Webmaster Forum - View Single Post - Content is King

chrispian · 06-03-2004, 01:13 PM

John,

Thanks for the invite to debate this. It should be interesting

First off, I agree that content must be qualified. The article of yours I was responding wasn't as clear on your idea of content. We could easily get off on a slippery semantic argument over what content is, but I think you and I are both referring more to the effect of whether content is more important than links. Does that sound like a fair judgement?

And let me say this right off the bat, I whole heartedly believe that links are extremely important when promoting your site. Depending on which day you ask me, I'd go as far as to say the single most important thing when promoting your site.

So, which comes first? Chicken or egg? Something to link to, or the link? My position is that a quality site will inspire linking to begin with. In my experience, certain types of sites foster linking better than others, like a forum or a news article. Something topical and of interest to people. People will link to things they like without being asked. Now, if you have good content you can ask people to link to it and they'll be more inclined to, than say, your affiliate page or product page.

My arguement isn't that links aren't important and If I gave that impression, I was wrong. I just think its easier to get links when you have something worthy of linking to, and, in my experience more people will link to an article than a product page. Now, you can complicate that by adding in paying for links, which I do advise from time to time. But, I can get an article written for $10-$50 depending on the topic and an incoming link from a related source could cost me between $15/mo to $50/mo. I've even seen text links going for over $1000/mo. It is more cost effective for me to write an article, or have one written and publish it in multiple places. I get pages which are relvant to my sites linking back to my sites and my cost is much better. Still, it's the link I'm after so you can see that I know links are important.

Everyone knows how hard it is to get links to an ecommerce venture. It's probably the hardest thing to get links back to. But you add some product reviews and some shopping tips and you've got an advantage over your competitor. You'll get links because of the content.

So, I say the links are vital in getting a top listing. But the content is the key factor in getting links.

How does my position sound?

06-03-2004, 01:13 PM	#3 (permalink)
chrispian Inactive Join Date: 06-03-04 Posts: 5 iTrader: 0 / 0% Latest Blog: None	John, Thanks for the invite to debate this. It should be interesting First off, I agree that content must be qualified. The article of yours I was responding wasn't as clear on your idea of content. We could easily get off on a slippery semantic argument over what content is, but I think you and I are both referring more to the effect of whether content is more important than links. Does that sound like a fair judgement? And let me say this right off the bat, I whole heartedly believe that links are extremely important when promoting your site. Depending on which day you ask me, I'd go as far as to say the single most important thing when promoting your site. So, which comes first? Chicken or egg? Something to link to, or the link? My position is that a quality site will inspire linking to begin with. In my experience, certain types of sites foster linking better than others, like a forum or a news article. Something topical and of interest to people. People will link to things they like without being asked. Now, if you have good content you can ask people to link to it and they'll be more inclined to, than say, your affiliate page or product page. My arguement isn't that links aren't important and If I gave that impression, I was wrong. I just think its easier to get links when you have something worthy of linking to, and, in my experience more people will link to an article than a product page. Now, you can complicate that by adding in paying for links, which I do advise from time to time. But, I can get an article written for $10-$50 depending on the topic and an incoming link from a related source could cost me between $15/mo to $50/mo. I've even seen text links going for over $1000/mo. It is more cost effective for me to write an article, or have one written and publish it in multiple places. I get pages which are relvant to my sites linking back to my sites and my cost is much better. Still, it's the link I'm after so you can see that I know links are important. Everyone knows how hard it is to get links to an ecommerce venture. It's probably the hardest thing to get links back to. But you add some product reviews and some shopping tips and you've got an advantage over your competitor. You'll get links because of the content. So, I say the links are vital in getting a top listing. But the content is the key factor in getting links. How does my position sound?