In a world where the spectre of Penguins has made many simply run screaming from link building, it seems the fine folks at Bing aren’t as stringent. In fact, it is seemingly the least important thing to be worrying about. In a recent post on the Bing Blog, they noted a list of things to focus on, in order.. they were;
- Create unique, in depth content
- Social engagement
- User Experience/Usability
- Link Building
- Search engine optimization
Huh. For starters I have long believed in "attracting" links over building them. Yes, it’s far more work, but at the end of the day there’s less risk and hey, you might even build some authority. Secondly, I am a massive on-site SEO freak. It seems kinda backwards to be craftng content, promoting and garnering link equity, if it has been maximized on the site itself.
Anyway, I just thought it was interesting as I doubt we’d see ol Googly advising much of anything (positive) about link building, and certainly not above actual on-site optimization. Curious indeed….
Actually, they might be dumb like a fox…
I could see where this could pull a lot of folk’s attention to Bing, if they don’t mind walking a tightrope.
well in their list I only see one thing that isn’t in my personal SEO checklist… link building. Links aren’t built they are earned… just like trust.
Is it possible they want to encourage the best content development even though technically you could just focus on on-page SEO to get ranked on Bing — they don’t want to seem too simplistic? We’ve found that when we do on-page optimization and off-page link development according to Google’s guidelines, our clients’ sites shoot up on Bing too. We don’t try to strategize for both.
Semantics – link building is a term we’ve been using, in error. Bing’s list represents the signals, but what people don’t realize is the point of this post.
As said, you develop great content that “attracts” links.
Anyway, I like Terry’s comment as well. Links are earned.
So, shall we call it “link earning” or “link attraction?”
I feel ya Dana, but I have an even crazier idea; stop talking about them altogether. I mean, if one actually has a content strategy plus promotion (social, partnerships, PR etc) the links indeed build themselves and you are generally safe from any Google actions. Can’t say I’ve ever built a link to this site, to my personal blog, to the Dojo (which ranks nicely for some of her money terms like [SEO training] [SEO newsletter] and others).
Heck, my personal blog has some 50k links. Didn’t ‘build’ an damned one of em. I always tell peeps to “do something remarkable”
re·mark·a·ble – (Adjective) – Worthy of attention; striking.
So, hey… I guess we can go with “Link Attraction” (is the new link building!! lol)