When asked by an online friend to describe my biggest link building success of 2013 I was at first flabbergasted. Who am I to take part in such a group interview?

My success would be surely dwarfed by many other prominent link builders – the people who are always above me on such group interviews – like Jason Acidre or Brian Dean.

After further inspection I realized that I had even more than one “biggest success” in the past year. 2013 was cathartic indeed. Not only have I built links on autopilot like never before but also the relationship building I was doing for a few years paid off too. What happened exactly?

I didn’t make it on time to be part of that group interview but the thought process revealed at least two things: not only I got popular enough again so that I got approached for such interviews on a regular basis in the first place. My long-standing involvement with many people of the SEO and adjacent industries (like say inbound marketing, content marketing etc.) has paid off in a more direct way too.

First off remember that I’m that stupid guy who bans Google on his SEO blog out of stubbornness.

I don’t like Google pushing me around so I push back at least symbolically. Of course this means zero search traffic from Google and thus in general far less visitors on my blog. You could even argue that this is basically a declaration of defeat.

My audience follows me

In the current Web environment you have to build an audience. What does that mean? You need people who know you and who want to view and recommend your content. Creating content without an audience means either failure or a lot of effort to spend on outreach and relationship building.

Luckily I have been building relationships “long before it was cool”.

I wasn’t always doing it on purpose. I just liked to reach out to people and connect with them especially in case we shared some common interests like blogging, social media or search engine optimization. I have written for several publications by now so that I publish one day here, the  second day on seo2.us and the third day on Squawk.im sometimes.

Most people do not follow all of the publications I write for but they follow me around and check out whatever link I recommend, even in case it’s just shameless self-promotion.

I can “recommend” a few of my own posts in a row because the people who follow me are used to get quality content and proper advice from me, whether it’s my own or third party content. That’s a huge success. Usually people run away from selfish publishers who share too much of their own stuff.

Commonly an audience resides at a publication or it is limited in its flexibility. I am able by now to get them to wherever I write without having to convince them each time that’s it’s me and that it’s worthwhile.

I get clients from referrals

I get recommended and thus  people who approach me know who I am.

When you rank for [seo services] and other generic keywords all you get are low quality leads. You can improve the lead quality by ranking for specific and high profile tasks but at the end of the day you get strangers who don’t trust you yet when they contact you. They want to find out who are and what you’re all about. There’s nothing wrong with it. I’d do the same in their shoes.

From my perspective it’s just tiresome. You have to explain who you are, why you rock and why they should trust you again and again. That’s like yelling all the time how fresh your fruits are on the street market. I’m not the perfect type of guy for that. I’m not an introvert either but I’m not egomaniac enough to do it all the time.

When someone recommends me on the other hand the trust is already established. How? The trust has been transferred. The friend of my friend is also my friend.

One such example was really so amazing that I have to share the story with you. One fine day Nick Eubanks who resides in the US tweeted that he looks for someone in Germany for a SEO client. I know Nick and follow him on Twitter but I didn’t see that tweet, after all I can’t follow my timeline all day. Another online friend of mine, Paul Gailey from Spain, noticed that tweet and answered it including a recommendation of yours truly.

A day later I replied to the original tweet and finally I connected via mail with Nick. One mail message was lost in the spam folder but as we trusted each other we established the contact anyway. That’s not even the end of the story. Guess what? The actual client who I work for now sits 10 minutes within walking distance of where I live.

I get leads from “competitors”

You by now probably know my writings and all the hippie stuff I have written over the years, how we all are friends and are connected by link love for the greater good of the SEO industry and human kind. It might sound laughable but it’s true. That’s why

I’m not envious that other people, especially self-made men like Jason or Brian are more successful than me.

I am inspired by them. I follow their footsteps and learn from them despite being longer in the industry by now and probably less successful. I don’t feel too old to learn from younger people either. Most notably I don’t consider them a threat.

In most industries people are so intent on fulfilling some “survival of the fittest” clichés of capitalism that they fight each other.

Just yesterday a potential client contacted me who is the victim of click fraud by their competition as she suspects. Some people simply keep on clicking her Google ads. The only thing they accomplished with this click fraud attack is that their competitor asks me for support with organic SEO to outrank the fraudsters in the near future.

When you read Darwin you will realize that what he meant by “survival of the fittest” was that the fittest species survives. Actually it’s not even about strength and ruthlessness even on a species level. The species that is cooperating the best is often the fittest. Again that’s not me saying this, it was Darwin himself.

Do you know why penguins survive in Antarctica when it’s -50 degrees Celsius (-58 Fahrenheit)? They cuddle in large groups to keep the warmth. Those outside take turns with those inside the group so that none of them has to stay in the cold wind for too long.  In the same way I keep getting leads from competitors of mine, people who offer the same or very similar services as freelancers or entrepreneurs.

Just think about it: does it really make sense to compete against the rest the world on the Internet?

That would be insane! How could you assume that you can compete against billions of people? Thus I’m not afraid to share articles from other bloggers who compete for attention with me. I’m not afraid to work together with other SEO practicioners. I’m not afraid to give away clients to others either. I can serve only a few clients at the same time anyway.

Independence from Google

So in short my biggest link building success of 2013 is that I actually became independent of Google.

I have virtual links with people who have never met me before but they know who I am and how I work so that they trust me enough to recommend me. At the end of the day I do not even need a hyperlink on a website because my online connections work on a higher level. Links are not only about hypertext they are also about hippietext. So spread link love!

* (CC BY 2.0) Creative Commons image from Steve Jurvetson

** (CC BY 2.0) Creative Commons image from D. Sharon Pruitt

*** (CC BY-ND 2.0) Creative Commons image from Anne Fröhlich

**** (CC BY 2.0) Creative Commons image from Marc Levin