May 7, 2008

Why Link Building = risk management

by Brian Turner

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I’ve commented before that when agencies look to take up link building it can be dangerous - and a recent discussion suggests clients doing it directly.

The problem is that link building isn’t simply about building links - it’s about managing a site’s entire link profile, and especially managing the risk built into developing links.

We already know that Google are more aggressively working against link development methods for manipulating Google’s algo for ranking purposes - whether through penalties against publishers or advertisers, plus the suggestion of using human-driven data to supplement the existing links-driven algorithm.

Simply put, without a wider awareness of:

1. What constitutes quality link building
2. How to future-proof link building
3. How to determine a natural link profile
4. How to manage risk

then the person link building can cause more problems then they solve - certainly for the long term.

Link building - not just link building

Link builders aren’t simply building links - the whole job remit is far more complex than this.

It takes at least some or all of the following link building strategies to be in place:

1. Awareness of the client/target sector
2. Awareness of competitor actions
3. Awareness of client actions
4. Publishing strategy for sector
5. Partner/networking strategy for sector
6. Asset development/acquisition
7. Reading of Google Patents
8. Live net of sites for live working data
9. Awareness of Google penalties and reasons for these
10. Ability to source third-party networks
11. Ability to determine link values
12. Ability to determine risk values

And those are just the ones off the top of my head.

The bottom line is that when someone specialises in link building, it’s a full-time job.

This is not least because link builders live under constant threat like the Sword of Damocles - that a single algorithmic update, manual review, or general strategic change by Google - could wipe out your entire business model.

This is a big reason why link builders are chasing different link development methods: to minimise instances or risk, and create a diverse and reasonably natural link profile for a site - certainly as an ideal to aspire to.

And it’s full-time work.

Link development - a specialist occupation

This is why it can be very dangerous when a client or inhouse agency will attempt to take up link dev up for themselves - usually because of a sheer ignorance of the risk management aspect, the need for diversity, the ability to gauge a link’s value and risk, and overall try and work within what Google is known to be doing algorithmically, and how Google may work algorithmically in future.

Some agencies and clients really are clued in about this - most of my own clients are actually pretty clued up on SEO and links, and outsource link dev work because they recognise how time-consuming and specialist it is.

However, I’ve seen plenty of examples where clients have gone wrong - because they tried to do link building themselves without an awareness of the wider issues - and potential penalties - that can result from a bad link dev campaign.

The bottom line is that links are not simply links, and link builders are not simply link builders - it’s a specialist approach to a specialist topic.

Any company that underestimates the speciality involved in this process does so at their own risk.

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