Search engine marketing (SEM) is like playing darts. Except there’s no dart board. You only learn how many points you get when the master of the game tells you. Incidentally, the game master can also change the size, shape, and location of the scoring fields on the board.
Luckily, search engine marketers have been throwing darts for awhile, so we have a pretty good idea of what the board looks like and how to score points. However, every once in awhile, someone out there takes the time and effort to land a handful of darts in just the right places to see if the boundaries are where we think they are.
Recently, a study was conducted by Stone Temple, an internet marketing consulting group. They wanted to make sure that links still counted for as many points as in the past. What they found raised a few eyebrows in the field.
Links Have Always Been Important
It has long been understood that your website gets a boost in the search engine results page whenever another website links to it. Search engines see this as a sign of your site’s good reputation, which could only be had if it were a quality website. Finding quality websites are what search engine users are all about, so boosting them to the top of the rankings plays into a search engine’s business plan.
Study Suggests That Links Are Now Even More Important Than We Thought
Stone Temple’s study, however, did 6,000 searches, and took a look at the top 50 websites in each search. In simplified terms, the study then compared the number of links going into each website, and compared it to the site’s ranking.
The result was a “near-perfect correlation” between a high ranking and the number of links going into a particular site.
Building Backlinks Is Important
The study by Stone Temple showcases the importance of building a strong portfolio of banklinks to your law firm’s website. Unfortunately, this has been the goal of SEM all along. Now, we just know that it’s even more important than we’d thought.
Getting other websites to link to your own has always been an uphill struggle. It requires the precise mix of great content, social media, and effective search engine optimization.
The legal writers at Myers Freelance can help on all fronts. Get in contact with us to get started on your law firm’s website.