The Relevance of Link Building 2013

 Link building is a term that has gotten a bad reputation in the SEO world recently with Google's latest algorithm changes and updates. It is a term that takes many to a vision of spam, pop-ups, and all things harmful and annoying in the online world.

 But what exactly is the role of link building in modern SEO? Eric Enge of Stone Temple Consulting recently sat down for an interview with Matt Cutts, the head engineer, creator, and gatekeeper for Google's latest anti-webspam SEO campaign, in which, Cutts had this to say about the topic:

"not all link building is bad. The philosophy that we’ve always had is if you make something that’s compelling then it would be much easier to get people to write about it and to link to it. And so a lot of people approach it from a direction that’s backwards. They try to get the links first and then they want to be grandfathered in or think they will be a successful website as a result.

Their goal should really be to make a fantastic website that people love and tell their friends about and link to and want to experience. As a result, your website starts to become stronger and stronger in the rankings."

Not a bad sentiment, but it is a far cry for the automated ease of link farming and banner havoc that many old-school SEO specialists grew up utilizing. So, link building is still a very viable aspect of modern SEO and content marketing, but specialists need to make sure that they are achieving high-quality, reputable links. 

Online businesses must keep their campaigns focused, intriguing, and easy to discuss. It is only through this that businesses will achieve the results that Cutts alludes to. Many companies are now experimenting with video and photo/infographic based marketing schemes with much success.

 It is certainly a visual, short-attention span world out there, and marketers are starting to see that short compelling bursts of information can be far more effective than long drawn-out articles. It is all about capturing interest and generating momentum, and quality over quantity has certainly become the name of the game in this realm.

Your Mobile Website is Making you Lose Customers

Why is it important to have a good mobile site?

With everyone starting to use their mobile phones to look up simple things on the internet, why is it important to have a mobile website that is easy to friendly to the user?

Here’s a scenario that many of you have probably experienced before. You want to look up a local burrito place so you do a quick Google search on your iPhone. You get a nice list of burrito restaurants in the area. You finger down the organic list and come across a burrito place that sounds appealing. So you tap on the blue link and you get the most inconvenient thing you have ever come across.

First off the font is too big to fit on one page, and then you notice you can’t zoom out and the giant font is just the default page. You try to ignore this and click on the menu button to find prices, every time you tap the menu it brings you back to the home page. This website was taking you into an infinite loop of homepages and you decide not to go to that place and move on.

You navigate yourself back to the Google Search page and shake off the last terrible webpage you were just on. As your stomach starts to growl you hopefully tap on another burrito restaurants website. You are instantly surprised.

The page is the nicest thing you have ever seen. It is beautifully designed and easy to navigate through. The menu is a nice image that you can tap on and view the whole menu and are able to zoom in for prices, the phone number is ready to be clicked on to make a phone call and the address is ready to be entered into your navigation.

Now, if you were a hungry consumer, what burrito place would you go to? I like to think that most of us would go to the second burrito place that has an easy website to access and get to.

Also, think of your businesses mobile website? Is it optimized for a smart phone to get on? If it isn’t, today would be a good day to think about making your website able to be accessed easily from a smartphone.