Take a look at the sites that are now ranking highest for the most sought after keywords on the Internet.  What you’re going to find, time and time again, is very poor content with little to no onsite optimization. It seems all a site has to do nowadays is include its keywords in the title tags, and then move on to the link building.  Sites written in very poor English, riddled with grammar errors and unreadable content, have risen to the very top of our search engines.  These Webmaster, with obviously very cunning link building strategies, have conquered their naïve, hardworking competitors, and produced high page ranking slop. It appears that the search engine gods have leaned so far towards offsite optimization, that you are now likely to find all kinds of rubbish at the top of your searches. Content is dead.  Long live the mighty page rank. 

 

     The most ridiculous part, however, is that there are still SEO experts and webmasters spewing out all kinds of nonsense about the importance of building great content for SEO.  “Build great content and the links will come,” they say.  Meanwhile these same webmasters are writing silly little article after article trying to achieve the links their content never will.  That’s because most Internet users and webmasters won’t ever bother to link to your site unless you give them a reason. What’s more, even if you really do have great content, nobody will ever find it on page 50 of the search results.  This is exactly where you’ll be without quality links. It seems page rank has not only beaten good content and onsite optimization; it has completely squashed it to death.  Nowadays, going down the search results is an exercise in counting down from the highest page rank to the lowest (at least for those sites competing for the same keywords).  Some of the very best sites, with the most unique and interesting content, are buried where only Pay Per Click can find.

 

     Of course, there will always be exceptions. There are always exceptions to everything.  But it’s amazing how quickly some SEO experts and webmasters will point out a site or two that is above a similar site with a higher page rank.  What they don’t seem to realize is that the page rank that you see at the top of your screen is likely months and months old. It is very possible that this page rank discrepancy is not actually a discrepancy at all.  Nevertheless, if you want to try to be the exception, go right ahead.  As for me, my content might be far better than my competitors, and my features might outclass theirs every time, but I’m not fooling myself that this even matters to my ranking anymore.  I continue to build great content for my visitors.  I build links so these visitors can find my great content. 

 

     Of course, acquiring quality links from relevant high PR sites can be a very time consuming, arduous and exhausting quest.  Most high PR sites will never respond to your polite requests for a link, and those that do will simply suggest that you pay for advertising on their sites. Link exchanges do help, but very little these days. Not to mention how many webmasters insist you first link to their sites, and then they never return the favour.  Directories are pretty near useless as well, except that you might actually find that the odd one really does send you a visitor or two now and then.  As for requesting your visitors to link to your site, the jury is still out on that one.  How many of your visitors have highly relevant, high PR sites and want to give you a link just because they love your site. It doesn’t happen often.  When it does, they often put your website title in the anchor text, and not the keywords your vying for.  Nevertheless, it’s always worth a shot.

 

     So unless you’ve just posted the cure for cancer, or the leading search engine’s algorithm, it’s likely not many sites will just naturally link to yours (unless you find a way of making the news some other way).  The majority of Internet users bookmark their favourite sites, they don’t add a link to them from their own. All your great content, unique features, and onsite optimization won’t achieve you very much other than happier visitors.  Perhaps you can hope to grow the old fashioned way, purely by word of mouth.  If your visitors and customers are dispersed around the globe, however, this might be a bit difficult.

 

     The bottom line is, without being on the first three pages for at least one searched for keyword or phrase, your great website is about as good as having a great 1-800 number that nobody’s ever heard of.  What you need to do is everything you can to acquire quality one-way links, and another batch of reciprocal and 3-way links. Post articles, participate on blogs and forums, and beg similar sites and visitors to link to you. Try to come up with unique and incredible content or news that will make people want to link to your site (if they know how), and then pay per click your way into the hearts of these earnest and admiring visitors.  While you’re doing this, make sure these links contain your keywords or they will be almost useless.  Acquiring quality links takes time, and unless you’ve come up with a grand scheme you’d like to share, you’ll just have to be patient. God knows I am.