Backlinks are a waste of time.

[Justin Lewis]

Okay, now I know a lot of warriors will be controversial with this statement, but it's my viewpoint and I'm sticking to it.

I think at least in the beginning, people need to stop worrying so much about backlinks, backlinks, backlinks.

Instead, put your focus on traffic.

Why?

Because if you don't have traffic, you can't succeed, end of discussion. No matter what it is, you just won't succeed without some type of traffic (when it comes to making money anyways).

Let's say you own a pizza shop, you open up the pizza shop in the middle of nowhere and get all of your "pizza" pals to send a letter to the government (google), saying how amazing your pizza is (backlinks). Doing so probably won't get you anywhere. Even if it does, it might not have a longterm effect either.

But let's say you own a pizza shop, open it up in the middle of nowhere, but begin to market that pizza shop and get the word out that it exists. At first, you probably won't have much success, but let's just say a customer comes to your pizza shop and then tells their friend about it. So you have 2 customers. Then you market more and more everyday, simply by building traffic.

Suddenly people start to notice you exist, maybe not a ton of people, but enough to make your living worth while. You never talk to the "big guys" (google) or even worry about them, but then, because you have so much attention, the "big guys" begin to notice you exist as well.

This example might be a little weird, but it's pretty simple. Focus on traffic first, worry about backlinks later. Yes you can receive traffic from ranking in the search engines, but if you aren't building traffic, who's to say that you won't be slapped by the Google Dance?

So to keep yourself save, focus on multiple streams of traffic.

Here are a few good methods.

1. Join forums and communicate with others.
2. Answers questions on Yahoo Answers
3. Depending on your niche, use classifieds like Craigslist
4. Write short articles, leading people to your website/business
5. Create a Facebook fanpage and stay active
6. Work on creating a list by giving away things for free

There are MANY more options out there. In fact there are probably hundreds.

So get out there and build traffic to whatever it is you have to offer, whether thats a niche website, business, product, service, or whatever.

Take Nike into consideration and "Just Do It."

P.S. Backlinks can be helpful in ranking websites, I just don't think they should be your primary focus. So for those that actually read this entire post, share your thoughts on how to build traffic other than search engines

[cashtree]

Point of backlinks is traffic

backlinks->google hug->traffic

[mattlaclear]

Driving traffic from those other sources isn't as easy as it sounds. It takes massive time learning how to do it well enough even to make $30k a year. The quickest way to traffic is via the search engines. Backlinks are simple to submit even for beginners. I may be more than a little biased in my opinion though. Just speaking from experience.

[Justin Lewis]

Originally Posted by cashtree

Point of backlinks is traffic

backlinks->google hug->traffic

I do agree, but for a beginner it can be much more confusing than that. There are so many people up here giving false information about backlinks. Truth is, the algorithms change on a daily basis (average change every 17 hours).

I'm not saying they are totally pointless. I just think beginners shouldn't worry so much about them, and instead focus on the "real" methods of building traffic that can be extremely longterm.

A majority of offers I see are quite ridiculous, saying 1000 backlinks for $15 or 50,000 backlinks for $100 and so forth. I just think it's unrealistic and it's considered spam (don't combat that, because it is, it's a fact).

I feel the worst thing for a beginner is that they thing every single backlink tool or service is going to save them all this work, when realisically, it could possibly hurt them in the longrun. If beginners and advanced marketers would just focus on traffic and provided good information, then we'd see a lot more success stories.

P.S. I used to think backlinks were the best thing in the world and they can be, but if done incorrectly, they could really hurt someone or cause them to go broke just for the wasted time. Plus, when you build traffic, you build backlinks

[Whos That Guru]

I agree that traffic is the way to go, but backlinks play a huge part in a website's success as well. Take organic search traffic for example. You can't rank high enough to bring in any traffic from SERPs without some good quality backlinks.

