What Is Link Building And How Does It Work?

Written By hamza siyamwala
What is link building?

In competitive industries, businesses need to find a way to stand out from their competitors and attract customers. One great way of doing this is through link building, which can help a website rank higher on search engines. Link building is acquiring links to your website to improve its rankings or visibility in search engine results in pages (SERP), which differentiates it from traditional SEO techniques such as keyword research, content optimization, and other on-page SEO factors.

Link building is an integral part of modern-day SEO, even if it receives less attention from businesses and companies than other, more visible on-page ranking factors. This blog is about link building and how it works to help you rank high on search engines.

Link building is acquiring links that point to or allow access to your website. The links could mean your homepage, posts, articles, and even other pages on your website. Through this technique, you can attract more organic traffic from search engines to increase your page visibility and increase organic web traffic. The link-building plan is essential in any SEO campaign or marketing strategy. The links are usually acquired through other websites, blogs, and social media platforms. Most of the time, link building increases your website’s authority and ranks it high on search engines.

Link building is all about getting inbound links toward your website, which makes it easier for search engines to rank your site higher. Links give your site authority and promote it as more valuable and relevant to the web, increasing its chances of ranking higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).

But how does link building work exactly? For this, you must understand that Google is the most popular search engine that millions of users use daily. When you want to find information online or solve a problem, you reach out to Google before going elsewhere. How do you rank higher on Google? You rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs) when you have a lot of incoming links pointing to your site.

When anyone clicks the link, it signals to Google that this particular website or website is necessary or relevant to the query. That tells Google that the site deserves to be ranked higher and can be part of the top search results list. When more links are pointing towards your site, search engine algorithms rate your website as better than others and give it more prominence in SERPs.

 

Link building is essential for SEO services because it helps discover new web pages in search engines and determines which pages should appear higher in the SERPs.

According to Google’s guidelines for link building, web admins can generally raise the rank of their websites by building high-quality sites that visitors will want to use and share.

In other words, instead of just using link-building to raise your website’s search engine ranking, your goal when using link-building strategies should be to build links because you have great content that users want to share.

One of the most make significant contributions elements for Google, along with:

  • On-page SEO and content optimization
  • Trust and authority of the website
  • Site loading speed
  • Mobile-friendliness
  • User experience elements
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On-page factors such as on-page SEO and content are essential for link building, but there are other equally important things that you need to keep in mind.

  • Global Popularity: The website or page you are trying to build links for should have a global reach. That makes it easier for search engine algorithms to determine whether the site is valuable enough to rank higher on SERPs.

 

  • Local Popularity: For search engines to understand its relevance better, the site should have links from other pages in your country or locality. That shows you are more authoritative, and more people trust you enough to link to your site.

 

  • Anchor Text: Choosing the correct anchor text for your links is essential. Anchor text refers to the phrase or keyword used in a link. A good anchor text should contain the proper keyword, have relevance to your page, and should be shared by many people.

 

  • Link Context: You should also remember that the link context is essential when building links. If a link coming to your website is coming from a blog, you need to make sure that the keyword in the link has relevance to whatever you have written in the blog.

 

  • Where The Link Comes From: Another thing you should keep in mind is where the link is coming from. A link from a low-quality site will have less weight or relevance to your search engine ranking. On the other hand, if you have links from authorized sites, such as major publications and websites with high domain authority.

Now that you know how link building can complement your SEO efforts, it is time for you to understand how you can build them. So, let’s talk about the three-way ways to make links!

1) Requesting For Links:

Would you like a specific website to link back to yours? Asking the website owner for a backlink is the best course of action. You can do this via email, comment, or post on the website. You must be clear about what you want in your link and how you want to build it.

However, it would help if you made sure that linking back to the website fetches you benefits regarding web traffic and authority. So, make sure your link is valuable and relevant to your website’s content.

Here’s What You Need To Remember

  • The website must cover your industry or niche.
  • The website must be credible and have excellent performance.
  • Link with relevant anchor text and keyword density.
  • You must have content that will make readers want to go through the link again.

2) Earning Links:

Earning links is getting other website owners to link back to your website without you having to approach them about backlinks. That frequently occurs when you offer high-quality, user-friendly content on your website that both your target audience and business experts find helpful. 

The best thing is that you can spend less time producing high-quality content. It would help if you focused on creating relevant and helpful content.

You Can Earn Links By:

  • Creating a unique and helpful list of resources, tools, products, or services that your readers or target audience would find relevant and useful. You can do this via an infographic, slide show, video, or blog post.

 

  • Creating a tool for your audience – something that helps their users make better use of your website or solve a current problem they might be facing. You can then link your tool on your website.

3) Buying Links:

Many people want faster search engine rankings but must realize that it is one of the most unethical ways of SEO link building. However, link building requires a lot of time and resources; hence, not everyone can do it.

You can buy link-building links for your website or page in such a situation. You won’t have to spend your time or energy creating content or seeking backlinks. However, you should ensure that the link-building company you choose has a good reputation in the market before buying links.

The link-building process is more straightforward once you know what to look for in the links pointing to your website. The following are the most important factors that make a good backlink:

  • Authority: The authority of a website is determined by how much trust it has with search engines. A website with higher domain authority has more excellent value for the search engine. Therefore, backlinks from such sites help you improve the authority of your link-building efforts.

