In their effort to create valid and relevant search results, Google's complicated algorithm is ever changing. The key to ensuring that your site shows up at all in search, and particularly high enough to get some traffic, is factoring in the importance of inbound links. It is impossible to say exactly how many links you need, what kind of links, or why some links seem to work more than others. But with experience and research, you can learn how to work towards that perfect mix of links that will signal to the search engine spiders that your site is indeed worthy of the Top 10.
Now in the long term, your focus on having a visitor friendly site, with material that a visitor wants to see, will be rewarded by the search engines. And of course increase conversions and loyalty. So be careful not to lose the perspective of your customer, your visitor, and make your site what the public wants.
That said, you still have to do a ton of work that you would not normally do for visitors only, if you want to rank for your words. It is just not possible to build a site just for visitors and expect to rank. MAYBE if you have 4 years, MAYBE if the nature of your business coincidentally is one that demands new content naturally for visitors, MAYBE if you are such a huge authority in your field, if your field happens to be something worth linking to, MAYBE then you can just randomly and naturally build up enough inbound links to rank high enough to turn a profit. But what if you sell socks? I mean, how much content can you possibly 'naturally' put on your site about socks? Is it really helping your visitor? And how many websites in the world are just dying to link to your fabulously well written valuable articles (1-2 new ones a month, right?) about socks, choosing a color, knee socks vs. crew, etc. It is all just fluff, and this is what the search engines want (expect) us to do.
The fact is that you will have to plan a link building campaign. It should include link baiting such as writing amazing content whether your visitors need it or not, authority valuable articles, doing article submissions and press release and social media marketing. These are typically your smaller links and smaller votes. But you will also have to find some high value links, from high PR sites, or other authority sites such as EDU or GOV sites. And further, the fact is that most of the high ranking sites are buying some of these links, it's just the way it is.
Link campaign tips: Keep it well rounded. Work towards a mix of high PR links and lots of smaller ones, even PR below yours. Shoot for links in content whenever possible, they are still absolutely the best. Keep the timing natural, you do not want tons of links showing up at one time, it is unnatural. Use a variety with your anchor text, do not overoptimize for one keyword. And point the anchor text to the complementary internal page, not just the homepage.
Sounds like a lot of work? The best link building is just plain time consuming, there is no way around it, and more and more companies are hiring it out in some fashion.
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