[Rob Howard]

* Paid traffic with PPC Google, Yahoo/MSN, media buys and advertising on individual sites.
* Paying high traffic youtube video owners to put a link in their description
* Youtube Advertising
* Paying high posters inside niche forums to put your link in their sig.
* Submitting your ebook to other product owners to give away as a bonus (you get leads)
* Submitting ebooks to ebook sharing site
* Adswaps
* Buying Solo Ads
* Joint Ventures and Affiliates sending you traffic
* Advertising in newspapers, magazines
* Other offline ads - TV, Radio,
* Other offline ads - bulletin board ads, flyer drops, etc.
* Guest blogging
* Blog commenting
* Article syndication (getting your articles inside high authority, well read sites, inside magazines/newspapers, etc)
* Classified ads - USFreeAd's, craigslist, ebay classifieds, etc.
* Putting your ebook or video course on amazon
* Submitting torrents of your articles, videos, courses, etc.
* Twitter
* Your own email list

Gosh, probably a whole heck of a lot more...

Rob

[Kendra Kiwi]

Google loves backlinks.

What are you going on about?

[Justin Lewis]

Originally Posted by mattlaclear

Driving traffic from those other sources isn't as easy as it sounds. It takes massive time learning how to do it well enough even to make $30k a year. The quickest way to traffic is via the search engines. Backlinks are simple easy to do even for beginners. I may be more than a little biased in my opinion though. Just speaking from experience.

Yea I think we are all biased with our opinions so even my opinion on this subject is from experience, but it's also from looking at beginners. I've been in courses with thousands of members where they just "don't get it". But as soon as I told them to stop focusing on backlinks and focus on traffic, they suddenly understand the big picture and the possibilities.

I started around the beginning of 2010 and since then I've learned quite a bit with over 100+ websites, the most successful of those websites were the ones I focused on building traffic to. But I was also successful with a few websites that received high rankings in the search engines. But as soon as the search engines decide, buh bye, those great success's can suddenly disappear

Thanks for the comment dude.

[mattlaclear]

Originally Posted by Justin Lewis

But as soon as the search engines decide, buh bye, those great success's can suddenly disappear

Thanks for the comment dude.

That's why you never quit backlinking. Sites always rebound with additional links.

[Justin Lewis]

Originally Posted by ccmusicman

* Paid traffic with PPC Google, Yahoo/MSN, media buys and advertising on individual sites.
* Paying high traffic youtube video owners to put a link in their description
* Youtube Advertising
* Paying high posters inside niche forums to put your link in their sig.
* Submitting your ebook to other product owners to give away as a bonus (you get leads)
* Submitting ebooks to ebook sharing site
* Adswaps
* Buying Solo Ads
* Joint Ventures and Affiliates sending you traffic
* Advertising in newspapers, magazines
* Other offline ads - TV, Radio,
* Other offline ads - bulletin board ads, flyer drops, etc.
* Guest blogging
* Blog commenting
* Article syndication (getting your articles inside high authority, well read sites, inside magazines/newspapers, etc)
* Classified ads - USFreeAd's, craigslist, ebay classifieds, etc.
* Putting your ebook or video course on amazon
* Submitting torrents of your articles, videos, courses, etc.
* Twitter
* Your own email list

Gosh, probably a whole heck of a lot more...

Rob

Great share dude

I know of about 100+ different methods of building traffic and many of these are on that list. I haven't tested adswaps or advertising on TV, but I have heard that they can be quite helpful.

[Justin Lewis]

Originally Posted by mattlaclear

That's why you never quit backlinking. Sites always rebound with additional links.

Yep, that's a good suggestion too. There are a lot of people that build backlinks for the first 2 weeks or month, but after that they just stop.

The search engines want a reliable figure to fall on. That's why google added Google+ into search results. It may not have a huge effect now, but in the future social interaction (traffic) is going to play a much larger role than backlinks.

[Rob Howard]

Originally Posted by Kendra Kiwi

Google loves backlinks.

What are you going on about?

I believe the point of his post was that, while backlinks are important for the SE's, it's not the only way to get traffic.

I agree with him, to a degree.

What I disagree with isn't that his assertion is wrong with backlinks or Google - the number one focus a newbie should have is on audience and what their needs/desires are.

