If Content is King, then surely Relevance is Queen!

There has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in the searchengine world of late and there are lots of conspiracytheories as to why these things happen.

It is easy as a webmaster to get caught up in these webs ofintrigue.
You get email notes about them, you view so-called experts'thoughts on bulletin Boards - hey you probably even readthings in newsletter articles!

Well I hope so anyway....

The big driver for webmasters currently appears to becontent and link building.
While link building is important I don't believe it makesQueen. Maybe a Prince. Content and links DO go hand inhand but, without relevance, the Kingdom is doomed. Sorry Iwill stop the analogy now! :-)

If your site is about finance, then finance content is bestsupported by finance link exchanges.

Relevance!

If your site is about finance, then finance contentsupported by casino link exchanges from a PR8 site while inthe short term may help,…but all the signs are saying thisis not a long term strategy.

Okay,so what is the best strategy?

Keep EVERYTHING relevant. It is that simple.

Make sure that you only swap or link to sites that arerelevant to the content on your pages. Yes I am suggestinglink exchanging on pages of your site not a links page.
Links pages seem to be being abused. There are rumours thatpages called links, resources or partners are not passingpage rank. You could be wasting your time building linksthat are not giving you any benefits!

Delivering relevant links from relevant content is thefuture.
Look at sites such as www.bbc.co.uk orwww.independent.co.uk. News sites have the right idea.They have 2 or 3 relevant internal links to otherarticles on the same topic or links to internal tools thatare related. These usually can be found at the right handside of the article.
They also then have weblinks or external links to sites ofinterest that are related to the topic. These are relevant!

Another benefit of this is that with a content rich site youcan add hundreds of links quite legitimately and really addsome value both to your Rankings and your users.
With a content-poor site it is difficult, you have to addlink pages or create a links directory. A five page sitewill need to add 10 or 12 good link pages to compete andeven then with algorithm changes, this may not be prudent.

Having a site with 400 pages means you can easily add 3links per page, so you have 1200 link options straight away. Hopefully this explains that relevance runs a close secondto content.

Always bear in mind when writing content that relevant links will not only boost your search engine rankings, but you will also add a service to your visitors.

Jason Hulott is Director of J2 Squared, leading specialists in Internet Consultancy whose specific aim is to drive more revenue to websites. Their main area of focus are the insurance, finance, and automotive industries.