We recently took a call from a prospective client in the Hammersmith area of London and the client asked why can’t I just buy backlinks in order to rank on Google? The short answer to that is because Google will one day catch up with you trying to manipulate your search rankings.
It is not worth the potential damage to your business to do such things. It’s not worth it because that link will always have to be paid for and that you are always likely to get caught.
You need natural links
You need to build a natural content marketing program where you produce the best quality content that actively engages and helps your prospects and ensures that you build a large social media following.
In order for your content to then be shared, that same money that you would otherwise pay to have a link, and which could potentially put your company in jeopardy if repeated on a number of occasions will, if used for the content marketing side, actually deliver results that will never endanger your business.
That is why we always say just think how you can help your prospects. It’s not a case of giving the whole game away. Nobody’s expecting you to reveal the magic source, the magic ingredient.
You can simply point people in the right direction and generate good will in the process. Let them solve a problem through those simple actions as a result of you sharing your knowledge and expertise and people will place trust in you.
They will not place trust in you if they come to your website and you are not able to demonstrate that same expertise because you have purchased backlinks from other sites and ended up in number one place on Google without the prerequisite skills or expertise to help them.
Then they come into your website and you’re not able to demonstrate that you can help them. It’s just not a win-win situation. It’s going to always place your business at risk.
Always build links naturally through social media and relationship marketing.
You need to build links naturally. Google are not playing games, they don’t care about your business. Your business will never be too big to fail.
Countless, large multinational corporations have fallen foul of Google for this very reason and if Google didn’t care about them and reducing their natural search results, do you really think they care about you? Do you really think you’d have an argument in court against them? No, not in the slightest.
That is why the long term is all about building natural links and a natural social media following. Build, spend your time and resources building relationships with other bloggers, with journalists, with PR people, these things pay dividends in the long run.
Paying for a link to try and get some short-term win will have massive repercussions in the long run for you and your website and business. It’s just not worth that risk and we would never advise any client to ever pay for a link.