Next comes the ability to communicate an offer to them. (Whether that is affiliate, CPA, your own product, etc.)

After that, focus on traffic.

If you know your audience, you know where they hang out, their demographics, etc. your advertising options expand beyond just the "SE's".

Rob

[Justin Lewis]

Originally Posted by ccmusicman

I believe the point of his post was that, while backlinks are important for the SE's, it's not the only way to get traffic.

I agree with him, to a degree.

What I disagree with isn't that his assertion is wrong with backlinks or Google - the number one focus a newbie should have is on audience and what their needs/desires are.

Next comes the ability to communicate an offer to them. (Whether that is affiliate, CPA, your own product, etc.)

After that, focus on traffic.

If you know your audience, you know where they hang out, their demographics, etc. your advertising options expand beyond just the "SE's".

Rob

Sorry if that threw you off a bit. I don't believe "traffic" is the number one killer in the world of internet marketing. I just think over the 2, people should focus more on traffic versus just backlinks.

I agree that the message, content, information, service, or whatever it is, that is being offered should be the #1 priority. But in order to actually make a profit, you have to have an audience/traffic.

[cashtree]

I find this thread interesting coming from you Justin, my understanding is you have a great deal of sites(100 or so) and one would think majority of your traffic comes from google? Unless you're a machine and manage to promote a 100 sites somehow.

[Rob Howard]

Just thought of some more:

* Podcasting
* Posting your own videos (duh)
* Viral sharing (like, recommend this to 5 people and get a bonus thingie) as well as "natural" viral (hey this is cool check it out - with friends)

Damn. I knew like 300 different ways or something ridiculous like that. This is bugging me...

Rob

[Suthan M]

Originally Posted by Justin Lewis

Let's say you own a pizza shop, you open up the pizza shop in the middle of nowhere and get all of your "pizza" pals to send a letter to the government (google), saying how amazing your pizza is (backlinks). Doing so probably won't get you anywhere. Even if it does, it might not have a longterm effect either.

Let flip the coin for a moment..

The government got recommendations by a lot of reliable pizza suppliers that your pizza is good.

Because of that the government who owns the big bad ass holiday and travel directory (that they use to dish out information about cool places to visit,) goes about promoting you in their travel directory as "top 10 place to visit" under your state/town with the headline "Must Try Pizza."

Now, is this merit the effort?

But then again, I am less of a backlink guy, but more of of "JV dude", so this rarely applies for my products.

[microsoftofd]

That’s a very informative post! Keep sharing.

[Justin Lewis]

Originally Posted by cashtree

I find this interesting coming from you, my understanding is you have a great deal of sites(100 or so) and one would think majority of your traffic comes from google? Unless you're a machine and manage to promote a 100 sites somehow.

Actually, even with 100 sites, traffic is the most important aspect of my business. I do have a lot of high ranking sites, but they drop off constantly.

In the beginning however it was much different.

I do not focus on building backlinks anymore at all and haven't for quite a while (since about website 40), the websites from 1-40 do not really generate that much income, whilst the websites 40-100+ are doing much better.

But again, I do not focus on backlinks, they are just built while focusing on traffic.

So that's not to say that backlinks are worthless, it just means that I personally feel the focus should be primarily on building quality/targeted traffic.

In other words, I view backlinks as #'s. And traffic as $$.

You hear so many marketers building backlinks via websites that will never generate them any traffic and honestly if you think of it that way, many of those methods are probably extremely spammy and will, if not already, cause Google to be notified in the future.

[elitewms]

Its not how many backlinks you create but rather the quality of backlinks and also you have to take into consideration other equally important aspects of on-page seo.

[Justin Lewis]

Originally Posted by Suthan M

Let flip the coin for a moment..

The government got recommendations by a lot of reliable pizza suppliers that your pizza is good.

Because of that the government who owns the big bad ass holiday and travel directory (that they use to dish out information about cool places to visit,) goes about promoting you in their travel directory as "top 10 place to visit" under your state/town with the headline "Must Try Pizza."

