Content, quality links 'essential for good link generation'

Good content and high-quality links are essential to the process of generating valuable links, according to one expert.Mark Jackson of Search Engine Watch urged companies to avoid link swapping and instead advised commercial sites that may find it difficult to generate quality links to look into other methods such as setting up a blog.Through a blog, companies can create unique, compelling content that web users are more likely to link to than anything on a standard commercial website, he noted.Creating content on other sites through guest blog posts, for example, can also be helpful, while using tools such as Linkscape, Advanced Link Manager and Traffic Marks can help marketers to determine where the highest quality links are."Link quantity isn't the end game. Link quality is the critical element for success," Mr Jackson said.Meanwhile, the BBC has ended its trial of including embedded external links in its articles - links that could be of a very high quality - and has indicated that it will look at how journalists markup their stories next year.