What is Link Building?
Link building is getting other websites to partner up with you- display your web pages on theirs.
This helps you build relationships with good webmasters in your industry, it helps you get traffic from the site linking back to you and it helps brand awareness so much.
Search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, and others use complex algorithms to help users find EXACTLY what they’re looking for.
Backlinks play a role in how your pages get ranked for keywords.
A lot of unique backlinks from high DR sites = more trusted by Google
Why is Link Building Important?
Years ago, search engines like Yahoo! ranked web pages based only on content. Then Google came along with a new algorithm that considers many factors, including backlinks.
Link building can literally improve your website’s rankings and visibility. Because more high quality backlinks= more authority.
Building Relationships: You meet webmasters who are so good at what they’re doing- This helps you network with industry experts and gain new audiences. You can also work on projects together!
Increasing Website Traffic: When other websites link to yours, their visitors might click through to your site, so you’re on your way to get more leads, sales, and revenue!
Brand Awareness: Links from other sites drive traffic to your website so they are also exposing your brand to a broader audience.
How to collect backlinks?
According to Google’s Search Rater Quality Guidelines, Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) is what matters!!
Focus on:
Authority of the Page:
Page authority is a rounded figure of how trusted a website is all over the internet. To measure it we consider the number and quality of links to the page, keywords, and all the articles’ quality.
A link from The New York Times (very high authority) is more powerful than one from an unknown blogger.
You don’t have to completely ignore links from low-authority sites, they get counted when one counts the number of backlinks you have. And as long as the site you’re partnering with isn’t a link farm it’s okay to have backlinks from low DA sites.
Webmasters make good use of Moz, Prepostseo, and Link Explorer to give you authority for the websites you’re interested in.
Link building always goes by quality over quantity!
Relevance of the Site
Only get backlinks from sites related to yours. This again is because – quality over quantity!
If you’re promoting a web development service, get backlinks from tech blogs or business pages discussing web development.
Link Placement
Getting a link isn’t where your work is done- this is where the real work starts!
Where you put your hard earned link on a page matters. Some webmasters say links higher up are more valued by search engines because they’re easier to click and would get a lot of clicks.
Forget the footers or sidebars—they’re ignored.
If not in the beginning, put the backlink in your main content when readers would see it’s relevance when reading.
Editorial Link
Content is king ladies and gentlemen!
When your content is good, other sites naturally link to it when they’re creating relevant content and they need to reuse what you wrote (and they cite the source).
It’s good to aim for these since these are the most natural.
Link Anchor Text
Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink.
It tells search engines what the linked page is all about. Most blogs use “click here” isn’t a smart move because what does that tell the search engine?
Link Co-occurrences
Link co-occurrences can also be understood as secondary anchor texts. This is basically the text surrounding your hyperlink. Google looks at this too to again know the context and relevance.
No Follow vs. Do Follow
No Follow: A “nofollow” link tells search engines not to follow or count the link in rankings. Users reading the article can still check it out but it won’t pass any authority to your website.
Example: <a href=”https://example.com” rel=”nofollow”> Anchor Text </a>
These are still good for brand awareness.
Do Follow: A “dofollow” link is a standard link telling search engines to follow and count the linked site in rankings. It helps with improving rankings.
Example: <a href=”https://example.com”> Anchor Text </a>
To refer to sponsored links you can use:
- rel=”sponsored” for ads or sponsored content.
- rel=”UGC” for user-generated content like comments or forum posts.
Try not to be spammy when collecting dofollow links. Spammy link building harms your rankings.