Yes. Elvis is dead. I don’t care who you saw in Las Vegas. He’s still in his blue suede casket, no disrespect to the King of whatever it was he presided over. A bit before my time. Now onto other matters…

What about link-building? In light of how Google has been slip-slapping the SERPs like a newborn baby’s bottom (why do they do that?! Hands off, doc!)…sometimes it’s easier to say, “The gig’s up and it was a good run. Game over.”

But I have to ask anyway since I know you’re thinking it:

Is Link-Building Dead?

SEO ChalkboardNo. It’s not, unlike Mr. Presley (unlike Frodo Baggins, Elvis is gone).

But building links and thinking that’s all it will take to float some random keyword-stuffed chum to the top of Google for more than 5 minutes is pretty silly.

If, however, you actually know the subject of your website…I mean if you’re not faking your expertise in an area – well…then you’re off to the races, aren’t you?

A lot of bad SEO advice out there ends with “building links Google LOVES!” followed by a “buy now” button: some tool is supposed to build automatic backlinks -

even better! It’s supposed to do all the content automagically for you!….

…and your auto-lame site will float, right?

Well – stop building automagically, auto-lame sites already.

Look – I’m a niche marketer but not a lame one. Having a “niche site” doesn’t mean thin, crudworthy content.

It definitely doesn’t mean ever invest in auto-generated content that you just push a button and publish on a drip-feed.

Just because you drip-feed “automagic” content (read: I hate that adjective like werewolves hate silver bullets and Coors beer); and just because that “content” will be “relevant” to your keywords, etc…

Don’t think it’ll float or earn you a living.

Of course, the person selling the tool has made his or her cheddar by selling you on the cream filling, but it’s still about as nutritious as a Twinkie and half as good for you.

If that’s what you’re building your hopes and dreams on, then sorry to say you’re not building anything but frustration.

Spend your time doing other things, like working a job or holding up a sign that says you’re out of gas (even though you don’t have a car nearby, but hey: it seems to work…).

You’ll make more money and waste less time with the cardboard sign idea than you will with a cookie-cutter automated website you don’t care about.

BTW, if you don’t care about your own sites, why should readers? Just sayin’.

Getting back on point: link building isn’t dead.

Blog networks? Uh – yeah. Unless you own the blog networks or you’re involved in something like ArticleRanks and Unique Article Wizard (etc.) that’s semi-privately owned: you’re wasting your time.

Yeah, that goes for SEO Cobra too in my opinion – I wouldn’t go for a blog network unless you don’t mind frustration and losing money.

You may as well build your links by comment spamming Matt Cutt’s blog and the official Google Webmaster blog while you’re at it…

But link building in a diversified front, using quality targets and (gasp!) guest posting, press releases, quality articles, social media…it works.

Don’t believe me? Try it already.

Stop shaking like a leaf that Google’s ghost of algorithms past will haunt you.

Which brings me to the next question:

Is SEO Dead?

No, it’s not – but it’s ever-changing. Right now, I have to say that I’ll be experimenting with link-building efforts. Streamlining all over again, getting efficient systems in place and testing my old methods.

What I don’t want to do is talk out of my backside until I get back into the swing of things – and for the entirety of this year I’ve been taking it easy (hard to pick up the pickax when it’s been collecting dust for months).

So rather than say Here’s the new plan!

…well: I’ll save it for when I’ve done my own testing. For now, though, it’s back to content and research for me: new pages, new reviews and new markets.

Thinking and Rethinking about SEO

One thing Google’s great at (besides helping me provide for my family of 9) is keeping me on my toes. After all the hullaballoo over BMR and Authority Link Network (etc.) getting deindexed in recent weeks, I can’t say I’m too excited publishing my methods anymore.

It seems pretty counter-productive: web publishers like me tell the world this and that tool and method works like clockwork. People invest their time and money into those tools and hey: they work…

Then Google and Bing sneeze or do the Hokey Pokey and they don’t work. Lots of people get frustrated, I get tons of emails asking why the sky is falling and wouldn’t you know?

Tool after tool comes out to “fix” the problem and it’s really more of the same.

Pinterest is now getting spammed by automated tools.

Google+ is getting targeted by spammers.

Etc. etc. ad nauseum…

And what was my role? Oh, yeah…I told you lot that these tools work, didn’t I? I even made me monies on some transactions doing so.

(Thanks, by the way.)

The whole business makes me little more than a link pimp at the end of the day, and meanwhile a load of people are frustrated they are no closer to the mark than they were on day one.

I really don’t want to be a part of that…so I’ve been pretty quiet and frankly uninspired here at The Average Genius.

Uninspired because I have to ask myself what my business is all about, what my brand is all about, where my place is in the market.

Where to from here? Keep selling tools that Google will eventually pick apart and leave my readers in a lurch? Is that the best I can do?

Yeah, not so much – I’d rather not be one insisting that “SEO Cobra works like a charm!” when I give you an affiliate link (or whatever tool you want)…knowing full well the tool is on its last legs.

Look, the truth is that Google doesn’t play nice with SEO. They want a better index than their competition. They want more satisfied customers: and spamming links to float a less-than-worthy site to the top is just not a business model to bank on.

On the other hand…if you have a quality site, then what? Just build it, and they will come? Do you forget about link-building?

Hm. Maybe. Maybe not. Gotta run, just thinking out loud here.

 

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