One of the hardest parts of gaining publicity for your blog is ranking naturally for certain search keywords. If you’ve only started your blog recently, you’re likely competing alongside blogs that have been around for years, with hundreds of entries already indexed and ranking high in the search engines.
It can be daunting at first — a thousand-entry disadvantage right from the start — but with the right blogging strategy it’s possible to outrank your older competitors with just a fraction as many posts and links.
How?
It’s all about quality, and the tipping point.
When you keep a very high quality blog, your posts are picked up much more often than those of a relatively high quality blog. The internet audience is a major discriminator for that last 10% that bridges the gap between good and excellent.
Good content?
It’ll go for miles, making the way through social media websites and possibly some bookmarking services.
Excellent content?
You’ll quickly see your ultra-high quality articles and blog posts rank at the top of social bookmarking websites, generating much more traffic than their mildly successful opponents.
Creating natural backlinks is all about that one thing: quality.
As with many SEO pursuits, it’s possible to muscle your way to the top with low quality work, but it puts you in a position that’s very hard to sustain.
Low quality work only goes so far, especially when it’s spread thinly.
Think about it in terms of a highly trained group of soldiers facing off against an unskilled army. One has power in numbers, but is quickly spread apart and controlled. The other is powerful not just in bulk but in relatively small quantities.
While the large army can control ground, it’s quickly pushed away by the ultra-high quality soldiers.
Treat your content the same way. Whenever you’re looking to generate backlinks, focus on using high quality content to achieve your goal. While hundreds of low quality blog posts spread over different blogs can give your website some linking power, they’re quickly brought down by one well-targeted enemy.
Use a direct, high quality approach. Build backlinks through the work of other people; submit high quality content to bookmarking websites and let the users spread it for you, all through their enthusiasm.
One well written article will spread one hundred times further than ten poorly written ones, and is always the better backlink strategy.
So next time you need to generate backlinks for your blog or website, focus on the ten percent content gap that really matters. Poor content can only be spread through brute force and ridiculous amounts of work, and is rarely a cost efficient option.
High quality work goes far, but often falls short when it comes to climbing to the top.
Ultra-high quality work will travel through social media websites, social bookmarking websites, and eventually through sheer word of mouth. That’s the type of content that builds blog backlinks, and that’s the type of content that you should be focusing on.
What’s your best ultra-high quality blog post? Share the link in the comments below.
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Abolutely agree – excellence is the key to all writing success.
It is good to see someone emphasizing excellence as many seem to think that comment spam is a great way to build backlinks and they apparently don’t notice that their comments are continually deleted.
Social Networking can send lots of traffic – especially StumbleUpon – if you consistently share only the best content. Unfortunately it won’t send traffic to ALL of the quality sources you share but it will send it to many.
I tried to share two different posts of yours at StumbleUpon and get a Can Not Rate message. I asked someone else to try and it appeared to allow them to share them but they never showed up. It looks like SU has your site blocked. That is unfortunate as what you write is worth reviewing there.
.-= Internet Strategist @GrowMap´s last blog ..What is UP with Backlinks from Google, Yahoo, Bing? =-.
Thanks for trying to share my posts but my site is banned by StumbleUpon. See my post: stumbleupon bans site
I do like StumbleUpon, I still stumble and share and have another site that is NOT banned!
Andrew
Hello Andrew,
Perfect timing for this advice. I’ve been thinking about my approach to submitting articles to Stumble, etc. Since I started my blog ThatGirlisFunny.com in August, I’ve been happily submitting each new post thinking I was creating “density”.
After reading your post today, I think I will re-consider and only submit my “best” post of the week. As you say ‘what’s your best ultra-high quality blog post?”
I have two best ultra-high quality blog posts (in my opinion): I’ll be cheeky and leave both links 😀
http://thatgirlisfunny.com/2009/11/what-i-learned-from-watching-kenny-florian-train-with-benson-henderson-2-mma-fighters-10-lessons/ over 1,200 views
http://thatgirlisfunny.com/2009/08/rock-the-ink-miss-tattoo-competition/ nearly 4,000 views
.-= Cheryl from thatgirlisfunny´s last blog ..Meet Marcelle! She’s Not Bad, She’s Just Drawn That Way =-.
Hello Cheryl,
I hope all is well with you!
I must admit, I was expecting more people to submit their best posts (link love and all that!). I do like that tattoo post. How many tattoos do you have?
I have one of my wife’s name on my inner forearm: 50 things you just didn’t know about me
Andrew
Andrew
Thanks for the knowledge. Gaining valuable backlinks is always a concern, and an essential part of any webmaster’s SEO plan. You are right to stress the element of quality when it comes to linking. I would much rather follow 10 quality sites than 100 sites in a bad neighborhood. Keep up the good work!