Now, is this merit the effort?

But then again, I am less of a backlink guy, but more of of "JV dude", so this rarely applies for my products.

Ha great way to change the scenario, but what if the government then decided that, after you started receiving traffic, that the customers found that pizza wasn't that amazing? They'd probably toss you off the ladder and it would be very hard to get back up.

But then let's say you have traffic/customers first, then you figure out what your traffic/customers like at said pizza shop, you work to make the pizza better and better and more quality for the customer. Now you have traffic/viral activity/and the government (google) would begin to notice you exist in a much larger way

[KimboJim]

The most luck I have had so far, out of backlinks, is Yahoo Answers links. If you actually answer questions and drop your link when relevant, it can get you some really good traffic. One of my websites uses this method almost exclusively to good effect.

[Suthan M]

Originally Posted by Justin Lewis

Ha great way to change the scenario, but what if the government then decided that, after you started receiving traffic, that the customers found that pizza wasn't that amazing? They'd probably toss you off the ladder and it would be very hard to get back up.

Well, if the pizza is no good, and the government take back their recommendation- that is not the government fault if we look at it fairly right ?

Gotta blame the pizza guy for coming up with crappy pizza and trying to game the system.

[blogworker]

Here are a few good methods.
Join forums and communicate with others.
Answers questions on Yahoo Answers
Depending on your niche, use classifieds like Craigslist
Write short articles, leading people to your website/business
Create a Facebook fanpage and stay active
Work on creating a list by giving away things for free

good sharing. thank you a lot.

[J Bold]

I think the point the OP makes is valid.

Some are SEO-whizzes and do fine with just backlinks to rank sites.

I think a lot of people just can't quite get the hang of it, though, and may find it easier to focus on traffic and if you do, you can actually achieve rankings as while you focus on traffic backlinks just become a by-product of your efforts, if you know what I mean.

I think that's what he's trying to say and it works for some.

I think, mostly, you have to find what works best for you between the two strategies and go with that. Or a combination of both. But the OP's focus truly is a combination of both due to what I've already said...

[Justin Lewis]

Originally Posted by KimboJim

The most luck I have had so far, out of backlinks, is Yahoo Answers links. If you actually answer questions and drop your link when relevant, it can get you some really good traffic. One of my websites uses this method almost exclusively to good effect.

I view that as traffic + backlinks. That's a different style of backlinking from the one I am expressing :P

Many marketers build backlinks via blackhat, grayhat, or just plain spammy techniques that I disagree with. There are some that are considered "okay" IMO, but most are just wasted net space.

For example, if someone builds 500 backlinks via spamming 500 blog comments across the internet, that's a "waste of time" IMO.

BUT, there are methods if you do it manually where you can actually build a ton of traffic from blog comments.

I once responded to someones post, that then went pretty viral and received almost 50 visitors a day from just 1 single comment for about 3 months.

That may not seem like a lot, but that's way more than any type of spam commenting ever did for me :P

1 comment = 4,500 unique viewers (rough estimate)

500 comments = 0-10 unique viewers and most of those were probably the blog author :P

Again, just my opinion of linking.

Good job btw!

[Whos That Guru]

Originally Posted by mattlaclear

That's why you never quit backlinking. Sites always rebound with additional links.

Exactly. As long as you keep building QUALITY links from relative sites, you will come back ranking higher than you did before you started bouncing.

[cashtree]

Originally Posted by KimboJim

The most luck I have had so far, out of backlinks, is Yahoo Answers links. If you actually answer questions and drop your link when relevant, it can get you some really good traffic. One of my websites uses this method almost exclusively to good effect.

you get any conversions out of that or just traffic.

[Justin Lewis]

Originally Posted by Suthan M

Well, if the pizza is no good, and the government take back their recommendation- that is not the government fault if we look at it fairly right ?

Gotta blame the pizza guy for coming up with crappy pizza and trying to game the system.

Which is what a lot of marketers do right? :P

I mean come on, a majority of the crap that's out there is exactly that, crap.

