Blog simply for SEO and backlinks?

[AlphaWarrior]

I am ready to "throw in the towel". I have resisted creating a blog(s) because I believe that I give solid, valid information that doesn't need to be changed or added to every week, month, etc. However, I see competitor sites with tens of thousands of backlinks and the backlinks are all blogs. I checked and the blogs are nothing more than posts about news articles. They are basically useless and not intended to gain viewers to the blog. They are intended to and do create backlinks and therefore, help a site with SEO to be in the top SERPs.

Question: Should I follow suit? After all, if you can't beat them, then join them.

It doesn't seem right to create junk original content just to create backlinks.

[Peter Adamson]

You need backlinks. Either you find ppl who will link to your content because they want to, or you will have to link to it yourself. You don't have to create junk content. You can create good content, and spin it into many blog posts. There is nothing wrong with an author having their work published on more than one support.

I also have noticed that bloggers often take a news item, add three lines of comment and then say "what do you think?" to invite comments. If I were committed to producing a new blog post every day I'd probably end up doing the same thing.

There is more than one approach, but if your site is not attracting PR5+ links like flies then you are going to have to create those links yourself.

[Obama]

Yes, junk is not a road that you have to travel. Some very successful sites dont.

[chimeara27]

i agree to that also.

[Andi Putra]

I agree with Peter. You don't have to create junk contents but you really need those back links. So either you fight for it yourself (building Squidoo, Hub Pages, and more Wordpress blogs) or you asked high PR sites to have a link back to you (maybe by writng guest post or something).

[Smokey_Joe]

You don't have to do something just because someone else does that. If you really believe in what you are writing right now, you should go ahead with that. Eventually, if it's really useful content, it will be noticed. And that's when people will start linking to you on their own - just figure that!

In the meantime, you could try to speed this process up. I like the guest post idea mentioned here - you get a contextual link and share content on a theme you feel you know something about.

[KevinA]

Thats right, most of the top sites wont actually accept 'junk' articles. Its importnat the article is of good quality and provides meaningful information, especially to get accepted into the likes of Ezinearticles and Buzzle

[sherone]

Blogs not only for the SEO purpose. I earn some bugs from my blogs through adsense.

[Smokey_Joe]

Originally Posted by kaka21

Thats right, most of the top sites wont actually accept 'junk' articles. Its importnat the article is of good quality and provides meaningful information, especially to get accepted into the likes of Ezinearticles and Buzzle

We are not talking about article marketing here, we are talking about blogging and approaches to it.

[mrozlat]

it's called creating 'blog farms' and 'forum farms' to build authority and dominate your niche/s ... easy to do ... automated ... and well worth the effort !!

[Smokey_Joe]

I am rather inclined to consider something described with the words "farm" and "automated" somewhat suspicious. Don't you think so?

[Amenda Jessera]

Yes. Creating blogs for backlink purpose really helps. But do not go for more.
As well as try to feed with unique + well optimized content to your blog, That will help to JUMP in your SERP once your blog is cached... I am sure about it. But do not go for more. Get use with less.

Apart from it, you can go with some other web 2.0 things tooo...

[AlphaWarrior]

Originally Posted by mrozlat

it's called creating 'blog farms' and 'forum farms' to build authority and dominate your niche/s ... easy to do ... automated ... and well worth the effort !!

BINGO! This is exactly what I found. It is effective even though the content in the blogs is junk.

How do you out rank a competing site that has tens of thousands (10,000 to 35,000) of these backlinks? I can not write enough quality content to begin to match the backlink numbers.

[JustaWizard]

If I'm on the right page with you, AlphaWarrior, my input is that you do have to "play the SEO game" to get rankings, period.

Matt Cutts of Google makes it sound like "if you build it they will come" but that's not the case.

There are tons of low-quality, low-expertise info-sites out there ranking very highly for keyword searches because they know how to do on- and off-page SEO correctly - just do a search looking for info, it's not the quality-info sites that rise to the top *just because* they have expert, high-quality info.

Another big-wig (was is Eric S.?) was quoted as saying something like "the internet is a cesspool, and brands are the answer" and he had to be talking about all the not-experts-at-a-topic-but-good-at-SEO internet marketers looking to make money.

I've got no problem with people making money, nor with marketers who connect those who want with those who provide. No problem at all with that.

But let's face it, IM'ers, to some extent, do pollute the waters for true expert information sites.

IMO.

So yep - if you're an expert, it turns out you'll have to be an expert at marketing too - either online or offline or both depending on your market and your goals.

Hope that helps!

Best,
David