Link building helps SEO by making a website authoritative, trustworthy and relevant to all search engines. This results in a higher search engine ranking, which increases organic traffic to a website. With high-quality backlinks, your site’s credibility is enhanced, making it easier for crawlers to index your website and improve its ranking on the search engine results page.
What Is Link Building in SEO?
Link building in SEO helps increase website traffic by enhancing the site’s credibility and authority. The more quality links a page has, the higher it will rank for relevant queries. Google see these high-quality links as a signal of authority, which results in a higher ranking on SERP.
Types of Backlinks
Self-created backlinks
These are the links that you create by yourself, such as in forum signatures, blog comments and so on.
Manual backlinks
These are the links that you actively acquire through outreach, networking and relationship building.
Natural backlinks
If other websites find your content valuable, then they link to it without being asked. Natural backlinks are generally highly valuable since they are organic and come from reputable, authoritative sources.
How Does Link Building Help SEO?
As discussed above, link building is a powerful tool that helps improve a website’s ranking on search engine results pages, resulting in increased organic traffic.
Backlinks Improve Domain Authority
Links from authoritative sites usually have a great impact on SEO. Additionally, obtaining links from less authoritative sites is beneficial, but a well-balanced backlink profile encompasses both low- and high-authority sites.
Links Help Google Trust Your Website
A high-quality backlink profile makes Google trust your website more; therefore, it will rank your website higher on SERPs. It positions your brand alongside other industry leaders, making valuable associations.
Quality Links Boost Your Keyword Rankings
If you have quality links present on your website, then it shows the search engine that the content is relevant and authoritative, making your website more trustworthy. This helps in improving keyword ranking.
More Backlinks = Faster Crawling & Indexing
A higher number of quality backlinks from authoritative websites transfers credibility to your website, which generates trust. Since a search engine like Google find your website more authoritative and ranks it higher on the search engine results page.
Link Building Brings Referral Traffic
Another reputable website links to your site, allowing users from those reputable sites to click on the links and directly access your site, which helps generate good traffic to your website.
Why Google Considers Backlinks a Ranking Factor?
Google considers backlinks as a critical ranking factor, as they serve as votes of confidence or endorsements from one website to another. It signals that the content is credible and valuable on the linked website. This is how search engines determine a website’s ranking on the search engine results page.
How Google Evaluates Link Quality
Google evaluates link quality by analysing factors such as the authority and relevance of the website. Additionally, other factors taken into consideration include the link’s placement on the page and the anchor text. If a link originates from a trustworthy and relevant source, then it is considered a high-quality link by search engines.
Key evaluation factors include relevance, editorial placement, anchor text, do-follow status, site authority and trust, user signal, and the overall profile of the link.
Why Relevant Links Matter More Than Quantity
This is because they are a stronger signal that defines trustworthiness and authority to search engines, which means they can drive higher traffic to a website, thereby improving its ranking on the search engine results page.
Types of Links That Improve SEO
Editorial Links
These are the links that are earned naturally by creating high-quality content that others want to link to. It is the most valuable type of link since they are earned naturally.
Guest Post Links
These are the links that are acquired by publishing articles on other relevant websites. These links are enough to provide value to both your site and the host site.
H3: Business Citations & Local Links
A business citation refers to an online mention of a business’s name, address, and phone number, often found on platforms such as local business directories or websites. A local link is a clickable link from another website to your website that contains your business address. They are important for local SEO as they help search engines know about your business’s existence.
Social & Brand Mentions
The process includes online mentions of your brand that can be converted directly into backlinks. They work effectively to improve SEO and enhance a website’s overall ranking.
Best Link Building Strategies for Beginners
The best link-building strategies include creating linkable assets, such as high-quality content, and leveraging guest blogging to reach out to other sites through broken link building.
Guest Blogging
It contributes to valuable articles on other authoritative sites in your industry. You need to use search queries like guest post to find websites that accept guest posts.
Creating High-Value Shareable Content
You need to create unique content that naturally attracts backlinks, such as in-depth guides and infographics. You need to create content that is popular in your niche and see if you can create something that helps you attract an audience.
Broken Link Building
You need to navigate broken links on other websites and suggest your content as a replacement. This helps in creating a valuable strategy for both parties.
HARO / Digital PR
Haro is a service that connects journalists with sources, allowing all queries to be answered in real-time. Generally, Haro is used as a powerful tool for digital PR.
While Digital PR is the strategy of using online channels to improve the image and reputation of a brand
Internal Link Building
Internal link building is a process of linking one page of a website to another page, resulting in improved navigation, user experience, and SEO. This makes a website easy to navigate, providing a better user experience to all the visitors.
Link Building Mistakes to Avoid
Buying Cheap Spammy Links
Buying links is a violation of search engine guidelines. It leads to penalties. If you buy cheap, spammy links, it leads to penalties and other mistakes.
Getting Links from Irrelevant Sites
Obtaining backlinks from websites unrelated to your content or industry is one mistake you should avoid. If you fail to consider the relevance of the linking page’s content, then it leads to a lower ranking on the search engine results page.
Overusing Exact-Match Anchor Text
Overusing exact match anchor text is a poor SEO practice because it can lead to search engine penalties for being manipulative. Generally, search engines consider it an attempt to artificially boost ranking with outdated strategies, such as keyword stuffing. Therefore, it is important to know how to avoid overusing exact match anchor text or keyword stuffing.
How to Track the Impact of Link Building
There are various tools used to monitor the impact of organic traffic and link-building on search engines. Check out the list of tools here:
Using Google Search Console
The tool is used to check the organic traffic created by a link-building campaign. You can compare the organic traffic reports before and after the link-building campaign to check the overall impact.
Monitoring Domain Authority / DR
You can use various tools, such as console and Semrush, to monitor the number of backlinks and reference domains to check the authority of domains.
Tracking Keyword Position Improvements
You can use a rank tracking tool to monitor the position of relevant keywords just before and after getting links. This helps you understand the performance of keywords and how they are effective in generating organic traffic to a website.
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- Crafting a Successful Digital Marketing
- What benefits are there for using emojis in digital marketing?
Link Building Is a Long-Term SEO Investment
In conclusion, Link building is a long-term SEO investment that builds trustworthiness, authority, and credibility for a website, ultimately resulting in lasting organic traffic. High-quality backlinks are able to provide long-term value even when the efforts have been completed, and you don’t need to put in more effort into the link-building campaign.
