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Search Engine Strategy: Links vs. Content
by Dan Thies ©Copyright 2004

A debate of sorts is raging in the search engine optimization 
community, about whether content or linking is the best path 
to top rankings. This debate has been played out in all of the 
major search engine discussion forums and has become fodder for 
countless blogs.

In this article, I lay out the claims of both sides, reaching 
the conclusion that neither strategy is sufficient by itself. 
The number of people who truly believe you can do one without 
the other is small – they just happen to be extremely vocal.


The Case For Linking

The proponents of linking have a simple argument, which centers 
around the text used in "incoming links." Incoming links are the 
links pointing to your site's pages from another site. When 
certain words are used in the text of those links, your site is 
more likely to rank well for the words that were used.

Search engines now put so much emphasis on the text contained 
in links, that it is nearly impossible to achieve good rankings 
for competitive or generic search terms without an active linking 
strategy. Therefore, the argument goes, you must focus on 
cultivating incoming links with your targeted keywords.

They will cite countless examples of sites that rank in the top 
10 with little or no content, and in many cases, where the words 
involved don't even appear on the page. This happens mainly with 
Google, but Google is still a dominant force in the search engine 
world.


The Case For Content

Rather than focus on highly competitive search terms, content 
advocates prefer to use "SEO copywriting" methods to enhance the 
content of a website, and cover a broader range of search terms.

The proponents of "content strategy" argue that the highly 
competitive or generic search terms are not the best targets 
for search engine optimization: 

- It is difficult to gain and keep top rankings for competitive 
search terms. For extremely competitive terms like "computers" 
or "pizza," dozens of SEO consultants are trying to land clients' 
sites in the top 10 positions. 

- Generic search terms may bring in less "targeted" visitors, 
who are less likely to take the desired action (buying a product, 
etc.) when they reach your site. Someone searching for 
"computers" may be a student working on a term paper, not a 
potential customer.
 
- Because of the expense of an intensive linking strategy, 
competitive search terms are simply out of reach for many web 
sites. 

Content advocates will also cite examples where sites have 
managed to land enviable rankings for very competitive search 
terms without a heavy emphasis on links.


Should You Ignore Half Of The Internet?

A recent study by OneStat 
(http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox27.html) was released 
in February 2004, with the somewhat misleading title "Most People 
Use 2 Word Phrases in Search Engines."

Their statistics show that searchers are using longer and more 
complex search terms, which you would expect as searchers gain 
more experience. Two-word search terms are the most popular 
(at 32.58%), but that doesn't really fit my definition of "most 
people."

At any rate, OnStat's numbers tell us that half of the Internet 
is still using very generic (1-2 word) queries, although the 
number has declined from 53% to 51% in less than a year, with one 
word searches declining from 24.8% in April 2003 to 19.0% in the 
latest study.

Proponents of linking should take comfort in the knowledge that 
51% of searches were for one and two word search terms. The flip 
side of this coin, of course, is that 49% of searches used 3 
words  or more, and this number is rising.

My conclusion, based on these facts, is simple. Focusing on one 
side of the equation (content or links) represents a decision to 
ignore half of the Internet.

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Determining A Strategy

For many search terms, it will be impossible to achieve top 
rankings without quality incoming links which include the 
targeted keywords. This would include almost all highly 
competitive, highly popular, and generic search terms.

Conversely, for very specific searches, it's not practical to 
achieve good rankings through a linking strategy. In these cases, 
you either have all the words on your page or you don't. If your 
page doesn't contain all of the words used by the searcher, it's 
not going to appear in the search results.

Now that we all understand why neither content nor links is a 
complete strategy by itself, the decision comes down to how you 
want to allocate your resources. Making a good decision depends 
on a careful assessment of the "keyword space" around your site, 
a review of existing content, and an accounting of your incoming 
links.


Assessing The "Keyword Space"

Every website has certain keywords, topics, and concepts that 
naturally fit with its targeted audience. In order to make 
effective decisions, you need to begin with a thorough assessment 
of those keywords.

At SEO Research Labs (www.seoresearchlabs.com), we use a step 
by step process to identify these core keywords and concepts, 
using the Wordtracker service (www.wordtracker.com) to 
estimate the relative popularity of each search term we find. 