 

  • Relevance: If the site or page linking to your website is relevant to the one you are linking to, it would be better for you. That way, your websites will have a chance of standing out from the crowd and have better rankings.

 

  • Nofollow Vs. Follow: While it is a good practice to have links to your website broken down into two separate categories of nofollow and follow, you should keep in mind that there is no difference between them. The only thing that matters is the nature of the link.

 

  • Placement: If your website is highly relevant to the keywords you are targeting, then you need to be careful about the type of placement that a link is coming from. The best place is usually the top of the search engine results page or in the middle. That way, your site can still be found on the first page, not just when people search for that specific keyword.

Below are a few Link building strategies that you can use to improve your SEO and get better rankings:

1) Outreach:

Outreach is one of the essential link-building strategies and must be incorporated into your SEO campaigns. It involves sending an outreach email to an industry expert or a blogger, asking them to link to your website. 

You Can Do This By Following The Points Given Below:

  • Have a clear list of whom you are writing to so that you don’t send emails that are of no use. Contact websites such as Inbound Now to get consultants involved and get a list of experts.

 

  • Remember to include the link in the opening and closing paragraphs so that it is visible and is noticed because of other content on the page.

 

  • Keep your email short and crisp. Use short paragraphs and sentences instead of extensive language.

 

  • Keep your level of engagement high. Send a follow-up email if the first one doesn’t have any replies so that you can keep the contact alive.

2) Creating Linkable Assets:

Creating linkable assets is another meaningful way of getting links for your website or blog. Linkable assets are those a website or blog would like to have and link to. They are also called “anchor text.” While it is a very time-consuming process, creating linkable assets for your website is very easy. You must create content your users find relevant, helpful, and diverse. The content should also be highly optimized to get the top position on search engines.

Just Like Creating Backlinks, You Can Also Create Linkable Assets By The Following Strategies:

  • Creating a unique and useful list of resources, tools, products, or services that your readers or target audience would find relevant and helpful. You can do this via an infographic, slide show, video, or blog post.

 

  • Creating a tool for your audience, something that helps your users make better use of your website or solve a problem that they might be facing currently. You can then link to your tool on your website.

3) Broken Link Building:

Broken link building is also known as ‘link buying.’ It is one of the oldest Link building strategies that many website owners and bloggers still use.

It creates a link exchange network where people can buy links from other websites or pages to get the links to their websites or blogs. To get all types of links, you can create a blog post where people can share your content and post a reciprocal link to your blog or page.

While broken link building is still considered a good strategy in today’s market, it has drawbacks. The main problem is that many people who buy backlinks don’t bother to remove broken links from their websites.

4) Content Promotion:

Your pages cannot be linked to without first being found, regardless of how “linkable” they are. In other words, promotion is necessary to generate links even for the best linkable assets. As such, content promotion is an integral part of your link-building strategy.

Several Methods Are Available For Promoting Your Content:

  • Influencers And Communities: Influencer marketing and community building are essential in content promotion. You can build a relationship with influencers in your industry and promote your content to them. Likewise, you can create social media communities where users can share their views and show interest in your posts.

 

  • Advertising: Advertising is another form of content promotion through paid advertising channels such as Google AdWords. This is highly effective in getting traffic to your website since the cost per click is less than the cost per thousand impressions.

 

  • Growing An Audience is an important step to promoting your content further. If you can get many followers on social media networks or blog comments, you can get more natural links when they share and re-share your content.

5) Guest Posting:

Guest posting is an important part of Link building strategies. Many bloggers and website owners look for relevant guest posts that rank well on search engine results pages. If your website or blog could be a relevant, high-quality resource for bloggers and website owners, then it can be a great way to get attention for your site.

As with all forms of content promotion, think about the needs and wishes of your target audience and their competition. Guest posting should be thought of as something other than another method to get more links; it is a way to provide added value to readers while driving more traffic back to your site.

6) Internal Linking:

Internal linking is one of the most important Link building strategies. It involves creating Interlinking between website pages that already ranked well on search engines. Internal linking helps other pages rank better by pointing them to important keywords on their page, thereby increasing the overall authority and ranking power of your entire site.

Internal Links Typically Come In Two Types:

 

  • Inbound Internal Links: Inbound internal links to other relevant pages on your site. To do this, you should build a comprehensive navigation system that makes it easy for visitors to find all your important pages.

 

  • Outbound, Internal Links: Outbound internal links are links to other sites that might be relevant and important for your website. This is a vital way of building links and promoting your website through others’ sites.

Any content marketing strategy incorporating Interlinking will be beneficial because it will make it easier for users and Google to navigate your website. Internal linking is crucial because:

  • It influences how well a page ranks in Google.
  • Google uses links to index your website.
  • It could make it easier for visitors to use your website.
  • It enhances SEO content and passive link assets.

With the right anchor text strategy, you can allow your audience to continue researching a subject on your website by linking to your resources throughout the site.

Internet marketers use link-building strategies to get backlinks to their websites. There are many types of link-building strategies, which are explained above. It would be best to have many backlinks to rank well on search engine results pages.

Google considers the number and quality of links that point back to your website the most important ranking factor. You will only be able to get excellent rankings if you build a good number of links from other websites or pages on the internet.

All of the link-building strategies above should be helpful for you when it comes to getting good rankings on search engines for your website or blog.

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