Links - the new spam

I preferred the old type

[surfgatinho]

I'm sure when who ever decided the more links a site had coming in the more important it was, it made sense. In fact on the face of it it still does.
However, it seems like every other form of SEO it's open to abuse.
What it means now is a webmasters job is mostly contacting other webmasters and asking for links or writing auto links adding scripts etc.
Great so being a webmaster ends up doing cold calling!

I preferred it when spamming actually involved being remotely (or very remotely) clever. I guess at the end of the day one site has to be more important than another but it just seems 90% of my time is spent link building, and I hate it.

Any idea what the answer is?

[Marketing Guy]

Screw the links and build a site that you like. :/

If the design / creation / content writing is what is fun for you then concentrate on that.

OK, if you are relying on the site for an income, then you are gonna have to put some effort into developing traffic. Just like you are going to have to deal with taxes and legislation and politics and whiney consumers and watchdogs and traffic on the motorway....

Ive done next to no link development work on one of my sites for the past 4 or 5 months. I did all the work initially - getting decent and increasingly better traffic each month.

Now, people contact me offering link exchanges (and the occaisional random nutter links to me without asking for a link back!<boggle>). Some I accept, some i dont.

But the only time i go out my way to ask for a link is if i feel the traffic from the site or the status of having a link there is worth it.

Inbound links = important.

Quality site = still more important.

People here spend so much time developing a linking strategy and next to none working on branding / loyalty / service.

I realise most, if not all of you are SEO's and make decent money from producing big numbers for websites. But it's time to realise that SEO is only a part of marketing and link development is only a part of SEO.

I would certainly never dream of spending more time working on inbound links than I would writing content, developing print ads, communicating with suppliers, customers, research our market, etc etc.

Aye, it's important - but so is a lot of other stuff. If you feel you are getting burned out working on link development, then work on another area for a while.

Scott

[Crush]

We spend 10000's on adwords. Links are important to get those free hits. Adwords cash is gone but seo and link building gets you near the top.

If you are an affiliate conetent could be your priority. If you have a bricks and mortar business you need to be on the front page as you have staff to pay.

[dougs]

Agree with Crush here.

Links mean google free traffic, plus hopefully links traffic

We don't forget the rest, but links are very importnant

Doug

[pleeker]

Any idea what the answer is?

If you've great content on the site that others will want to link to, it shouldn't be the big hassle you're describing. In my experience, other site owners are often pleased to discover a great resource that they can link to to serve their own site's visitors.

Now if you don't have great content and have to beg for a link, then that's a different story altogether.

Maybe that's the answer?

Inbound links = important.

Quality site = still more important.

People here spend so much time developing a linking strategy and next to none working on branding / loyalty / service.

I realise most, if not all of you are SEO's and make decent money from producing big numbers for websites. But it's time to realise that SEO is only a part of marketing and link development is only a part of SEO.

Perfectly stated.

[Crush]

Agreed.

We have content writers, people getting links, database programmers, graphic designers, non web marketing people etc. Links is one part of it but not the whole..

[nakulgoyal]

Indeed. Everything is Perfect as long it is well analyzed and done with DUE care.