEO. Link building and content marketing are two of the important pillars of SEO.

Link Building

This is a process of getting inbound links or backlinks for your site on other but relevant websites. There are over dozens of strategies used for link building, like guest posting, broken link building, blogging, customer reviews, commenting, creating visual content and the others.

Link building is one of the factors search engines consider when it comes to the website rankings in organic search. Among the 200 factors, this is one and more important than most of the factors. The more backlinks a website gets, the faster it will be ranked.

Quality Content

This is another technique used for SEO of a website. In this method, quality and valuable content is created and distributed. The SEO experts hire writers or create the content by themselves. This is also a very effective way to improve the site ranking.

Link Building vs Content Marketing

This is the real problem for many people. Everyone seems to be confused these days. SEO is changing with the passage of time. Any technique now can become illegal tomorrow. With such an uncertain situation, people want to spend their time and invest in something that offers them reliable results.

Below are some factors that will help you figure out which strategy you should follow.

1. Goals

Find out what you want to achieve. Link building offers quick results, ranks a site on top and is relatively cheaper when it comes to the cost. You can get backlinks from friends, other relevant sites, influencers, through directories, commenting, mentions and even by social shares. But the results are not reliable. Any link building strategy may change and you will have to follow the new rules.

On the other side, content marketing is a bit slow. It provides results slowly but gradually. This is more hectic and requires more work. You will work for a longer time period and it doesn’t offer quick results. But it is more effective if you want to build a business or brand for long time period. This is a strategy that will work all the time.

2. Time and Resources

The other important factor to consider is time and resources. For link building, you don’t need much time and resources. This is cheaper and not costly like content marketing. With 2-3 persons, you can do effective link building. If you want quick and instant results, this is for you.

While the content marketing requires more time. It also needs more resources. You will invest for some time and the results will be visible then. For creating content, you need more time, writers as well as money. Videos, visual content, infographics are time taking and difficult too.

3. Your Team

This is something everyone should consider. If you have a team for link building, they cannot do content marketing. For link building, no writing skills or technical knowledge is required. But for content writing, you need writers, designers for infographics, editors as well as video makers. Choose the option according to your team.

Link Building for SEO

We have talked about link building in brief. Now we will cover the details, its pros and cons, strategies used for link building and what good it can do for your business. Following are some of the strategies with which you can do link building for SEO of your websites.

1. Guest Posting

This is the most common practice used for link building. In this method, you outreach and search the relevant sites. It is ensured that the sites where you want to get your content published are relevant, have same niche, good quality traffic comes from them and they also have high domain authority.

After sharing content there, you are linked to the post. That means, any page, section or the homepage of your site is hyperlinked. People who find it relevant refer to your site. This increases the site traffic as well as ranking.

2. Directories

Another method used for link building is to find the websites where directories and listings have been added. Such sites have lists of businesses, companies, professionals as well as public figures and link their sites. This offers a number of quality backlinks for the websites.

3. Internal Links

This method is also called writing blog posts. You will link your pages or sections on your own site. For this, you need regular guest posts to keep the readers and customers engaged in the content. You can then backlink your own sites in new blog posts. This a very useful method for getting backlinks and it costs nothing at all.

4. Dead Link Building

As you keep building links back to your site, many of them become dead after some time. There can be different reasons for that. But this is a great opportunity to create new backlinks and improve the site ranking. For this, you will need to find out all broken links and hyperlink new pages or sections. This increases referral traffic as well as improves site ranking.

Pros and Cons of Link Building

Pros
Time saving
Quick results
Cheaper as well as easier
No special skills required

Cons
Not recommended for the long run
Unstable results
Rules keep changing from time to time
Not good for building brand reputation

Content Marketing for SEO

Content marketing is all about creating the best quality and unique content. Below are some strategies used in content marketing for SEO with their pros and cons.

1. Creating Content

The basic thing about content marketing is you will need regular content. The content should be unique, original and not plagiarized. There should be something for every visitor as well as the customers. If you are following content marketing for SEO, you must be very serious. Your content is everything and it defines your success.

2. Videos & Infographics

Visual content is more effective than simple blog posts or guest posts. People prefer visuals and images than text. So a robust and effective content marketing strategy never ignores videos and infographics. With visual content, you can create some outstanding posts based on research work. This offers backlinks as well as social shares.

3. Interviews

In every content marketing, interviews are included. You will do interviews of influencers and tycoons of your business niche. This can be an audio interview, a written post, a vlog or a blog post. People really like to read experts. This type of content gets better response as well as social shares. You can select few people every month and do their interviews to keep users engaged on your site.

4. eBooks & Programs

This method is a bit difficult and time consuming. But you cannot underestimate the results of creating Ebooks and programs. You will have to offer free books, programs and research studies to the customers. Those will be shared and read by thousands of people. This helps in building the brand reputation and making a business better known for quality content.

5. Articles & Columns

Articles are really effective. If you are known as the best content source in your niche, you have to look for and try every content marketing option. Invite influencers, businessmen, public figures and experts to share their articles with you. You may offer something but that will be possible only when you are making enough profits.

6. Tutorial and Guides

People want to learn more and they try to find quality content. This can be anything, a guide, a tutorial, a guest post, a blog or even a press release. You have to create content for the users, not for the search engines. When you will learn why customers are important, your content will become qualitative and better.

7. Social Sites

Social networking sites are a great source when it comes to content marketing. You can get millions of visitors if you believe in offering quality content. This can be a new website that provides entertainment stuff, inspirational content or something people would love to read. You can share your content on social sites and it will offer you a lot of traffic.

Many people have built reputation for quality and engaging content. BuzzFeed, BoredPanda, Littlethings and many others are rocking in content sector.

Pros and Cons of Content Marketing

Pros
Better for long term results
Builds a better brand reputation
Effective for a stable business
Same rules and laws
No change in policies
Can be effective today and even after a year

Cons
Time consuming
Hectic and difficult
Needs more resources
Relatively expensive option

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