Is Link Building Dead?

Yes – link building is dead!

How’s that for getting straight to the point.

Now let’s ask the question that brought you here, “Is link building dead?”

Yes – I believe link building is dead…

…but don’t tell Brian Dean I said this.

Let me qualify my point…only if you are 100% dependent on Google to drive organic traffic to your blog or website and you are doing it to game Google.

Here’s what I mean:

Buying and building backlinks by the 1000s is dead…

…and the old ways of gaming Google is dead.

Listen:

Google has made it clear, “Spammy backlinks will catch up to you!”

On the other hand natural backlinks are still alive as long as they were naturally posted on someone’s site and they weren’t paid for; and the anchor text is not targeting the key words a 1000 times.

But just to add a word of caution here, backlinks from too many low ranking sites is now not a good thing because this could also get you manually reviewed.

Will guest post backlinks work?

Maybe – but careful, because Google now has ways to figure which guest blog site are legit, especially if the anchor text in the byline is targeting keywords.

How about using links on private or ghost networks?

Well according the Matt Cutts, Google has figured out who they are and will soon ban them like they did the public link networks.

Look here:

SEO is going through a lot of changes right now and anyone who promises you top ranks is not keeping up with times.

What worked yesterday will not work in the future as Google continues to take down the systems that have been gaming search for years.

So what works for SEO?

Here are 3 SEO tips that may still work today, I say today! 24 hours from now may be different.

1. Write great content that provides value to readers and targets a Geo location (Geo location is key).
2. Use on site SEO to deep link posts together to keep readers on your site. This type of linking is still working – just don’t over do it.
3. Promote your posts on social networks and make it easy for visitors to promote your content (do not buy social likes – this is spam just like buying backlinks and will get you de-indexed).

What’s the real key for future proofing your website SEO?

Well – to use a quote I heard recently, “Build an audience, not backlinks!”