Understanding the Importance of Links
I am reminded of my chronic failure at finishing the “home” improvements to my apartment, a well thought-out though ambitious project that started with gusto last May and has since fizzled into the occasional remark about how I should finish the project.
While I did outfit the living room with new furniture, and did about half the intended work in the kitchen, my bedroom remains the disappointing mess it was in May. As I write this now, a Sunday afternoon in October, I am fully aware that if I were to stop writing and spend the rest of the day working on my room, I could finally have the improvements done.
Instead, I choose to write about not doing the work.
I am reminded of this project that never completes by observing the implementation of SEO recommendations I make.
Just as I blazed through my living room improvements and about half the kitchen ones, so do most companies with the “onsite factor” recommendations (onsite factors refer to copy and code changes or additions on their Website).
But just as I have resistance to working on my bedroom, so do some companies beginning to work on their “offsite factors” (referring to link acquisition).
Insofar as Google, successful SEO is difficult, if not impossible, without addressing links. Links, from my point of view at this very moment, are the essence of SEO for Google. (I will add that the optimization of onsite links has proved to be enough link work for a significant minority of clients).
The link acquisition work I believe in is centered around the principle of quality links. I like to think of links as either an awareness campaign, meaning, having valuable content and raising awareness of it in a topically related community so as to generate links to one’s Website, or textual advertising, which means buying links primarily for their advertising value.
This work, like dealing with my bedroom, is not easy to do and therefore easy to postpone.
I am trying to become more realistic about what I will and will not do in my free time. If I had known how quickly my enthusiasm for doing my home improvement work would erode, I would have planned to hire someone to help me do the work.
Likewise, I think it is very important for companies to understand project scope and allocate resources accordingly. The most likely reason a company will try to insource the work is to save money. My advice is often to make a business case for each search phrase — I do this by evaluating the monthly search count on a phrase, PPC conversion data (if available), and the net profit on each transaction (or the value of each lead) and simply write a business case for a positive ROI outsourcing all the work.
I recommend trying to do the work on a few search phrases (or whatever number is within budget), and taking it from there. If the business case works out, then the client can continue to outsource the work for additional search phrases as long as the ROI is positive, and know that the work is getting done.
Back to a comment about how I can really waste my spare time — working in a client services business, you have to be mindful of scope creep and billable time. Typically, the project managers I work with are protective of my time (in a good way) to make sure that it is used efficiently, which I found very ironic one day last spring when I went home after a long day of doing a sizeable amount of client work in order to watch several hours of absolute garbage on television (most embarrassingly “American Idol”).
However, I have since learned that by scheduling things to do for my evenings (band practice Tuesday and Thursday nights, yoga Monday and Wednesdays), I no longer waste so much time. I still, however, find it a real challenge ever getting around to doing my laundry. The thought of a laundry night was far too depressing.