Twitter Weakens the Linkbuilding Power of Blogs

Back in the "old days" of 2007, if a blogger wanted to let people know about another blogger's blog, blog post, or website, s/he would link to it from a blog post. All of a sudden, free, easy inbound links were flowing freely.

But now the river may be drying up. Today, when bloggers want to tell the world about a web page, they link to it on Twitter - as well as a host of other social media sites. Links from Twitter Tweets are "no follow" links, meaning they create no Google search engine juice for the linkee.

The trend is sure to continue.
 

• It's easier and faster to Tweet a link than to blog it
• Twitter users like the practice - easier to zero in on relevant reading via Tweets than by scouring blogs
• Publicizing links on Twitter can produce a large influx of traffic - more than a blog can do in many cases

What are the implications for search engine marketing?

Inbound links from high authority sites continues to be a very important factor in achieving high position on search engines. Linkbuilding will take more work and for many firms will necessitate outside, professional assistance. Link exchanges, a practice that has been abused, seems to be making a comeback - after a year or two of virtually no activity, I get anywhere from 5 to 10 requests a week.

Quality content, always crucial, will grow even more in importance. It'll take a compelling blog post or web page to inspire bloggers to link to it on their blog. That's probably as it should be.

Firms will simply have to understand Twitter and other key social media sites with business utility, such as Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn. These sites have huge potential for driving qualified traffic. This potential cannot be ignored, if for no other reason than compensating for a shortfall in quality inbound links.