Typically, we end up with anywhere from a few hundred to over a 
thousand search terms for each website we examine.

Simply looking at the most popular search terms is a mistake, 
though. We recommend an additional step of assessing how 
"relevant" each search term is. The result of this second 
step is a "weighted popularity" that will help identify the 
highest value search terms. A realistic estimate of relevance 
will bring the true value of highly competitive keywords into 
sharp focus.

Once you have identified the highest value search terms, you 
will need to assess the level of competition for each of them. 
If you can reasonably expect to gain a top ten ranking for a 
search term, with a high inherent value due to its popularity 
and relevance, then you have found a good target.

Rather than dig into a long explanation of keyword research, 
which would be redundant for some folks, I'll offer readers a 
free download of our quick tips guide. This guide is distilled 
from a longer document, but it explains the key concepts very 
clearly: http://www.seoresearchlabs.com/errata/quicktips.pdf

Appraising Your Content

If your site is lacking in content, you will need to take a 
realistic look at the cost of developing additional content, 
and decide how much content you want to create. If the new 
content serves a dual purpose, and makes the site more 
attractive to visitors, some of the costs may be offset by 
higher sales.

In most cases, there is already a substantial amount of 
information available. Some of this will be internal, such as 
FAQ's from customers. Some may come in the form of content 
that others have created – all it takes is the copyright 
holder's permission to add this to your site. Adding your own 
commentary to "guest content" can create a valuable and unique 
resource.

For a site that already has a substantial amount of content, 
it's possible that simply optimizing existing content, and 
making it easier for search engines to find, will deliver good 
results. Any unique page on your site could potentially be 
optimized to target many specific search terms.

We often encounter database-driven (dynamic) sites, where 
simply changing the underlying templates will create optimized 
content. In some cases, search engines can't index the site 
effectively, and further changes must be made to resolve this 
issue.

As a general rule for all sites, content should be within 2 
clicks of the home page whenever possible, and any navigation 
scheme that requires cookies, JavaScript, or "session IDs" in 
the URL may create problems. A combination of techniques like 
URL rewriting and site maps may be needed to put all of the 
content within reach of search engines.

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Accounting For Links

If your site is not already well linked from the rest of the 
web, especially within the community of related sites, it's 
worth the effort to improve this. Just as adding content to 
a "thin" site can make your site more effective, getting 
links from relevant sources will bring in targeted traffic 
by itself. In addition, many search engines will not bother 
to index a site that doesn't have plenty of incoming links.

Submitting to topical and general directories, asking 
consumer-focused sites for product reviews, and publishing 
"guest content" on other sites are all simple and effective 
methods of building links that will help your rankings, but 
also add to your site's traffic.

If your site is already well linked, you may gain more 
"bang for the buck" from a content strategy, but for highly 
competitive search terms, it's essential that you target 
the right websites and control the text of incoming links as 
much as possible.

A very detailed explanation of linking strategy and tactics 
is available in the free "Linking Matters" report 
(www.linkingmatters.com), which I highly recommend.


Putting It All Together

Once you understand the issues, your strategy should be pretty 
clear. Focus on areas of weakness, especially if your site is 
highly deficient in one area or another.

If your site has almost no substantive incoming links, you 
must address this before you can expect anything else to matter. 
If you have neither links nor content, you may need to develop 
some content before a linking strategy will work.

In the short term, if your site is well linked, a little effort 
on content can go a long way. However, if your highest value 
search terms are extremely competitive, you will need to place 
more emphasis on linking strategy. 

My own SEO Research Labs site, for example, is pretty well 
linked, but our content is still thin. Our immediate focus is 
on building a better information resource to broaden our search 
engine exposure. In the long term, we will emphasize linking 
strategy to target more popular search terms.

================================================================
Dan Thies owns the SEO Research Labs (www.seoresearchlabs.com), 
providing keyword research services to webmasters, site 
designers, and search engine (SEO/SEM) consultants. He offers 
coaching to web designers who want to "take the plunge" into 
offering SEO and SEM services, based on his top-selling e-book 
"Search Engine Optimization Fast Start," which is also available 
from his website. 
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