SM

Simon Penson, founder of Zazzle Media, has a fascinating article on the future of SEO, that I have been wanting to highlight for some time. He argues and provides good supporting reference to the idea that Google is moving away from primarily leveraging links and anchor text to evaluate web site relevance to the use of semantic analysis of text co-occrunces to determine it.

He writes: "Imagine being able to outreach awesome content without having to look for links.

Simply make people aware of what you are doing and get them to talk about you.

It’s how it should be and it would have a profound effect on the type of content you might produce and brand-marketing activity you might pursue."

The article is rich in valuable references and tools for anyone interested in exploring this topic.

Game changing. Resourceful. 8/10

Full article: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/semantic-web-and-link-building-without-links-the-future-for-seo

From an SEO perspective, google is updating all teh time and reliance on linkbuilding is dangerous as we have just seen with a key client.

Google still recommend a link building stratgy but suggest you diversify into PR and social media to build page rank. That means you need to create great content and promote it.

From a conversion perspective, great contnet is not enough, it must also be relevant. Look through your email subject matter from your customers over the past year and match this with search queries in analytics (not keywords but actual terms they used to find you) and there's your relevant topic and inspiration. Now you gotta do it daily.

Don't forget contributing to other publishers (especially popular and high authority sites) also constitues as content. Curation is fine if relevant (check out scoop.it) but creation is always best, it takes time so allocate time!

i agree, but this demands dedication!