...of course with forum traffic the question is - are you getting page views or image hijacking? http://www.weborial.com/how-to/bandwidth-hijacking.shtml if you don't mind my blowing my own horn for a moment. I have a site (that I just took over from someone else) where most of the traffic was images hijacked by various forum folk!
OK you can rank though if you have a combo of: - an old domain - old and good centent - only 2 or 3 backlinks That is for google.
Just to return to the original post - I used to hear the "Content is King" claim plenty, and would be happy to argue against it. After all, I was raised in the "Links are Everything" school. However, since then Google has been trying all sorts of methods for devaluing links. And, guess what - you need content to develop the links in the first place. I used to vociferously declare that "Links are King" - and for rankings they are still pretty much tops. But with overall SEO and marketing concerns, Content is King everyday. 1000 content websites are much more desirable than 1000 targeted links.
"links are king" - Type in "miserable failure" on google - the top result doesn't contain the phrase.
Apple vs. Orange. Content is like a product, links are like market campaign. Content and linking are kings in their own kingdoms. Speaking of SEO, links are king.
I'd say it depends on your goal. Quick and short term, or long and lasting. If you want a lot of traffic and rankings quickly (3 months - 2 years) then there's no doubt about it , links are king. The only exception is a site that becomes super popular overnight from word of mouth. If you want a site that's going to grow and last for years, then no doubt content is king. All the links in the world won't keep visitors coming back, won't get you bookmarked, and won't spread any word of mouth.
I think the logical answer is to add both links and content to your site on a regular basis. New links help seo; new content makes visitors want to come back.
IMO content will build you links - albeit at a relatively slow rate, but it's a better long term solution than paying out the nose for links on a month to month basis. Eventually, the linking power that is available today will go away as better algorithms are brought about by the SE's or they migrate to a different mechanism. For the do-it-now crowd, links are king. For long term goals, you cannot get by without content.
You can always get free links; by either submitting to free directories, or swapping recip links with complementary sites, so it isn't always necessary to pay for your linking campaign.
Maybe it is the content I write, but I have not seen very many people that link to what I write just because it is relevant...most webmasters want to keep the links between their own sites. I have a few forum links that people have said "Did you read this?" and it links to my page, but it is rare...So if content is king, maybe I need to write different stuff... Then again, the stuff I write makes money, and that is more important that content and links
I don't know I am pretty bad at writing content, and I am not a good enough programmer to come up with unique tools or anything. So I don't think much of my content generates links, I think content generating links is great goal to shoot for, but in my opinion a shitty business plan. I try to eliminate as many unknowns as possible. I want my websites to make $, and I don't want to have to bet my profit on the webmasters of the world linking to me. I don't see a bunch of webmasters getting in line to link to my affialte sites. I do like lots of content, but as mentioned earlier google won't even index thousands of pages unless you have a pretty health amount of links. Most the time people who like to say stuff like "content is king" tend to be content writers or content based SEOs. People with a vested interest in spreading that idea. Theoretically if you have enough links, you could have page with an affialte banner, and keyphrase in the title tage making a lot of $ so I would say in google content is not king.
You can be suprised at the content you can write if you just start making notes on stuff you know about. Also, you can hire people to write content for you; I think ArticleFactory does some decent articles at reasonable prices. You can also hire programmers to write tools for you; places like ScriptLance and eLance have decent programmers on their lists.
I definitely agree with this. What is hard for me is to write about something I am not interested in. When something inspires me, I just go for it and 2-3 pages can come easily out of it. I don't think it is a good idea to ever put all of your eggs into one basket. Yes, links work well, but when you look ahead and believe that the search engines are getting smarter, it's always best never to miss out an extra opportunity to cover more bases which may keep you from being buried in the SERPs when other sites will be. btw I don't look at seo strategies as a monarchy and cannot appoint anything King, it's more like a Board of Judges, different sites rank for different reasons
Its difficult if your content is SEO or Webmaster related. I fnd other SEOs and Webmasters are very stingy and protective with their outbounds. In some other categories the links fly as if they find something they like, they just link to it. With Blogs growing in popularity this is happening more and more. Tools (a part of content IMHO) are a big generator of links