WHY LINK BUILDING IS IMPORTANT FOR YOUR SEO
Google has confirmed that links and quality content are two of the three most important ranking factors for SEO. Trustworthy sites tend to link to other trustworthy sites, and spammy sites tend to link to other spammy sites.
WHAT ARE LINKS?
Inbound links, also known as backlinks, are HTML hyperlinks connecting one site to another. They serve as a type of social proof. Links to your website from another, high-ranking website shows Google that your website is worth visiting. For example, if you were trying to find a fancy place to go to dinner, you would do a couple of different things. First, you might ask some friends what they think about the restaurants in the area and if they have any suggestions. Next, you might search the internet for nice restaurants in the area and read the Google Reviews for each place. Both of these actions are examples of social proof. If your friends and random people on the internet give a restaurant high praise, you are more likely to choose that place to have a great night out. Inbound links work similarly. If high-ranking sites link to your site on multiple occasions, Google is more likely to rank your site higher in search results.
Internal links are links that connect to other pages on your site. For instance, if I were to add a link to the Home Page of this site, it would be considered an internal link. If you link to s specific page of your site many times, Google will consider that page important, and will rank it higher.
LINK BUILDING: WHAT TO DO
LINK NATURALLY
To avoid looking “spammy” to Google, you need to make sure your links are made naturally. Just placing a link in a list format, or just randomly on the bottom of your page are not natural linking techniques. When creating quality content, you should be writing to a person, not a “robot.” With that in mind, your content needs to look and read naturally, as if you were having a conversation with someone. Throughout that quality content, you should place links strategically in your text, rather than jammed randomly on your page.
LINK RELEVANTLY
NOT ALL LINKS ARE EQUAL! When building links for your site, you must make sure the links you are receiving are relevant to the subject matter on your site. For example, the content on this website is targeted towards Digital Marketing. If we got a high-ranking site to link to us, we would want it to be a site like Moz or ahrefs. We wouldn’t want to get a link from a website like Popular Mechanics. While Popular Mechanics is a high-ranking site, its content is not directly relevant to digital marketing, so a link from that site would not help our digital marketing site all that much.
HOW DO YOU GET LINKS?
GET CUSTOMER OR PARTNER LINKS
Partners and loyal customers are a great resource when it comes to building quality links. If you already have a standing relationship with them, it would be relatively easy to gain a link through them. You could write up testimonials for their products, or send partnership icons to show others your close business relationship. Offering them something not only shows you are solidifying your relationship but also increasing the prominence of your own site as well.
WRITE A PUBLIC BLOG
Blogs are a GREAT way to consistently create new content on your site. Google engineers have even suggested using blogs as one of the ideal ways to publish new content on your site. Blogs are also a great way to generate traffic and interest to your website. They allow you to create content that can be shared, linked to, or commented on. All of these activities generate new traffic to your site!
GET INVOLVED IN YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY
For many local businesses, links from other influences in the community can increase their local SEO like nothing else. By holding events or spreading news in the community that are used on other community websites like local news outlets, community event calendars, and more can all help increase a website’s search engine ranking.
LET’S WRAP THIS UP
All in all, when it comes to gaining quality links, it all comes down to your content. If you create content that is worth linking to and sharing, your website will gain more links than if you tried to “spam” your way through it. Gaining multiple quality links from other sites will give your site authority and credibility. Links make your site seem more trustworthy, and therefore worth a higher ranking. That’s all you need to know!