Is Backlinking Bad?

If you've followed online marketing for any amount of time, you know how hated the words "Penguin" and "Panda" are to many individuals who practice SEO (Search Engine Optimization).  And if you haven't, even as a pure freelance writer you should.  What's going on in the SEO world is going to directly affect what type of articles are wanted by employers from online freelance writers.  The more you understand about what marketers are looking for when writing for good on page SEO, the better you're going to do as an online writer.

What does this mean for you?

Even if you're working purely as a freelancer and not working on your own sites or building your own residual income (and I'm not sure why you wouldn't look at diversifying your income streams), it's worth understanding what your employers are looking for and what the trends in online writing are.  This will help you become more effective.  If you're someone who is interested in creating a side income from building niche sites, authority sites, or any type of website to further your online business goals, then you need to know about search engine optimization.  And that means understanding backlinks.

I can find someone to say anything - who should I listen to?

As with anything, opinions differ vastly from one "expert" to another - and one of the biggest frustrations many people have with SEO is that what worked a few years ago often doesn't work now or can even have the complete opposite effect and hurt your efforts to be found and to rank well in the search engines.


Another issue?
Another issue that sometimes confuses the situation for online freelance writers is that  there is no single ONE way to success online when building sites.  A few years ago a lot of exact keyword match backlinks with keyword stuffed text would do it.  Those days are LONG gone.  People have made success with incredible social presence.  Others have put out such an overwhelming amount of content that over time they've culled in a major following.  Some have used link building and SEO, some videos, and others have used stunning content to get attention through other mediums.

In other words, there are plenty of ways to get to that ever hazy place termed as "success."  Just because one person who has used one method strongly advises it, that doesn't mean it's the only way to get it done.

But SEO still exists and there is plenty to know about how to go about using backlinks safely and effectively to help promote your website.  With that in mind, I want to point all of you to the first guest post I've ever accepted on a Master Dayton blog.  Over at the home of the new freelance writing blog, Chris from I Work Off the Clock has provided a stunningly good guest post talking about how effective backlinking has to be done in a post Panda and post Penguin Google update type of world.

Please check out Chris's blog post on post Penguin SEO at the new Master Dayton website.  This is the type of information that can really help you to