Search engine optimization is the combination of multiple online marketing techniques in order to increase the visibility of your website on the search engine result pages. For most businesses, this means being on the first page and even first in Google’s results. An effective SEO strategy consists of 3 main pillars: the technical aspect (optimization of the website’s code and structure), SEO (content within the website) and off-site SEO. In the article below, we will focus on one of the most important aspects of off-site SEO. We will explain what link building is and how it works.
At the very beginning, it is worth considering why build links at all? Google’s algorithms are complex and are constantly evolving. However, link building has for many years remained an important factor that Google uses to determine the position of a given website. Well-built links are an important signal to Google that your website is a valuable resource worth citing and showing to your visitors. Therefore, websites with more backlinks tend to rank higher.
Important: There is a good and a bad way to link to your website. If you care about long-term profitability, you should only engage in natural link building, which is the process of gaining links, not buying or achieving them through manipulative tactics. These types of practices are called black hat SEO and can even cause your website to be removed from search results. In the article below, we will discuss the most important issues that you should keep in mind when it comes to link building, which will improve your organic rankings without violating Google’s guidelines.
What is link building?
Link building is the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your own. Hyperlinks (usually just called a link or a link) allow you to navigate between pages on the Internet. Search engines, on the other hand, use links to index the web. They index both links between individual pages on a given site and links between individual web pages on a given site.
White-hat SEO link building tactic
This type of link building takes time. It consists in creating valuable content to which other websites will want to refer their users. It is related to defining your target group and its needs. It is worth considering what content recipients are looking for and what they want to learn, and then create content that will be interesting and engaging for them.
This is the type of link building that will also be most effective. It is based on a genuine desire to connect with your audience. These types of interactions form the basis of well-established online dialogue and communication. Journalists, writers and editors of other websites, after reading the valuable content, will find it worth publishing, in other words, worth a link.
One of the biggest mistakes website owners make when it comes to link building is over-focusing on the link itself, not the content it leads to. Your content should be valuable to generate impressions, engagement, and most importantly – conversions.
What do links mean for search engines?
Links are a very important determinant of the authority of a website. After searching the web pages, search engines can extract their content and add it to their indexes. Thus, they decide if the page is worth enough to get high ranking for the relevant keywords.
When classifying pages, search engines not only analyze the content of the page, but also take into account the number of links pointing to a given site from external websites. The quality of these external sites is also important. Overall, the more high-quality sites linking to your website, the more likely you are to rank well in search engine results.
Link building in marketing activities
It is also true to say that links appear naturally as a result of other marketing activities that are not primarily aimed at generating links. For example, if you introduce a new, really innovative product, you will likely end up with lots of backlinks to your website as a result. Likewise, if you create interesting content that will be the best and complete guide to a topic in your industry, other sites will want to send their audience to your article and you will get links as a result.
Both creating a new product and posting great content are not for link building, but links are a consequence of doing so. Therefore, it makes sense to think of link building not as a standalone activity, but something that connects with other activities of your company, the benefits of which go beyond link building.
Helpful internal links
SEO people often want the benefits of a single referring link to span the entire domain, not just the single linked page. One way to do this is through internal linking, which is by placing a link on the landing page that points to another page on the same domain. This is an effective method of spreading your authority and standing on your site. It is true that Google does not measure internal links the same way as external links. However, it is essential that the domain contains both internal and external links to maximize its ranking potential.
Internal links are not as valuable as external links, but they help Google understand your website’s structure, which can be helpful for SEO. An example of this is our free text paraphrase tool based on artificial intelligence.
How to get high-quality links?
As you may be aware, not all links are created equal. We have already mentioned that Google takes into account not only the number of links referring to a given domain, but also analyzes the quality of the pages from which the links come. In link building it is very important that the backlinks come from websites that themselves have strong SEO metrics. Not all links are created equal, and links coming from the wrong sites can actually harm your link profile. For Google, this could be a sign that the website is using SEO manipulative practices, which could lead to its being blocked from search results.
High-quality websites that will enable you to implement effective link building should:
– have high domain authority and low spam score,
– generate a lot of organic traffic and traffic from social media,
– answer the topic or industry to your website,
– have a healthy backlink profile.
Link position in content
Few people may be aware that the position of a link in content on a website is also very important for its effectiveness. If a link to a website is placed at the beginning of the content, search engines assign it a higher value than the links appearing further down the page. In addition, it is important to bear in mind that link building campaigns aim to embed the link in the main body of the text, not in the sidebar or page header. Spam links or advertisements are usually placed in these places. Google is cautious and, in most cases, classifies links outside of the main content as significantly less valuable.
Link building – where to start?
If you are new to link building, the amount of information associated with creating a link profile may seem overwhelming to you. In the case of small businesses, it is worth using the potential of local SEO and publishing guest posts on high-quality websites in the first place.
Local SEO
Listing your website address in local business directories is relatively inexpensive. One of the best options for getting a big boost in local search results is to create a listing for your business on Google Maps. Almost a third of all mobile searches are location-based, and local SEO can help search engines better understand your location, markets served, and how customers can reach you.
For unlinked sites, local SEO is a great way to start creating trust signals. Not only will they make your website more prominent in search results, but they will also give you backlinks from well-established sites with high traffic.
Guest posts – a way to get high-quality links
Not only the content posted on your website can help in link building. Publishing guest posts on other websites is an equally effective and, what is worth emphasizing, practice in line with Google’s guidelines. This tactic involves creating and offering content that may be of value to the audience of the website where the article will be published.
If you are a specialist in a given field, you can ask the owners of a high-quality website to write an article for them in which you will link to your domain. When presenting your proposal, briefly describe what you want to write about and indicate the value of the recipients of the page who read the article. Guest posts, apart from the possibility of obtaining a link, have one more, very important advantage – they allow you to build relationships with other websites and expand your professional network of contacts.
We hope this article helped you understand what link building is and why it is so important to SEO. Link building is a very broad topic, but if done correctly, it can bring amazing results for your website traffic and affect your Google ranking. If you have any questions about link building or need additional SEO help, don’t hesitate to contact us. We will help you get high ranking positions in a profitable and, above all, long-term way.
