Have you ever thought about how much value links give to your website? Link building is very essential in any SEO strategy and it is based on constructing links across your pages to demonstrate your authority in a given field to Google.
Web crawlers discover new content on your website to index through links and understand how pages relate to one another. It reveals a web page’s true relevance, which is essential to a high position in search results.
This is why it’s not enough to simply create a website with a responsive design, improve its page speed, and create relevant content. You need links too.
In this article, you’ll learn how to put link building into practice and achieve the best results with your digital marketing strategy.
What is Link Building?
Link building is a strategy that aims to build a network of links to a page to drive traffic and strengthen its authority in search engines.
Links can be either external or internal. In link building terms, the external ones come from other sites, also referred to as backlinks or inbound links.
These links show Google and other search engines a site’s popularity and authority in the market. The search engine investigates the links leading to the site to see how often it’s cited and the quality of those references.
The more links received from trustworthy and popular sites, the more relevant Google considers the site in its area of expertise.
Link building also includes internal links, those included on the site’s pages. They may target pages on or off the site.
Google also evaluates these links to understand the quality and relevance of a page and, consequently, whether it merits a better ranking in search results.
Why Are Links Important?
Links have been important since the very beginning of the web as they are responsible for these connections, allowing users to navigate between pages, sites, images, videos, and files. Search engines rely on links structure to crawl and rank websites.
Links also reveal the web paths for search engine robots, which crawl websites to index new content or updates.
Google which is the most popular search engine in the world today came to the forefront and began its journey with the introduction of an algorithm that revolutionized search: PageRank.
Since the introduction of PageRank, Google’s algorithm has continued to evolve. PageRank considers several factors to rank sites in the search index.
The algorithm analyzes page content, based on its keywords and its popularity on the internet, measured through its network of links.
Links demonstrate the authority of a website. This is also how they became important for search engines and SEO experts.
Google decided to consider the diversity and quality of the pages that pointed to backlinks.
The algorithm defined that when high-quality pages from different domains create links, the page they link to receives part of their authority, commonly referred to as link juice.
Hence, the search engine can classify the sites according to their level of authority in the market.
At this point, a site’s reliability, anchor texts, the position of backlinks on the page, and several other factors which we explore below came into play.
A page that links to another shows the web crawler a path to take and the URLs it is sharing its authority with. Therefore, links are essential for crawling and ranking websites on search engines.
Link Building Techniques
To put link-building techniques into practice, it’s important to keep some factors in mind. This will allow you to build a strong network of links to your pages regarding both quantity and quality.
So here are the main practices we highly recommend!
1. Create Marketing Assets
Before thinking about chasing links, you need to ensure that users will like what they find on your site.
By doing so, you will achieve results through the visitors you receive, in addition to getting your content shared by them — thus generating more links to your site.
To increase the chance of sharing, invest in creating linkable Digital Marketing assets. Here, we’re talking about creating content that has high sharing potential.
This means content that is so good and relevant to the public, that it spreads out without you having to struggle to generate links.
2. Carry out Research For Backlink Partners
Receiving backlinks is an aspect of off-page SEO and is not entirely under your control because links to your pages come from third parties.
But the decision can be made easier when you have good relationships with other sites, leading them to be more willing to link to your content.
Generally, these sites are already well-positioned for their main keywords — and you can use the Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA) indicators of Link Explorer, a Moz’s tool to identify the best partners and to see if it’s worth getting backlinks from them.
3. Guest Posting
Once you find and approach your ideal partners, you can suggest methods to generate backlinks, and the most common link-building technique with partners is guest posting.
Guest posting consists of creating content as a guest author on a blog. You produce a post that is relevant to your partner’s blog, and in return, they allow you to insert one or more links to your pages.
4. Co-marketing
Another strategy is co-marketing, which refers to the practice of companies coming together to create materials in partnership, such as ebooks or tools. So, both partners promote the product and link to each other’s pages.
The same rule applies here: create material that is truly relevant to the target audience!
For both strategies, it is important to choose partners that have a similar audience to yours, so that you attract visitors who will be interested in your content.
5. Invest in Press Relations
Links to news portals and press sites are valuable because these sites are generally recognized by Google and have great authority on the web. An example of a site with high Domain Authority is The Guardian and The New York Times.
These sites reach many readers, leading to massive spontaneous sharing for any subject appearing there. Wouldn’t it be great to receive a link or at least a mention from these sites?
6. Get Mentions Without a Link
Did you know that mentions without a link can also bring ranking value? Search engines like Google notice when brands are being widely cited on the web and gaining popularity.
The search engine then associates the mentions with the brand’s site and uses this factor when ranking.
However, mentions do not convey authority from one site to another. Only links do that. A mention is good, but a mention with a link is better!
So what you can do is follow up on mentions your brand has already received and contact the site administrator to include a link. With a friendly approach, you have a good chance of getting that link.
To find these mentions, you can use Google Alerts, which issues a notification whenever your brand (or any terms you define) is mentioned.
Another way to do this is to simply use Google search. Just search for your brand to find sites that mention it. But here is a small tip: remove your website from the search results.
7. Use Topic Clusters For Internal Links
Topic clusters are a strategy for creating a hierarchy for a site or blog pages through a network of internal links.
It works like this: you create a post based on a keyword essential to your business. This will be the central content for the topic cluster.
These satellite posts strengthen the authority of the pillar content, which is at the top of the site’s hierarchy. Google understands this and values the main content in the ranking.
8. Redirect Broken Links
It is natural for links to no longer form part of a site. Content gets updated or deleted, or sites change their URL structure, generating broken links. How do you fix this problem?
To do so, you need to redirect broken links to the correct URLs. We’re talking about 301 redirects, which consist of a change to the page’s code to redirect users to the page they want to access.
Tools like Screaming Frog and SEO Redirect can help you with this task. It is very effective at finding broken links on your site and then auditing the redirects you make.
If the page doesn’t exist anymore (for example, if the content was deleted), you can create a custom 404 error page.
Inform the user that the content no longer exists, but offer alternative content that they may enjoy.
9. Reject Unwanted Backlinks
Not all backlinks you receive are good. Often, sites receive links from spam or questionable sites, which can negatively impact their ranking. Remember that you need to have trusted neighbors to earn Google’s trust.
An important link-building strategy is to reject dubious or unwanted backlinks. In addition to this, you can also try to speak directly to the site administrator to remove the backlink.
Link Building Tools
Below, we present the main tools for these tasks.
Conclusion
Now you understand how link building works and have all the tips and tools to create your strategy. Start evaluating the link profile on your pages today, make corrections and redirects, and look for partnerships and linking opportunities to improve your backlinks.
Show Google and other search engines that you have authority on the web! Master all of the SEO strategies you need to reach the top.
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