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
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
Building an Industry Resource List w Links to Competitors
Hi folks. I'm working on a B2B e-commerce site in a very commoditized space. It's very technical and longtail-- several thousand product pages and of those, over 1,000 landing pages per month, when visitors find products. Most items we sell are only bought once or twice per year. Many won't even be bought in a given year. So it's tough to invest a lot on a given page, but we chip away at it. We don't have many non-product pages. To date, we've grown with solid on-page SEO for products and good customer service. I'm adding a resource section to include helpful articles and definitions of technical terms. Also, since good sources of products can be so hard to find (we literally have customers like NASA googling for parts), I would like to build an industry guide of sorts. It would include manufacturers, master distributors, distributors and resellers (like our site). To be a good list, it only makes sense to include my competitors. It's likely very few people will actually ever see this page, but I figure more deep content with lots of highly relevant links is good for raising DA, especially because it could become a page others want to link to. I haven't found a comparable resource in the 4 years I've been working on this project. Any reason I should not do this? Any pitfalls I should be aware of? Thank you!
Content Development | | Mike_Sobol0 -
Is there a good tool for finding Duplicate Content?
Hi! Are there any recommendation voor Duplicate Content finder tools? Is it offered on MOZ (not the one that belongs to 'seo issues') or a different site?
Content Development | | Marketing-SurpriseFactory1 -
How can I influence my colleagues to write blog articles for my company?
Hi, I am trying to get my colleagues work in different department to write an article about their expertise area. They are not aware that what type of benefits they would get if they become an online author. I am trying to make a list of reason why they should participate. I was wondering anyone else would also make any recommendation what i should tell them. So far, my points are: Wider your online presence beyond Facebook and LinkedIn Go extra mile and share your thoughts **Show your expertise ** Reach nationwide readers Thanks!
Content Development | | Rubix0 -
Same Press Release Content ?
I recently distribute my first ever PR to PRlog site. Now i am planning to move the PR to other PR sites, should i use the same content which i already submitted or again the same thing spun article will do ?
Content Development | | chandubaba0 -
What is the Best Practice for External Links?
We are currently in the process of reviewing our site on a number of fronts, and part of that involves adding quality content to our product category pages where necessary. Our practice so far has been to add relevant content, and in this content externally link to a couple of relevant, related sites for that category (avoiding the use of keywords we are trying to rank for). Should we be doing this (externally linking)? And, if so, should these external links be NoFollow? So far, we have seen mixed results for our efforts.
Content Development | | Robdps0 -
How often should content be updated
With all of Google's recent algo updates (or ranking updates, whatever they're calling it now), we've obviously been looking into changing our content strategy and shifting it from quantity to quality. How often would you say is ideal for website content updates? i.e. should we be updating once a month? Once every couple of months? This isn't a blog - just a regular services-oriented site. My take on it is that it should be as often as organically possible - and that means something different for everyone. At the same time, we want Google coming back frequently to crawl the site. Thanks!
Content Development | | eyecarepro0 -
Will using online forum reviews create duplicate content issue?
We are looking at having a text box of 'What customers say' on our product pages using reviews written about us online to remain factual and wanted to know if this will create duplicate content issues? Thanks in advance.
Content Development | | jannkuzel0 -
Setting up a blog for client, should I build external links to the blog
I have a new client in the holiday industry and want to setup a wordpress blog, we will be writing the first few blogs and linking back to the relevant site page. But I am wondering how I should promote the blog so that the links are more powerful back to his own site. Blogging is not my forte and doesn't come naturally so I really need some good advice to how I can start offering this service to my clients. Thanks
Content Development | | iprosoftware0