Link building has been a part of complete SEO package for long enough to hold a prime position in search ranking signals. After all, links are considered as popularity signals for any website, just the way a person’s popularity is measured by his connections. However, over the time, link building environment has witnessed a drastic shift, mainly because of the changes that Google introduced.
What Does Google Have To Do With The Shift?
Of course, Google being one of the most popular search engines in the world, has a significant effect on SEO practices. And the changes that it introduces to its search algorithm largely define the course of these practices. For example, a couple of years ago, Google announced that it will not entertain link farming and irrelevant links for ranking results in SERPs. Soon, several websites started dropping out of their ranks in the search results for their key phrases. And a little later, other websites started making connections with their niche-relevant blogs and domains.
This is typically one of those instances where link building received a complete overhauling just because Google introduced an update to its core algorithm. However, along the course marketers have lost the touch of worthy link building techniques that provided them with reliable connections. Of course, this is not good. In fact, marketers are now faced with more difficulties than before.
The Traditional Link Building
In earlier days, although links were acquired from random domains, they were still not acquired by luck. Instead, the marketers and bloggers had to reach out to other webmasters manually. Outreaching the bloggers manually induced a personal touch and nurtured a mutually beneficial relationship. And it needs no saying that for any business long-term relationships are key to a sustainable business model.
However, soon this all changed and the humans were replaced by the automation through software and web tools used by guest posts service.
The Downside Of Replacing The Traditional Practices
When automation is introduced into any process, the flexibility to change the course of action as and when needed is reduced. After all, a program must run according to the instructions it has been given. This has dramatically changed the way connections are built now. Moreover, marketers and their connections now coordinate a lot less and create content that solely serves the purpose of link building and nothing else. Experts in the link building services suggest that guest posting (which is the primary way of earning backlinks) should be done manually and after taking insights from the publishing blog. Manual processing would allow easy changes during the course of action or even after the completion of the content creation process. Subsequently, it would improve the impact of the content on the readers and bring in better results for the guest bloggers (i.e. the marketers).
The Way Forward…
It is evident that manual practices for link building were a lot more effective than the current process. But at the same time, complying with the modern market needs can also be not ignored. The only way forward that could prove to be effective is by combining the traditional with the modern. In other words, using manual outreaching and content creation processes in compliance with Google’s latest guidelines can benefit both, the website with a backlink and the marketer with a healthy relationship with the blogger.
