Link building is one of the most useful SEO tools to raise the search ranking of your website. Generally, more back links mean better rankings in Google, which ultimately results in higher traffic for your site. If you’re aiming for first page rankings in your relevant keywords, you can’t ignore link building as part of your SEO strategy.
Link building is not an exact science, and when poorly implemented, it can also work against you. So if you’re going to make the most of this powerful strategy, you’re going to need to understand how it works.
- Building links means building authority with a search engine. The more relevant links you have, the more authority your site will have, eventually raising your ranking. Even a small number of links from highly trusted websites (for example, .edu, news media or high ranking blogs) will work to raise your own authority in the eyes of a search engine.
- SEO is all about keywords, and in link building the keywords make all the difference to how you will approach this technique. If your keywords are highly competitive, you’re going to need more links, from highly authoritative sources. If there’s very little competition in your relevant keywords, link building will take less effort, and you can get away with back links from less well known sources.
- Many smaller sites begin off page SEO with self-created links. This type of link building includes posting blogs, comments or articles on other webpages, with back links to your own page. Self created links are useful, but also require a certain amount of discipline, with the difference between self-promotion and spam being a very fine line.
- Anchor text in your link is just as important as the link itself. ‘Click here’ is nowhere near as useful at gaining relevance as something like ‘Click here for SEO Tips and Strategies’.
- There are also instances where back linking can harm you. Building up high numbers of links within a short period of time can hurt your Google rankings, and if you thought link farms were a good idea to get involved in, think again. Back linking requires well thought out, authentic links from reputable and relevant sources.
Link building offers a glance at your site to an audience you might not have previously reached, it also showcases your site to other site owners, and is an introduction to what you have to offer.
The ultimate aim is to create content which compels other sites to link to you, getting you to a point where you won’t need to ask for links or create them yourself.