Especially those that just instantly receive overnight success's, you have no room to grow and learn. I'm not saying "don't build backlinks". I'm saying "build traffic"

[MaverickUK]

I don't see why you can't build traffic and backlinks at the same time. Plus I believe it all depends on the niche and type of site as to which sort of traffic you should be relying on or gunnin for.

For example based on what you said about recommendations, it's unlikely I will have someone recommend my review on a blue widget, simple because people find other ways to get a review on the blue widget i.e. the government.

If I was offering Chinese food then maybe I'd care more about people's recommendations and wanting to market my business in other forms than SEO. That's my take on it at least.

SEO is all risk vs reward, I fancy my chances

[Justin Lewis]

Originally Posted by MaverickUK

I don't see why you can't build traffic and backlinks at the same time. Plus I believe it all depends on the niche and type of site as to which sort of traffic you should be relying on or gunnin for.

For example based on what you said about recommendations, it's unlikely I will have someone recommend my review on a blue widget, simple because people find other ways to get a review on the blue widget i.e. the government.

If I was offering Chinese food then maybe I'd care more about people's recommendations and wanting to market my business. That's my take on it at least.

Read my other replies Again, I wasn't stating you shouldn't build backlinks at all. It's just a different style of backlinks.

When you build traffic, you can build backlinks too. But using shady methods is just a waste of time IMO.

[MaverickUK]

I only skimmed the posts sorry dude. What shady methods are you referring to btw?

[Justin Lewis]

Originally Posted by MaverickUK

I only skimmed the posts sorry dude. What shady methods are you referring to btw?

My view on blackhat is probably a bit different then others, but I view it the same as anyone should.

Shady methods would be like building 500 .EDU comment backlinks to your website, not providing any kind of real response to the question and using a tool to do all of the work.

That's only one of hundreds of methods I can think of, and only one scenario of the same method.

I get spam comments all day long on some of my blogs, just to see how people are in this industry and it's quite depressing to see that so many people believe that spamming the internet is going to get them somewhere.

Another shady method (IMO again) would be writing a 500 word article, then spinning it, blasting it out to 100 or 500 sites (or even just a few) and adding a link to the end.

I see no real value in doing that. I have done it before and I think it's a complete waste of time and I can definitely see the search engines catching on to things like that.

In other words, be realistic.

[Whos That Guru]

Originally Posted by Justin Lewis

Read my other replies Again, I wasn't stating you shouldn't build backlinks at all. It's just a different style of backlinks.

When you build traffic, you can build backlinks too. But using shady methods is just a waste of time IMO.

What exactly does that mean? "Shady methods" - if you are referring to tools, its all about how you use them.

Just because you CAN spam some crappy links and horrible comments or whatever, doesn't mean you should.. The software is only as good as YOU make it.

So if you are getting horrible results, maybe you should stop blaming the software and try to experiment with different methods and techniques you are using.

And just to clear things up, I know my posting can come across a little direct at times without meaning to, so - I am NOT directing this post at you, I just mean "you" as the reader/software user getting the bad results in general when I say it. lol

[cashtree]

Originally Posted by Justin Lewis

Another shady method (IMO again) would be writing a 500 word article, then spinning it, blasting it out to 100 or 500 sites (or even just a few) and adding a link to the end.

I see no real value in doing that. I have done it before and I think it's a complete waste of time and I can definitely see the search engines catching on to things like that.

In other words, be realistic.

How is that wrong? duplicate content is a myth as long as google indexes the original article you wrote on your site first. It's really a weak form of syndication having it on all those sites if you think about it, don't see how that's any different than if a bunch of sites without very good PR ratings decided to syndicate your article(taking out the spinning part because I see now value in that, short of some article directories demanding completely original content for their site only).

[Justin Lewis]

I'm not going totally against it. These are just my opinions and how I look at it.

I just think it's junk when 500 websites all have the exact same wording or crappy spun versions. I find it useless.

It's not about what Google thinks in my eyes, it's about the big picture and looking at how much time is wasted with many of these methods when they could be put towards something more productive.