Kevin,
Thanks for coming over and commenting. Ultra excellent content can have a ‘tipping point’. A few people see it, tell a few others and the ripple starts.
Hope to see you again.
Andrew
I think it also comes down to building a community around you that will help each other grow. There is far too much individualism in the blogosphere right now and I don’t see how too many more folks can possible succeed.
Content is still king but if one doesn’t support the people around them and those that regularly read ones blogs then one is in essence an island.
.-= Ms. Freeman´s last blog ..Do You Have Permission To Use That Photo? =-.
Ms. Freeman. You are right, of course and having awesome content will make the community growing part even easier.
Andrew
Thank you Andrew for this post, link building is one important part of our blogging. I have made one post on my blog on link building that is http://internetjobscams.blogspot.com/2009/08/link-building-strategy-for-blog.html, where I describe various link building strategy.
.-= chandan@work at home´s last blog ..How to submit article to article directories =-.
Chandan
Nice to see you mention Blog Carnivals in your post. For some reason, people are reluctant to use blog carnivals these days. I disagree – they are a great way to build backlinks.
Andrew
Yes I submit my blog post to blogcarvinal, this is really very great way to build link.
.-= chandan@work at home´s last blog ..How to submit article to article directories =-.
This is the crucial factor to gain traffic as well as backlinks. But just write and sit there waiting for backlink seems not practical. We must active out there, telling them about our great contents first.
.-= Phaoloo´s last blog ..10+ Icon And Smiley Sets For This Christmas =-.
I commend you my friend, this is the most original/unique “content is king” article I’ve read in a long time 😉 .
Honestly some of the best work on DSWM (in my opinion) are guest posts and I’m proud of that. Instead of it meaning my own work is no good, it means to me that others feel it is good enough to share their best next to it.
It’s all perception after all, and we are our own worst critics. Don’t get me wrong, my own is fantastic! LOL. My heads to foggy at the moment to actually list any though. 🙂
.-= Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Whoopsy Commentluv Is Busted! You Have Permission To Leave ONE Link. =-.
Dennis,
THANK YOU for such kind words – they mean a lot to me. You are right when you say “we are our own worst critics”.
I love the way you write in such a personal coversational way.
Andrew
Thank you Andrew, I appreciate that.
As for the personal approach, it’s kinda funny. I’ve been that way since the beginning and it kinda started as me telling certain “gurus” to…go away (censored).
BE PROFESSIONAL. Yea OK but does that mean boring as hell? LOL.
I think I can get my “professional” opinion across just fine, telling them – I dunno, if ya wanna and that ain’t gonna work…just fine. 😉
Assuming that’s what you meant. lol
.-= Dennis Edell´s last blog ..Simons Running A Contest – Over $800 In Prizes! =-.
That’s exactly what I meant!
Andrew
Quality is the key to success for any blogger. It not only brings in backlinks but also traffic and repeat visitors.
.-= Paula from Affiliate Blog Online´s last blog ..How Much Did We Make on Amazon This Month? =-.
Very informative post. we can build back links various ways like quality forum posting, creating squidoo lense
The one thing that I would say is even though somebody has a 1000 post heaf start on you if you write quality content that gets linked to a lot you can really start to compete a lot quicker than you would imagine. Content is the key
Niall
So true! Nice to see you here – thanks for dropping by. Come again?
Andrew
Great tips, especially for a beginner. In the beginning many tend to add more posts instead of focusing on the quality. One should hold tight and concentrate on writing quality posts rather than delivering quantity.
Thanks for sharing.
Bheem
Bheem
Your first few months (if not ever!) should be top quality posts.
Andrew
Quality unique content is one of the ways to get natural backlink for a blog. If content is quite unique, lots of readers we backlink the post, which will help the post to rank very well search result. When it comes to natural backlink for blog, Content is King…
I have to agree with you on several of your points. As an SEO for several clients, it’s much harder to rank for terms nowadays because the content portion of their sites is quite weak. Doing the “old fashioned” way of linkbuilding through web 2.0 sites, social bookmarking, etc still works BUT it’s not a very long term effect unless the links stick (which most don’t). Becoming an authority in their niche takes time, and without the effort in content building and spreading it through the web it just makes things a lot more difficult.
Micky,
You simply cannot beat having great content.
That’s the natural way to get back-links.
Andrew
I personally hate the idea of a mass submitter, it just seems like such a phony way to get ahead! I don’t want to offend anyone who does use one of these tools, but i think it’s better to focus on quality rather than quantity. I’d rather have 2,3 good articles on good ranking sites than spamming the internet.