{"id":3395,"date":"2013-09-18T12:55:19","date_gmt":"2013-09-18T12:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/?p=3395"},"modified":"2013-09-18T12:55:19","modified_gmt":"2013-09-18T12:55:19","slug":"sick-to-death-of-relationship-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/3395\/sick-to-death-of-relationship-building\/","title":{"rendered":"Sick to Death of Relationship Building"},"content":{"rendered":"

On April 2, Victoria Edwards wrote a popular piece for SearchEngineWatch titled \u201cScrew Link Building, It\u2019s Called Relationship Building!<\/a>\u201d In the piece, she discusses case studies from Jo Turnbull and Erin Everhart that ruminate on the concept of link building and how the practice is more modern, acceptable and profitable when it includes, or is converted entirely to, relationship building.<\/p>\n

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Edwards writes, \u201cWhat do you want out of a personal relationship? Loyalty and value are at the top of this list. This is the same way you should think about link building and how you should approach it. Be valuable and loyal to people and you will have a high return on your time invested. It\u2019s important to find those areas where the like-minded people are that you wish to communicate with.\u201d<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t agree more with that assessment about personal relationships, value and loyalty. Finding like-minded people is important, but that\u2019s not link building. Nor is it simply relationship building\u2014it\u2019s called networking<\/em>, and it\u2019s been around for as long as humans have walked the Earth.<\/p>\n

Chameleons and Buzzwords<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Relationship building, link earning and other new buzzwords are being thrown around to replace link building because of its admittedly sordid past. The industry as a whole doesn\u2019t focus on building spammy links anymore, but we still build links. People are quick to leave the old at the altar and marry new terms. They\u2019re quick to rebrand themselves. But at the end of the day, we\u2019re still building links. We don\u2019t need to abandon ship. We can build relationships and build links at the same time, but they\u2019re not the same thing. One cannot replace the other.<\/p>\n

Relationship building isn\u2019t bad\u2014it\u2019s one of the keys to success in business. Link building is not the same as relationship building. When link building reaches its highest potential, it includes elements of relationship building. The middle of that particular custom illustration should be large and robust, but they\u2019re not the same thing.<\/p>\n

Survival Becomes Marketing<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Let\u2019s talk about relationship building, though, because it\u2019s an important topic. For the purposes of this article, let\u2019s embrace the old ways and refer to it as networking.<\/p>\n

Imagine a tribe of cave people. They knew how to kill the woolly mammoth, but they were cold. A neighboring cave tribe knew the secret of fire, but they didn\u2019t have much to eat. Cave tribe A networks with cave tribe B because, hey, they have something in common and they can help each other out. They build a relationship. That simple concept has escalated forward into marketing, sales, link building and everything else we do.<\/p>\n

We build links to make money. We need money because we want to support our relationships just as much as we want to support ourselves. Nothing in this world happens without relationships. That\u2019s especially true with link building.<\/p>\n

The thing about that, though, is that you can\u2019t force relationships. Sometimes when you write a guest post and it\u2019s placed on the perfect site, you don\u2019t exchange more than a few words with the webmaster. Either they don\u2019t have the time or the interest. It shouldn\u2019t happen that way the majority of the time, but that\u2019s reality. You\u2019ve still created a good link, but a relationship wasn\u2019t built in the process. A relationship doesn\u2019t automatically flicker into existence when a hyperlink is created. In the best circumstances, a relationship is created along with the link, but there are plenty of times when that\u2019s not the case\u2014and the link is still perfectly good.<\/p>\n

Who You Know<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The relationships you do build are important, however. They\u2019re not just important for your link building campaign; they\u2019re also an important part of your overall marketing strategy. You might even make an actual friend in the process, which is just as important.<\/p>\n

Good relationships often provide us with great link opportunities, give us new ideas and allow us to take a look at the industry from a different perspective. They also open doorways into other new relationships.<\/p>\n

Getting to know the editors of a popular industry website is a fantastic networking opportunity. The same goes for participating in the industry\u2019s online community with comments and social media. Those are valuable relationships for obvious reasons.<\/p>\n

I talked about it before, but link building and networking should cross over often. In an ideal world, the two would always cross over. A quality link can be built without a relationship, but if a relationship is built along with it, your overall marketing strategy will be better off for it. The two fit together closely, but they\u2019re not the same thing. Networking is essential for businesses. Networking is an essential component of any effective online marketing strategy, and so is link building. They work together, but using a fancy new buzzword does not mean that link building is the same thing as networking.<\/p>\n

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When Edwards writes, \u201cTry thinking about link building as a way to build value and loyalty with people in your vertical. Not only will it be a longer-term effort that just spamming people for links, but the effect will be longer lasting and way more authentic.\u201d she is absolutely correct.<\/p>\n

Spam, as far as effective link building goes, is a thing of the past, for a normal business (shady tactics<\/a>\u00a0still exist … and they might\u00a0get you a quick rank and along with it a big ranking penalty). Though we\u2019re still mending some fences, the industry has moved beyond building spammy links and onto creating useful links powered by human brains.<\/p>\n

We want to approach every blogger and webmaster like a human being and provide something of value\u2014but that won\u2019t always yield a relationship. Link building is not networking, but they\u2019re both valuable weapons in any online marketer\u2019s arsenal\u2014especially when they cross over.<\/p>\n

About the author<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/td>\nJon Ball<\/strong> is VP of Business Development for Page One Power<\/a>. Jon specializes in developing highly effective link building strategies for clients across the world. Trained as a professional portrait photographer, he still passionately pursues photography as a hobby.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On April 2, Victoria Edwards wrote a popular piece for SearchEngineWatch titled \u201cScrew Link Building, It\u2019s Called Relationship Building!\u201d In the piece, she discusses case studies from Jo Turnbull and Erin Everhart that ruminate on the concept of link building and how the practice is more modern, acceptable and profitable when it includes, or is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,3,4],"tags":[36,124,125],"class_list":["post-3395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guest-posts","category-link-building","category-social-media","tag-link-building-2","tag-relationship-building","tag-social-networking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3395\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cognitiveseo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}