In a discussion on the blog of Aaron Wall I was asked “Who would you rather have promoting you? A barber or a professor?” The answer seems simple, anyone would say “The professor!”, but is that the right answer?
The question was realy a metafor for “Would you rather have a lot of links or some links just from authorities?” The question is not realy what I would want, but what search engines would prefer.
A link can be from a website that is related or unrelated to the searchterm you want to rank for. Links from related websites are worth far more than unrelated ones. A website is related when:
- It has related content
- It has related links to it
- It has related links from it
Most of the time a related website has a combination of these points. An autority website has alot of related links to it and has been related for a long time.
If you write an entertaining article on a subject you might get alot of articles on other websites linking to you. Because most articles will be about your subject, they will automatically be related. (The metaforical barber)
If you write an expert article with great insight on a subject not many people might write about it, but the ones that do, probably understand what you´re talking about and could be experts and authorities. (The metaforical professor)
Whichever one is better depends on numbers and relevance. My tip of the day is: Get both! Get links from experts and related masses!
For instance: Use an entertaining buzz to reach the masses and suck up to the experts. If possible combine it in one action.