“Link Building Makes My Brain Hurt”

Sometimes I think the SEOs who win out in the end are those with the will, rather than the skill. I have a million things I could be doing for a lot of my sites, but in truth I really can only summon the energy to go "all out" for two or three. And I suspect that those two or three will make me more money than all the rest together, in the long term.

We all get exhausted by the many necessary tasks involved in building sites, from time to time. Especially with link building. Let’s be honest: it’s often tedious and annoying. It can also seem like a lot of work for low return (although I will argue that link building almost always has a spectacular ROI). This is the topic in this WMW thread, titled Just can’t get myself to do link development. One_on_One posts:

My brain hurts just thinking about link development…it’s such a tedious, boring process. How do you guys do it to drive traffic to your sites?

My brain hurts just thinking about his brain hurting. ryan26 has a short reply but I think it’s a nugget of wisdom:

Dirtiest job in SEO but the most important. Try and think out of the box. Press releases, RSS feeds, PHONE CALLS. Every small step forward is a step in the right direction.

Of course you can take the easy way out and just rent links, but experience tells me this won’t work well unless you have a decent underlying base of permanent links.

There are no freebies in life! Unfortunately that goes for link building as well…

20% Off SES San Jose!

LBB Readers, the Text Link Ads crew will be exhibiting at the upcoming SES San Jose Show August 8-11.  Please follow this link (pdf file) for a 20% off coupon for any conference pass.

We are also excited to announce that Danny Sullivan has added a new session: Buying & Selling Links that I will be speaking at.  Thanks Danny!  We are looking forward to meeting everyone in person in San Jose.

Can’t Think of a Witty Title for This One

Thanks to SEOmoz for pointing out this thread at WebHostingTalk:

IMNSHO, paying for pagerank v. seeking out legitimate links is the
difference between meeting someone, falling in love and getting married
v. paying for a hooker.

I guess that makes the nofollow tag a contraceptive! *zing* (groan)

Are Directories On Their Way Out?

Noted spammer DaveN asks an interesting question in Did Google just target Directories at SEW Forums:

I have been collecting quite a bit of data just recently and noticed
that some WH sites got canned the only thing I can find is a large % of
their IBL’s are from directories.. is this the end of the road for
smaller directories ..

DaveN

DaveN is well known for being ‘in the know’, so if he asks a question like this it is not to be ignored. Marcia’s reply gives us link builders some more food for thought:

You know, if we look back at the first post, what Dave was saying is
not related to the directories themselves, but that sites with a large
% of their links from directories took a hit.

I think the engines probably have more serious challenges than the slew
of little directories out there – but the issue is whether those types
of links, especially if they comprise the majority or IBLs to newer
sites that aren’t established, in great numbers and accrued quickly,
really have any value as far as algorithmic link analysis is concerned.
Do they represent genuine links that reflect relevancy or importance,
as would a link from a page from a related, on-topic site?

My .02: I think Google may be nuking low quality directories with tons of spammy sites listed, so a listing in those types of directories may not have much value going forward. From a relevancy perspective however a listing in a quality directory such as GoGuides probably will help a site in the SERPs, since that directory actually makes an honest attempt to categorize quality sites and rejects many low quality sites, and as such who it links out to is actually useful data for Google.

In any case, obtaining 100 directory links is no longer a short and easy route to high rankings. That said, when I’m trying to get a new site established I will still be submitting to my shortlist of HQ directories.

4th of July Foo

Happy 4th! A few fun things from ThreadWatch:

• official SEO tour bus (hehe)
• Calacanis vs. Dell (sigh)
• Nacho agrees with me that links are here to stay