Earn Links, Not Build It - Link Earning

Since the 1990, links were used by search engines to represent the popularity of websites. For years it has one of the strategies people rely to rank up in search engines - that is why it has been overdone and become more spam-my  Search engines have changed drastically and it was able to address to these problems. If you are doing link building strategies like: 

• Link buying
• link exchange
• email blasting
• submission to directories
• article marketing
• leaving links in forums
• do follow blogs/links
• building a site for links

These strategies are no longer effective because search engines are constantly updating so these strategies are can no longer be used because it has become spam-my. 

Links are no longer the core part of SEO success. Search engines have become smarter and harder to predict. Thus, one wrong move can bring your site down even before you know it. 

Link Earning

Link building is dead, link earning is a new SEO tactic to get links to your site. It is far better than "old school" strategies and is more focused in earning links than acquiring one. In short, whatever links that have been put up in blogs, forums, social networking sites were earned from a blog post that you wrote, for example, rather than a link that was put in a spam-my blog. Link earning is very different from link building, earning a reputation is the core of link earning. Here are some common SEO strategies of link earning:

Promote blogs through Partnership

Partner with blogs or websites similar to your niche in an authoritative website. Contents of both sites will get featured on each other's site. Lots of links are happening back and forth in a more natural way. 

Social Sharing 

Social media has a great role in link sharing. If you find a blog post interesting, share it in social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, etc. and hopefully the author will recognize your efforts and share your posts as well. 

Guest Post in Picky Sites or Blogs

Instead of submitting articles to article directories, why not send a guest post to picky sites. These "picky" sites just accept posts of high quality and is related to their industry. 

Participate in a community

Don't just post links in forums, blogs, etc. you have to participate in the community and make sure your comments or posts make sense and you are actively participating in it so, you won't be considered as spam. 

Build a social network

Build a social network that is made up of people that can link to you. These people own a website, has social networking accounts, and is actually interested in you.

What Still Works

There are still some link building strategies that still worked, but there are improvements. These are: 

Mining Competitor's back links

You can still monitor competitor's back links, but you need to be weary of the links that your competitors have. Don't get your links that uses "old" SEO strategies. Find out what is the most socially shared content in your competitors then find a way to do it better. 

Directory sites

Directory sites are still effective but only if it's curated lists.

Here is a video from SEOMoz about Link earning:

Conclusion

In my opinion, link earning can do better than "old school" tactics. Social media alone can play a large part in building links plus when you have more people who trust and follow your website, you are likely to have more shares and recommendations, thus increasing reputation in your industry. 

Sources: SEOMoz

              AmanzDigital