July 16th, 2010 by Susie

This question is not one which comes up in SEO circles very often. This is because it is correct to place an awful lot of emphasis on how best to acquire links for a site in ethical ways. It is not possible to have this debate without first fully acknowledging that link attraction should be focused on quality rather than quantity. Nevertheless, reframing the debate is easy. The question becomes ‘is it possible to ever have enough high quality links to a site?’ In SEO, answers are rarely straightforward, and exceptions to rules often proliferate, but in this case the answer is basically no.

It is not the case that there is really a finish line when it comes to link building. This is because the whole point of the search engine results pages is that you are locked into competition with other firms. This competition is unending and the right approach is to do as well as possible with a continuous and flexible campaign. Even if a site is positioned at the top of the search engine results pages, even if it is doing better than its rivals in terms of traffic and conversions, it is possible for it to improve further. It will also be inevitable that its closest rivals will be doing everything within their power to overtake the site. In addition, new sites will be appearing on the scene, determined to make their impact.

It therefore makes a great deal of sense never to get complacent, no matter how successful your site becomes. Many SEO firms realise this and have designed their own maintenance modes. It is pivotal to recall that nothing in SEO stands still for a moment. Therefore it is more than possible to get things wrong out of doing too little, by mistakes of omission not errors of commission. With the various changes in the market shares of the search engines, with the periodic adjustments of the algorithms, with the shifts in ways of social media marketing and with the challenge of the emergence of mobile search, sitting on your hands will permit others to take the advantage. If you let them get too far ahead, you may never catch up.

Getting high quality links, then, is not something which can be done once and then forgotten about. It is something which requires ingenuity and ceaseless application. Working hard is something which will pay off, but it has to be sustained. New techniques of acquiring links may be arrived at. They must be checked out in terms of their suitability for your site. It is of course crucial never to stumble into ways of getting links which are condemned by the major search engines. This would be counterproductive and risky. It may be that the rules which define black hat techniques will change, so monitoring of the world of search is imperative.

In SEO, resting on your laurels is a foolish and highly inadvisable occupation. There are highly intelligent individuals out there attempting to get their sites above yours. We at Searchengineoptimization.co.uk know how to help you keep performing at a high level.

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