If Content is King, then surely Relevance is Queen!

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

It is easy as a webmaster to get caught up in these webs of
intrigue.

You get email notes about them, you view so-called experts'
thoughts on bulletin Boards -  hey you probably even read
things in newsletter articles!

Well I hope so anyway....

The big driver for webmasters currently appears to be
content and link building. 

While link building is important I don't believe it makes
Queen.  Maybe a Prince.  Content and links DO go hand in
hand but, without relevance,  the Kingdom is doomed. Sorry I
will stop the analogy now! :-)

If your site is about finance, then finance content is best
supported by finance link exchanges.  Relevance!

If your site is about finance, then finance content
supported by casino link exchanges from a PR8 site while in
the short term may help,?but all the signs are saying this
is 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 are
relevant to the content on your pages.  Yes I am suggesting
link exchanging on pages of your site not a links page.

Links pages seem to be being abused.  There are rumours that
pages called links, resources or partners are not passing
page rank. You could be wasting your time building links
that are not giving you any benefits!

Delivering relevant links from relevant content is the
future.

Look at sites such as www.bbc.co.uk or
www.independent.co.uk.  News sites have the right idea.
They have 2 or 3 relevant internal links to other
articles on the same topic or links to internal tools that
are related. These usually can be found at the right hand
side of the article.

They also then have weblinks or external links to sites of
interest that are related to the topic.  These are relevant!

Another benefit of this is that with a content rich site you
can add hundreds of links quite legitimately and really add
some value both to your Rankings and your users.

With a content-poor site it is difficult, you have to add
link pages or create a links directory. A five page site
will need to add 10 or 12 good link pages to compete and
even then with algorithm changes, this may not be prudent.

Having a site with 400 pages means you can easily add 3
links per page, so you have 1200 link options straight away.

Hopefully this explains that relevance runs a close second
to 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.

2004 Š J2 Squared Limited. All Rights Reserved.

 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.