In digital marketing, link building can be included as one of the most relevant and effective ways of improving one’s website ranking.
Link building, in its own sense, might seem a little overwhelming to an individual who has just ventured into learning about SEO.
Do not be alarmed! This article will guide you through what it is, why you need it, and how you go about it.
What is link building?
Link building is the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites that link to your site.
In other words, these hyperlinks or “backlinks” are a form of a vote of confidence for the relevance and worth of your content to search engines like Google that your site is trustworthy, authoritative, and deserves higher rankings within the search engine results pages.
The more quality backlinks you have, the greater the chances of scaling up in the SEO ladder.
Why Link Building is Important?
To the search engines, backlinks are recommendations. They tell Google and other search engines how good your content is in comparison to the competition.
But it is not just about the number, quality matters more than quantity. Here’s why link building is important for SEO:
Improves Search Rankings:
Good-quality backlinks will push your website upwards in search results, thus making it more visible to potential visitors.
Drive Traffic:
Great links bring real users to your site, lifting the number coming to your site and converting.
Establish Authority:
When high-authority websites link to your content, it raises your site’s credibility in its niche or industry.
Amplify Exposure:
Link building extends your brand’s reach to new audiences, mainly any time links come from reputable or high-traffic websites.
Types of Links in Link Building
Not all links are created equal, and before digging into tactics to build them, you have to understand the different types of links you’ll be working with in your link-building campaign.
Natural Links:
These occur organically and may be placed by a website owner or blogger who feels your content is useful enough to merit a link, often times without asking.
This will be the best type of backlink, but it usually requires topnotch, shareable content.
Manual Links:
These are links you actually go out and get, usually through some sort of outreach, be it guest blogging or simply by contacting website owners and asking them to link to your content.
Self-Created Links:
These are most of the time created simply by adding your website link to various directories, forums, or blog comments.
Although fairly easy to obtain, in the most part, the major search engines will grant minimal weight to these links. Abusing them can even result in penalties.
Good Link Building Strategies for Beginners
To start building quality links, you want a strategy that is realistic yet very scalable. The following methods will be some easy-on-the-novice approaches to get the ball rolling:
Create High-Quality Content
But if there is one guiding principle behind any really successful link-building campaign, it’s this:
great content. If your content offers real value-whether through comprehensive guides, tutorials, or even original research-people are going to want to share it. What you can do is this:
Long-Form Content Creation:
Longer and more informative posts are highly likely to receive links because they contain detailed information that other websites will refer to.
Infographics Usage:
Indeed, the videos and interactive chunks of media which get loaded are highly shareable and attract links quite frequently from a wide range of sources.
Example:
A tutorial explaining in detail “How to Start a Blog in 2024” with supportive screenshots and explanations will attract more links as compared to a superficial blog post touching only the basics.
Guest Blogging
Guest blogging basically means that you create articles for other people’s sites within your niche. In most cases, you will be rewarded with a backlink to your site in exchange. This tactic is going to build quality links in your favor and introduce newer audiences to your content.
Tips:
Make sure, when you are pitching for guest posts, you choose authorities within your industry. Make sure the topic is relevant and directed toward their audience, offering actionable value.
Example:
If your blog is about fitness, writing a guest post for an authoritative health and wellness blog which links to your website will raise your authority and drive new readers onto your blog.
Build Relationships with Influencers and Bloggers
Networking is a powerful digital tool. These relationships very often will lead the influencers or bloggers to mention or link to your content.
How it works:
Share their content; appear in their blog comments; or link to them within your own content. Chances are that, over time, these engagements will pay off in the form of backlinking opportunities.
Example: If you run an e-commerce store selling green products, the outreach efforts with the eco-conscious influencer may result in them even creating and linking a review of your products.
Resource Page Link Building
Many websites have resource pages on which they link to other helpful articles, tools, or guides. This is an excellent opportunity if your content matches the criteria that could fit on their page.
How to Use It:
Basically, finding the sites which have resource pages in your industry and offering your link as a valuable contribution to such resource pages is how one can get free backlinks from those resource pages.
Make sure that your content actually fits their needs, and you grow the chances of getting a link.
Example:
Suppose you have an in-depth resource piece like “Sustainable Living Tips.” You would want to link to environmental sites or non-profits that also have resource pages on sustainability.
Broken Link Building
In this technique, you need to hunt for dead links from other people’s websites and suggest replacing the dead link with your link to relevant content.
In any case, use such tools as Check My Links or Ahrefs to find other websites in your niche that may have broken links on their resource pages.
Email the site owner, point out the broken link, and suggest you content as a relevant replacement.
You may come across some travel blog receiving tons of visitors with a broken link.
If you happen to have an article on that same topic, well, you can reach out and let them know about updating that broken link to your article.
Common Link-Building Mistakes to Avoid
While building links is important, there are some potholes to beware of:
Purchasing Links:
It can be very tempting to buy backlinks, but the search engines can simply penalize you for this by returning lower rankings.
Over-Optimized Anchor Text:
Multiple occurrences of the same anchor text-a clickable text of a link-can appear like a hint of fraud to search engines.
Keep your anchor text different to make your link profile natural.
Quality always trumps quantity.
One link to a high-quality, authoritative website is so much better than dozens coming from low-quality sources.
Tracking Your Link-Building Progress
You will also be able to track what works and what doesn’t regarding your link-building campaign. In that respect, tools like Google Search Console, Ahrefs, and Moz will help in keeping a tab on your backlinks and tracking your ranking, further creating opportunities for growth.
Conclusion
Of all the SEO factors, link building could probably help gain authority, drive traffic, and boost search engine rankings.
First of all, one should nurture the hope of creating good content, relationships, and ethical means of gaining high-quality backlinks.
And then, over time it will pay when the website starts to gain credibility and attracts more visitors.
Now that the fundamental link-building principles have been outlined, why not try putting these link-building techniques into practice?
The best way to go about it is to start off on a small-scale basis and be consistent, and then just watch your website climb the ranks. For any other questions or further guidance, please do not hesitate to contact us.