Everyones just building backlinks nonstop, but they aren't thinking about what they are doing when they do it.

Yes there are good ways to build backlinks. Yes, there are great ways to rank with backlinks. But too many marketers focus on ridiculous methods that don't get them anywhere. Focus on the content/information/product/service and traffic/marketing of the website or whatever it is that you have to offer.



I knew this would become controversial, but that's the point of SEO and internet marketing.

I looove onpage SEO, but offsite SEO has taken a turn for the worst and I see a lot of marketers falling off the grid if they put so much focus on techniques that ultimately don't do anything, other than notify the search engines that they exist.

Traffic = <3

[Justin Lewis]

Originally Posted by Whos That Guru

What exactly does that mean? "Shady methods" - if you are referring to tools, its all about how you use them.

Just because you CAN spam some crappy links and horrible comments or whatever, doesn't mean you should.. The software is only as good as YOU make it.

So if you are getting horrible results, maybe you should stop blaming the software and try to experiment with different methods and techniques you are using.

And just to clear things up, I know my posting can come across a little direct at times without meaning to, so - I am NOT directing this post at you, I just mean "you" as the reader/software user getting the bad results in general when I say it. lol

good answer. I agree with that.

Many people do use the software way more than they should.

I do use some softwares (moreso webbased) and they can be helpful. I'm not against all of them, I'm moreso against the marketers that abuse them and ruin it for everyone else (even though.. they aren't really ruining it for everyone, as they aren't getting much benefit ha).

Thanks for the comment.

[cashtree]

Google is getting "too smart" for it's own good, or so it thinks, really it's just ruining businesses without caring, but there are other search engines out there that focus on the same type of criteria like backlinks as well. Bing, yahoo(which uses bing but still), ask.com i've heard many say they got most there converts through these. So it's not entirely for google and I saw your list but forums are limited only to so many people, and as such you will only get either a big bang(like reddit front page) or small numbers. With a spot on the front page of google you're looking at potentially tons of unique, targeted traffic every day. I'm not saying you're wrong I can just appreciate the value of google, at the end of the day you're the one making money, not me, so I do value your input, but the mediums you listed I just can't get my head around as being a equalizer to google, even combined, I can see them producing, but still.

[Justin Lewis]

Originally Posted by cashtree

Google is getting "too smart" for it's own good, or so it thinks, really it's just ruining businesses without caring, but there are other search engines out there that focus on the same type of criteria like backlinks as well. Bing, yahoo(which uses bing but still), ask.com i've heard many say they got most there converts through these. So it's not entirely for google and I saw your list but forums are limited only to so many people, and as such you will only get either a big bang(like reddit front page) or small numbers. With a spot on the front page of google you're looking at potentially tons of unique, targeted traffic every day. I'm not saying you're wrong I can just appreciate the value of google, at the end of the day you're the one making money, not me, so I do value your input, but the mediums you listed I just can't get my head around as being a equalizer to google, even combined, I can see them producing, but still.

Oh I agree.

Search engines play a huge role in traffic. I just think backlinks shouldn't be the main focus of discussion Onsite SEO and other methods have done much more for me. Even though backlinks contribute, I build them via building traffic sources only, and in doing so I have been much more successful.

I have a website that receives upwards of 5,000 uniques and 18,000 pageviews "per day". To some this won't be a huge deal as there are other marketers doing better, but I don't focus on backlinks. I only focus on traffic. I haven't monetized the website as I have future plans for it and I'm building recurring traffic, but even though ranking in the search engines can do wonders, so can multiple sources of traffic.

I have another site that ranked #1 for a term and received about 300 visitors a day from search engines, suddenly it dropped down to page 2 (google dance), but still received around 500 uniques from other sources. That website is now on the #1 spot for multiple terms and receives upwards of 1,000 uniques everyday from search engines + other traffic sources.

Point is, if the search engines decide to toss my website, I still have traffic coming in. So I'm not going to go broke.

[cashtree]

Originally Posted by Justin Lewis

Oh I agree.

