I’ve always loved being involved in LOTS of things. I was the girl in high school who was an active member of every club she could sign up for. In college, I had a list of extracurricular activities and classes that I wanted to take before I graduated…and delayed graduation a full year just so I could fit in a few more. Now, I find myself tempted to fit in as much as I can on any given day, sometimes three or four different activities after I’ve worked a full day of work.
Through it all, I keep hearing my parents’ patient reminder that “less is more”. They have done their best to teach me the importance of saying no to some things, so I can give more of myself to the things of most importance. It’s a constant internal struggle, but I know there is a lot of truth to this. I’m a work in progress, but I’m learning the ropes of this principle in my life.
You may be wondering how this relates to online marketing, and I’m about to tell you. A few years ago, link building was a numbers game. The more links you had, the better. People were posting links anywhere and everywhere they could. And it was helping their rankings. The problem was, the links weren’t useful or relevant to the end user. As Google updated its policies to improve the online experience for all of us, the rules of link building changed. The quality of the links became, and still is, far more important than the number of links.
So what does this actually look like for a link building strategy? Rather than focusing on getting a bunch of mediocre links for our clients, we spend our time on a few, high quality links. We look at metrics like Domain Authority and Alexa Ranking to help us determine which websites would be the best option for our clients. We spend our time building relationships with these website owners, and often times these relationships allow for great link building opportunities.
These high quality links come from high quality content. This also takes time to develop, and falls under our principle of less is more. Rather than writing several articles and throwing in some links for the sole purpose of link building, we take the time to create content that will actually benefit the reader. Google will always be looking for ways to make the online experience more useful and more relevant for the end user, and we want to be right there with them. As we are creating content, we always ask ourselves, “If Google didn’t recognize this link for the purpose of link building, would I still include it for the benefit of the reader?” If the answer is yes, then we know we are on the right track. If not, we revise and rewrite until our content passes this test.
Living by the principle of less is more is a healthy approach for my personal life, but a necessity for my job. In order to provide the best strategy for our clients, I have to put the emphasis on quality over quantity, and the results will follow.
