Relevant Content Exchange
By now, the message should be sufficiently clear. Search engines value original, relevant content. Although not the only criteria for achieving a high-ranking site, such content is quite possibly the most important factor towards attaining such a rank.
Unfortunately, regardless of the quality of your content, your website will not magically surface to the top of the search engine result pages (SERPs) without a certain extent of human intervention. Although some would call this "search engine optimization," we prefer the term "User Optimization."
 Nevertheless, for all their complex algorithms, search engines cannot make value judgments on the importance of your content, however original. They rely on people like you and I to make that determination.
Link Exchanges
One of the methods by which search engines evaluate factors such as relevance is by measuring the number of inbound links to a site. The greater the number of links from relevant authoritative sites, the higher the ranking for that particular site is likely to be.
However, quantity is not the only factor. If it were, any website could easily garner countless links from unrelated link partners. This is a widely used practice. Visitors to sites that engage in this practice are likely to find absolutely no value in such a directory of links. Fortunately, for the rest of us, search engines are beginning to catch on to this practice, and devaluing irrelevant links, if not entire websites.
If you’re looking to create a vibrant, sustainable website, the user should be your primary focus, NOT the search engine.
By exchanging links with relevant, authoritative websites, the user benefits in two ways:
- Your search engine ranking is likely to improve, making it easier for the user to find your valuable content.
- Your directory of links to high-quality related websites provides the user with a valuable resource for finding additional information on the subject.
It may seem purely semantic to argue that the purpose of a link exchange campaign should be to benefit the user through the presentation of relevant content rather than solely to improve within the search engine ranks.
Nevertheless, this slight change of focus could be the difference between a website with sustainable growth and one that is here today and gone tomorrow.
Which one are you? |