Search engines play a huge role in traffic. I just think backlinks shouldn't be the main focus of discussion Onsite SEO and other methods have done much more for me. Even though backlinks contribute, I build them via building traffic sources only, and in doing so I have been much more successful.

I have a website that receives upwards of 5,000 uniques and 18,000 pageviews "per day". To some this won't be a huge deal as there are other marketers doing better, but I don't focus on backlinks. I only focus on traffic. I haven't monetized the website as I have future plans for it and I'm building recurring traffic, but even though ranking in the search engines can do wonders, so can multiple sources of traffic.

I have another site that ranked #1 for a term and received about 300 visitors a day from search engines, suddenly it dropped down to page 2 (google dance), but still received around 500 uniques from other sources. That website is now on the #1 spot for multiple terms and receives upwards of 1,000 uniques everyday from search engines + other traffic sources.

Point is, if the search engines decide to toss my website, I still have traffic coming in. So I'm not going to go broke.

Yeah I wasn't saying focus solely on google, definitely not, I hate them being so dominate and having so much power, because they care not about business they made that crystal clear. Also competition is extremely healthy and without it, everyone loses, short of the company dominating. As my name implies I don't believe in a single source of income, that 1 sites gonna make me rich, I believe in a multiple sources making a little, because combined they add up to a lot9like leaves/branches on a tree). You with a 100 sites is a prime example that it works, I read about your 3k in a day thread, very inspiring, and since you're doing well at the direction I want to head I value your input more than most on this forum. I have two sites I setup recently, only wrote 1 blog, and have done 0 seo on it, though via the google dance am on the front page for the blog title. I'm hoping with these sites I can formulate a good plan that I can replicate over and over. I also spent over a year working on some windows software I plan on releasing soon, and I REALLY hope it does well, lots changed in a year, but I put so many hours into this, I just need it to succeed. I plan on marketing my butt off once I have it done and uploaded to all the various download sites. Anyway getting off topic, do you do any offline marketing for traffic? I thought about cold calling(may write a detailed post about lot of info i read about that, as far as approach, national do not call registry, etc...) also considered giving away free stuff via torrent, just to get some eye balls on whatever it is, do some "freemium". May have tshirts made with my company site, figure why do I 1)pay some company for a tshirt that has their brand all over it and 2)walk around giving them free publicity, is silly.

[outwest]

Go search high TRAFFIC high monthly search competitive terms

find me top 3 sites that have very little backlinks, then come and tell me how unimportant backlinks are

[Justin Lewis]

Originally Posted by outwest

Go search high TRAFFIC high monthly search competitive terms

find me top 3 sites that have very little backlinks, then come and tell me how unimportant backlinks are

Yet again, I stated that backlinks can be helpful, but they shouldn't be a primary focus, please read through the comments. I understand your point and I have nothing against it. But the fact that most marketers are building "spam" all over the internet in order to acquire backlinks seems like a waste of time to me.

I understand backlinking structures, wheels, 3-waylinks, 1waylinks, article spinning, article submission, all that jazz. I've been there. I just think it's a waste of time if done incorrectly.

In the end, if you aren't building backlinks specifically to build traffic, I feel you are wasting your time in some way. These are just my opinions though Thanks for sharing.

[logoonlinepros1]

I don't think so that backlinks are just waste of time but i agree with you that low quality backlinks are just only waste your time. High quality backlinks improve your site search results.

[anukantseo]

hhmm very true ... u are saying that in beginning a bird should focus on its flight rahter that on its wings.... strange...

The moment u are concentrating on increasing the traffic on ur blog or site ... how will u do u must need to put the url or some point or direction so that visitor , and other persons on other site can come to ur site....by helping them and by giving answers ... but don't u think that by doing this u are actully creating backlinks .

even on yahoo u can pur ur url in resources option ....

without leaving backlink u can not increase the traffice...


so sorry dear i will stick to my point

baclink ~ ( directly proportional to ) traffic


more traffic mean more backlinks are being created

more baclinks mean more traffic are coming to ur site

[Justin Lewis]

I'm loving the responses on this topic.

