Practically since the dawn of the internet, websites have been obsessed with traffic. How much traffic is enough? There’s no such thing. No matter how much traffic you have, you always want more. For a business, this equation is simple: more visitors means more potential leads; more leads means more potential sales; and more sales equals more money. That’s what you started this business for anyway, right?

In 2012, BunnyFoot (a usability and user experience design firm) performed a study to see if users could differentiate between paid ads and organic search results when using Google’s search function. In the end, researchers found that 40% of the participants could not see a difference when looking at ads on Google.

In spite of the rash of Google updates and other covert maneuvers, link-building is still necessary for search rankings. Google has made it crystal clear that high quality content is what it wants. But, Google is not quite so upfront about links. We do know that quality onsite and offsite content is just part of effective SEO. You still need to get those links. Link building tactics have changed and will continue to change in response to Google updates. Looks like another Google update is coming soon.