You see it all the time. Get 500 social networking links and if you act now, we'll throw in a link from God's personal home page to yours. OK, maybe I stretched the last part a bit, but how many times do these promotions really work?
Although there is no shortage of people willing to take your money, often these attempts do little more than increase hits while failing to deliver results. Typically, low quality links or extremely vague keywords will produce many hits but fail to generate turnovers. SEO consultants will often write this off saying that you need to work on your site. Naturally, all websites require on-page optimization. However, this criticism ignores the fact that every once in a while, everything goes right and you have that one promotion that actually works. If the same keywords were used, why do good results not always follow?
Sometimes the answer may be as simple as the pagerank. A high pageranking site will certainly yield more weight than a low ranking one. Moreover, if the link is featured directly on a home page that receives high traffic, of course this will attract more attention. The fact of the matter is though, often it is hard to differentiate exactly why two almost identical promotions produce very different results.
If your turnover rate is low, it may be a sign that the link quality itself is poor. Sometimes a single article or even blog entry may produce better results than a dozen backlinks from irrelevant web directories or forums. If the backlink does not contain relevant text around it, it will quite often produce little action.
To maximize link effectiveness, sometimes it is best to take matters into your own hands. Although your company may be able to gamble $250 a week on various promotions, if links occasionally come from inappropriate sources, keeping a retainer on such affiliates may not be worth it. A sports site linking to a website that sells dinnerware doesn't cut it. Failing to monitor the marketing efforts of others can also have serious consequences if you become associated inadvertently with "bad neighbors" that have repeatedly abused certain tactics to try to gain an edge.
Although mathematically a few well structured links may not seem competitive verses mass marketing campaigns, perseverance and quality backlinks will always score higher. It may be frustrating to stay the course, but those that do, often find they are better off in the long run.
Although there is no shortage of people willing to take your money, often these attempts do little more than increase hits while failing to deliver results. Typically, low quality links or extremely vague keywords will produce many hits but fail to generate turnovers. SEO consultants will often write this off saying that you need to work on your site. Naturally, all websites require on-page optimization. However, this criticism ignores the fact that every once in a while, everything goes right and you have that one promotion that actually works. If the same keywords were used, why do good results not always follow?
Sometimes the answer may be as simple as the pagerank. A high pageranking site will certainly yield more weight than a low ranking one. Moreover, if the link is featured directly on a home page that receives high traffic, of course this will attract more attention. The fact of the matter is though, often it is hard to differentiate exactly why two almost identical promotions produce very different results.
If your turnover rate is low, it may be a sign that the link quality itself is poor. Sometimes a single article or even blog entry may produce better results than a dozen backlinks from irrelevant web directories or forums. If the backlink does not contain relevant text around it, it will quite often produce little action.
To maximize link effectiveness, sometimes it is best to take matters into your own hands. Although your company may be able to gamble $250 a week on various promotions, if links occasionally come from inappropriate sources, keeping a retainer on such affiliates may not be worth it. A sports site linking to a website that sells dinnerware doesn't cut it. Failing to monitor the marketing efforts of others can also have serious consequences if you become associated inadvertently with "bad neighbors" that have repeatedly abused certain tactics to try to gain an edge.
Although mathematically a few well structured links may not seem competitive verses mass marketing campaigns, perseverance and quality backlinks will always score higher. It may be frustrating to stay the course, but those that do, often find they are better off in the long run.
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