I agree wholeheartedly that backlinks = traffic as well

The arguement is not directed specifically at backlinks. It's directed at backlinks that don't generate traffic.

So if I were to post 50 REAL solid answers on yahoo answers with a link back to my site (backlink) that would be a "traffic generating" and "search engine ranking" style backlink in my opinion.

Whilst backlinking with spammy methods is just that, spammy.

I feel the term backlinking is the wrong way to approach internet marketing and feel there should be a new term all together to separate the 2. (if there is, oops lol)

Thanks again for all of the responses and I look forward to hearing what more people have to say about this argument

[Mike Anthony]

Justin you make some valid and important points in your posts but your thread title is just wrong. Backlinks are no waste of time and leads to traffic Google is one of the leading sites for traffic so claiming that it is waste of time to get a link at the top of a page that has mad traffic for a targeted term is totally contradictory to your premise of wanting traffic.

In short your approach is short sighted and unfocused. If CNN told you if you did a bunch of other things that didn't directly bring in traffic they would put you on their front page for a day would you skip doing those things too? Makes absolutely no sense if you wanted the traffic from their site.

[niffybranco]

It all depends a where Your target audience is. lf your main audience are the Kind of People who will only find you by Performing a Search query it would be unwise to ignore backlinks however if you Can get better ROl by utilizing other traffic sources then by all means go for it.

[theverysmartguy]

Originally Posted by Mike Anthony

Justin you make some valid and important points in your posts but your thread title is just wrong. Backlinks are no waste of time and leads to traffic Google is one of the leading sites for traffic so claiming that it is waste of time to get a link at the top of a page that has mad traffic for a targeted term is totally contradictory to your premise of wanting traffic.

In short your approach is short sighted and unfocused. If CNN told you if you did a bunch of other things that didn't directly bring in traffic they would put you on their front page for a day would you skip doing those things too? Makes absolutely no sense if you wanted the traffic from their site.

Yea, the title of this thread is way off base. Backlinks are far from useless, and that is why people are posting what they have been posting.

That would be like me saying that your traffic methods are a waste of time. They aren't, but it really depends on the niche(s) you are in.

I find that I can create a larger and quicker traffic stream by building up backlinks to rank higher in the serps, than by creating traffic with your methods.

Do I create 1000s of back links a day with spammy software or WSOs? No, I have never used these methods. I create high quality backlinks that help me rank my sites higher against the people who do use the spammy methods.

Do these links bring in any other traffic? No, all my traffic comes from Google. Can I be kicked off of Google? For sure, anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional. However, to prevent this from happening I make sure that my sites are of high quality, and that I create backlinks to each of them on a continuing basis.

I also don't rely on just 1 website for my income. If I lose some rankings for a website, sure my income will dip a bit, but I won't be out of a home. I will just put some extra work into getting that site back up.

I also don't rely on just one keyword to rank for either. I have found that people who do lose large chunks of income from dropped rankings are the ones who rely solely on ONE keyword.

So, when I am building backlinks to my sites I do think of it as building links for traffic; because without them I wouldn't be able to rank on the first page of Google.

-- Jeff

[jackwebson]

Hi Justin,


I agree that the title of the thread is obviously wrong, maybe the title "Don't just focus on Backlinks" or sumthin' like that..whatever. But IMO the reason why thousands of IMs are focusing on backlinks is that its a very easy method to gain traffic. ALso, for Google since backlinks are important in rankings.

You can't blame them to focus on backlinks =) However, your ideas here are truly useful and I agree to that.


Jack

[Justin Lewis]

Thanks a lot everyone. I do understand how I wrote the title and I did that purposely. Just because I think some marketers need to rethink their backlinking strategies.

These are again, just my opinions and in my experience I have done much better with my business now that I focus on them.

[Fraggler]

Originally Posted by ccmusicman

Gosh, probably a whole heck of a lot more...

Who would have thought you could get near instant traffic while building up a profile of quality backlinks.