SEO can be a very delicate and temperamental matter so deciding whether content or link building is the best solution is an important decision to make.
There are some things you need to consider before investing in either one.
Both content and link building have their advantages and disadvantages so it can be hard to choose which one you should invest in.
However, these 6 considerations should help you make the right choice for your business.
What Is Content Marketing
Content marketing is the act of creating valuable and helpful content to attract the right audience to your blog and website.
The main reason businesses blog is because a stagnant website is no longer attractive.
People will have more trust in company websites that blog regularly and provide plenty of useful tips.
In fact, Neil Patel, the founder of QuickSprout, has said that blogging is his primary revenue model.
Content marketing will help establish you as an expert in your field if you do it right.
There are over 152 million blog posts currently on the internet so it can be all too easy to become just another blog.
It is important to blog regularly and to write unique and valuable tips and statistics to become an expert in your field.
Another great reason for blogging it will help you stay on top of your game.
Because you will always be researching about your industry and best practices, you will inevitably inject the same new trends into your own business.
What Is Link Building
In short, link building is the act of asking websites to hyperlink to your site.
Link building has changed dramatically over the years with plenty of online businesses suffering from those changes.
Back in the day, the majority of online businesses used link building to build as many links as possible.
These are the firms that suffered a severe drop in rankings when the new algorithm came into play and penalized their websites for having a spammy backlink profile.
Nowadays, link building is still something that needs to be done however it is all about the quality and the quantity.
Having one backlink from a highly reputable and authoritative website will be much more rewarding than having 100 links from spammy link farms.
As well as link building to help your organic search rankings, businesses build links to generate referral traffic and to build their brand.
Link building can be a very tricky thing to master with plenty of obstacles along the way.
However once you find a formula that works and do it correctly, it can be very rewarding.
Content vs. Link Building
Now that you what content and link building means and some of their main benefits, it is time to look into which is the better option for you to invest in.
1. Measuring The Value
When it comes to investing into something, I completely understand how important it is to measure the value of that something to see if you have made a good investment.
Content
Content marketing is a fairly simple factor to measure the value of as you can easily determine how many backlinks were naturally generated from each blog post, how many social shares each blog post acquired, how much traffic the blog post generated and even how much revenue was generated from each blog post.
You can find all of this information in your Google Analytics if you have set up goal tracking or e-commerce tracking.
Link Building
Link building can be a difficult thing to quantify.
Yes, it might help to increase traffic and to increase rankings, however, there are a lot of expenses involved in link building such as when bloggers ask for payment, offering free trials for your product, sending products to bloggers to review and more.
All of these things cost money on top of the money you are paying to outsource your link building if you are doing so.
With so many factors coming into play, it can be hard to measure the value of link building.
2. Embrace The Natural
If there is one thing that Google constantly goes on about is for everything to be natural.
They frown upon backlinks that have been paid for.
To avoid being penalized, it is always best to be as natural as possible when it comes to backlinks.
Content
Content is the best form of generating backlinks naturally but will only be achievable if your blogging is of quality.
Blogging any old thing such as saying Happy Birthday to a team member is not going to generate backlinks.
Offering unique statistics and valuable guidance and tips is what will generate natural backlinks.
You will also achieve a greater outreach with content as your readers will share it on social media for their colleagues, associates, friends and family can see it too.
Then they might share it on their social media and so on.
This will create a buzz surrounding your website which will be picked up on by Google and will result in higher rankings and greater organic traffic.
Link Building
On the other hand, link building is in no way natural.
I remember back in the day (not to make myself sound old) when I would contact a blogger or website and ask if they would link to me if I linked to them (reciprocal links).
They would be happy with this as we would both benefit from it.
Now, however, bloggers ask for some crazy prices for a simple backlink.
Link building is something that is forced; you are asking for bloggers and websites to link to you whereas content will naturally generate backlinks.
3. The Cost Of Outsourcing
If you are planning to outsource the content or link building then another consideration you need to think about is what the costs of outsourcing will be.
Content
You may be surprised at this, but the cost of outsourcing content is cheaper than the cost of outsourcing link building.
Not only that but finding a good copywriter is easy.
There are plenty of great freelance copywriters out there that are more than affordable.
Once you have narrowed down a list of candidates to two, ask them to both submit a trial blog post that you will pay for.
This way, you can determine which is the more creative and will portray your brand the best way possible.
Link Building
On the other hand, finding a link building expert can be a tricky thing and can be costly.
There are plenty of link builders out there who will offer to build 100 top quality links for $5.
Do not be duped by this, even if they have good reviews.
The likelihood is that the people leaving the good reviews have done so straight after when the results of the link building have not yet been seen or that they aren’t too clued about SEO.
4. Scalability
Once you see a good thing then what will you want to do?
You’ll want to scale it to make it even better and continue benefiting from it.
Content
It is easy to scale content.
Like I said before, there are so many good copywriters out there who will be eager to work with you on creating great content and coming up with shareable ideas.
You may start blogging on your own and realize that is gaining some great results.
You will want to of course scale this and blog more to gain even better results and so on.
You can read our blog post on how to manage a remote team to make sure processes are streamlined.
Link Building
You can pretty much do the same to scale your link building as you do with content however it can be more challenging.
The reason is that it can be a lot harder to find quality link builders who will not damage your domain authority.
5. Search Algorithm Friendliness
One of the most important things you will need to consider when investing in either content or link building is how algorithm friendly they are as you don’t want to damage your domain authority.
Content
If there is one thing Google loves, it is content.
They favor businesses who build their brand which can be done with content as it builds authority and generates brand awareness.
It has been recommended by so many, and by me, that content needs to be the focus of your SEO strategy.
Link Building
Gone are the days of quick fixes, buying backlinks to increase rankings.
This is not only gone, but it will possibly penalize your website if it falls into the wrong hands and is done correctly.
I don’t want to put you off link building altogether as it can still be very rewarding.
I just want to make you aware of how much it can damage your rankings if done incorrectly.
6. Time Constraints
If you’re not planning on outsourcing and would like to do it yourself, then you will need to consider seriously the time it will take to do each.
Content
Content can take some time to do as you will need to do the following:
- Create a content calendar which is at least 3 months in advance
- Decide which topics for blog posts you want to add to the content calendar
- Choose which target keywords you want to include in each blog post (if you have already done your keyword research)
- Create a compelling headline for each blog post
- Thoroughly research the blog topic
- Create the outline of the blog post
- Write the blog post
- Review and edit the blog post
- Publish the blog post
- Notify any influencers that are mentioned in the blog post
- Share the blog post on social media
- Send it to your email contacts
- Respond to all comments
Many people underestimate how long it can take to do properly content.
However an expert copywriter takes a shorter length of time to do it as it is their expertise, and they will already have a process in place and know how to do each of the tasks above.
Link Building
Link building can take just as long as content with the only difference being that you may not have anything to show for it after spending the time doing it.
Hiring a freelance link building expert may get better results from their efforts.
However, it is not something that is guaranteed.
Conclusion
While both content and link building have their advantages and disadvantages, I would always invest in content marketing.
The value of it can be easily measured; it is a natural way to build authority, it costs less to outsource, it can be easily scaled, and it is full to search engine friendly.
What experiences have you had with content and link building?
It would be great to hear them so share your comments below.