Can you link build without adding any content to the website?
-
I am an agency-side SEO who has a few different SEO clients. A couple of them absolutely refuse to add any content to their site - no blog, no articles, no link bait, nothing.
They have resisted efforts for any content to be placed on their site - whether it is written by us, them, or a third party. They just don't see the value in it, despite my attempts to persuade them.
As a result, these websites are just brochure websites.
What are your options for link building in this situation? If content is the foundation of white hat link building, what do you do if the client refuses to add content to their site?
All help gratefully received!
Thanks
-
Without any content you're also setting yourself up to get hit by the next monster Google update. I would make sure you lay out all of these reasons to add content and the risks of not having any and make sure they are aware of it. If they still won't budge, then just do the best you can and when the day comes when they realize they aren't seeing results they'll already know why.
-
wise words of advice!
-
The biz in question sounds like they are shooting themselves in the foot and I'd have to agree that I would not want to work with them.
If the education of the client has been done correctly the decision to create content should be a no brainer as long as that content is intelligently thought out by the consultant.
-
You can always get some benefit out of building links, but without content it can be an uphill battle. Will they do any on page optimization at all? If not, then this will be very difficult.
I hate to say this because it is not an SEO comment, but on the business side, some clients cost more than they bring in. It is up to you, but politely ending a relationship with an uncooperative client can be better than saying you can do it and not producing results.
-
I think the best option to be linked is write relevant content. If your client doesn´t want to create content on his web, you can create a subdomain, an external blog or another domain to do a SEO job. A place to create landing pages to pull traffic to your site.
Nobody is going to link you if you exhibit a little piece of nothing.
I'm sorry.
-
I have always been able to overcome client objections on this topic. If you can work with clients to produce a single, high quality article and then demonstrate the traffic it generates, that would help them to understand the value of content.
If the above suggestion is not workable, the next step is to find sources who would sincerely be interested in the site's existing content.
Another possibility, the client may not be willing to add content to their site but might consider guest blogging on another site which could raise the level of awareness about their site.
In the end, there are two sides to this coin. On the one side, people are free to choose what is best for them. On the other side, as a professional it is your job to help clients understand the benefit on adding quality content to their site. If you fail to do such, you have not done your job well. It's the same idea as a sick patient who visits a doctor but wont take their medicine. It's the doctor's role to present options and the patient to make the choice. On the other hand, a better doctor (think Dr. House) is able to push the patient into doing the right thing.
-
You can link build and it will yield some benefits, make sure you go for the yelp, yahoo directories etc at the very least.
Naturally the better the content, the more opportunities for social sharing, links, mentions etc
I assume you have already done the on-page seo?
What is the customers reason for refusing it, is it cost? If so you are prob banging you head against a brick wall and may be worth focusing your efforts on new receptive clients as opposed to those that don't want to know... as they say, you can lead a horse to water....
Maybe not the answer you wanted, but hope it helps!
One footnote to the link building post penguin, make sure that the quality of the back links are good and legitimate and be careful with the link anchor text, make sure you don't try and link for the same phrase/keywords
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Content Spinner Tool??? Worth? Recommendations?
Hi all !! We have different websites in the english language (UK, IE, US, etc...), but we focus our content strategy (landing pages) in just one of them. We were thinking about using a Content spin tool to use this content in the other websites and give them an extra push in terms of SEO (content is the king :)). Did you have any idea if they work fine? Did you have any experience with them? Can you recommend any? Are they tools really worth or they are not working fine and after the spin a full review (and probably some re-write) is necessary? Of course I´m talking about the paid ones.... Not even thinking about the free tools 😉 Thanks for your help in advance !!!
Content Development | | AutoEurope0 -
Why is content getting longer?
I find it odd that with the way life is today -- the gotta-have-it-now, instant gratification, can't hold someone's attention span for longer than 3 seconds -- why Google is wanting content to be REALLY long?? I've read articles saying content should be as long as 2,000 words per page. This just seems nuts to me. No one wants to read anymore. Look at how short Twitter posts are and how videos are so prevalent now. Any thoughts?
Content Development | | SEOhughesm0 -
Is it worth adding your rss feeds to directories
Hi, i have been doing some reading this morning where people say it is a good idea to add your rss feed to directories and i would like to know what people think. Is it really worth it to add your rss feed to a directory where you then need to add a link to their site and if it is worth it, how are people doing it. Are you creating a link page on your site look forward to hearing your thoughts on this
Content Development | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Any recommended stock photo websites?
Hello there, I'm looking for a stock photo website for our company blog posts. We used iStockphoto in the past, but they raised their prices and it just isn't worth the price. Does anyone have suggestions for a good stock photo site that is less expensive?
Content Development | | TheDude0 -
How to encourage guest bloggers to link back
Hi, we have just started to allow guest bloggers on our site www.in2town.co.uk where we offer them two links within the articles, but what we would really like to do is to encourage them to link back to their articles. I am trying to find information on how we can encourage guest bloggers to link back and would love to hear your thoughts.
Content Development | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Nearely identical content
Hi Everybody, I'm just checking the warnings from Seomoz an realized that on our site there are a lot of duplicate page content problems. In fact some of them are not really duplicated content because there are subtle differencies ie. colour or pack of products: http://www.szepsegbolt.hu/termekek/david_beckham_intimately_yours_for_man_eau_de_toilette_30_ml.html http://www.szepsegbolt.hu/termekek/david_beckham_intimately_yours_for_man_eau_de_toilette_50_ml.html What do you suggest, ignore this warning or change something on the site? Thank you in advance Balint
Content Development | | SanomaMediaseo0 -
If you have the best sales on the weekends, when is the best day to post the content?
The Client has the best sales on the weekends and his writing a weekly blog post to help the overall site rank better and hopefully drive more sales. When is the best time to post this content? On Monday so that it hopefully gets indexed by the weekend? or On Friday so that we can leverage twitter and Facebook to increase sales.
Content Development | | anchorwave0