The New Age of Advertising, Part 2 - The future of text link advertising
(Page 5 of 5 )
Regardless of which model you choose, understand that text link advertising is one of the most effective ways of developing your site’s search engine presence. Other ways of building your link popularity, such as reciprocal link exchanges, still have some value in helping your site rank well in the major search engines, but their value is limited. In fact, a handful of SEO insiders have mentioned at recent industry conferences that the reciprocal link may soon become as ineffective as guest book entries.
I spoke with a colleague of mine named Tom Forrest. He’s fairly well versed on the recent trends relating to text link advertising. He mentioned to me that he has noticed a convergence of the major search engines yielding similar results, based heavily on text link advertisements that have been acquired by the top ranking sites for a particular search term. According to Tom, text links, in addition to increasing traffic, appear to be helping sites compete for top 10 positions in Google and the other major search engines.
Note that this seems to happen with more frequency when webmasters acquire text link ads from sites that are relevant to the content and/or theme of the site itself. It is not as successful when webmasters simply acquire any text link ad based solely on the PR of the link. There are other factors to consider as well (content, on-page factors, "natural" backlinks, etc…) but the impact of relevant text link ads on SERPs seems to be significant.
Please, do not take my word as truth. Take some time to research this topic. Visit the sites that I have mentioned. Visit the major industry forums and ask questions about this relatively new advertising medium. Make your own decision about whether or not to engage in this form of advertising, and if you decide to use it, make sure to develop your own strategy for going about it. Don’t take mine or any one else’s word for it without doing your own research.
Text link advertising will continue to be a "hot topic" in the SEO community, so make sure that you know where you stand and why you stand there. I hope this helps.
| DISCLAIMER: The content provided in this article is not warranted or guaranteed by Developer Shed, Inc. The content provided is intended for entertainment and/or educational purposes in order to introduce to the reader key ideas, concepts, and/or product reviews. As such it is incumbent upon the reader to employ real-world tactics for security and implementation of best practices. We are not liable for any negative consequences that may result from implementing any information covered in our articles or tutorials. If this is a hardware review, it is not recommended to open and/or modify your hardware. |
/ 11 
