SEO is a great opportunity for website owners to increase their own brand awareness, website traffic and customer loyalty. But before you can benefit from the advantages of search engine optimization, it is necessary to first implement some SEO measures. There are many such measures, however, and their implementation is not always an easy task. Among them, link building is one of the most difficult ones to put into action.
What exactly is link building? What benefits are there for you and your website? How and with which strategies can you implement link building on your site? All of these questions will be answered in the following article.
What is link building?
Link building can be classified as an off-page optimization technique and is one of the most important disciplines of SEO. It includes all measures aimed at increasing the number of backlinks. In case you were wondering, backlinks are HTML references placed, for example, in an article, an image or the footnotes of a website and always lead back to one’s own page. Simply think of backlinks as something similar to a recommendation from one page to another. This is how Google’s search algorithm sees it as well. To the algorithm, a backlink on another page is a positive signal. It shows that your website is relevant for the respective subject area and could be helpful to users.
What are good and what are bad links?
For a long time, generating as many backlinks as possible was considered the most direct way towards increasing your website’s relevance in the eyes of the algorithm. However, the Google algorithm and its demands are constantly evolving. Meanwhile, not every backlink is guaranteed to have a positive effect on the ranking of your website. The search engine algorithm now also pays close attention to the quality of the links. In order to be classified as helpful, the link profile of your website now has to include not only many, but also high-quality links. And that is not all – your website’s link profile now needs to contain a balanced portfolio of different link factors. Continue reading to learn about the factors relevant for the link profile of your website:
- Link types
As already mentioned above, the type of link is relevant to the search engine algorithm. Low-quality links, for instance, often come from low traffic websites. High-quality links, on the other hand, are backlinks to pages that are highly visited and popular. But while these links are doubtlessly the best, the Google algorithm considers it unnatural to find only high-quality links leading to a website. If this is the case, it quickly concludes that there are purchased links and immediately imposes a penalty. As such, a mixture of low, medium and high-quality links is the surest way to success.
- Link sources
The link type is, of course, especially relevant to Google’s search engine algorithm. However, the mixture of different link sources should definitely not be underestimated either. Typically, backlinks are embedded in blog articles. They can, however, also be inserted into other sources such as graphics or images.
When comparing a website with backlinks found only in blog articles to one which has its backlinks spread out over a number of different sources, the algorithm will likely favor the later. As such, at least some variety can also prove useful at this particular juncture.
- Placement of the link
As we have just explained, backlinks can be placed in different sources. While the selected source is certainly important, the location of the links within said source is equally crucial for receiving a favorable evaluation from the algorithm. Thus, links placed in the middle of a website have a value different from those placed at the top or end of the page.
- Anchor texts
When lacking context, a simple link to a page is of little help to the reader. Always concerned with user-friendliness as it is, the Google algorithm also makes assessments in accordance with this firm belief. This means that it will also evaluate how well a backlink is integrated into its context. As such, the algorithm rewards anchor texts that allow users to learn about the reasons as to why clicking on the link would be beneficial to them.
There is no universally correct way of incorporating all of these aspects into the link profile of your website. The right approach differs from case to case and website owners should always look for a customized solution that perfectly fits their own site.
Link building strategies
As mentioned above, putting link building into practice is not that easy a task. There are multiple strategies you can make use of, some of them more effective and some less so. Due to the great number of possible strategies, it would not prove useful to list all of them in this article. However, link building in particular is one strategy we urge you not to pursue on your own. As already mentioned above, the Google algorithm will immediately recognize and punish unnatural link building. If this happens to you, you are at risk of your website being removed from the index altogether. The link exchange with another website can be considered a variation of this strategy. But even when just exchanging links, the algorithm may still register such a practice as unnatural. Consequently, this method can also be very tricky.
Simply endeavoring to provide good content is a natural and much less risk-prone method. The chances for good, helpful content to be linked to by others on their websites are promising. As such, it is especially important to distribute excellent content that is likely to positively catch the eye of others. Doing so can itself be considered a natural way of generating backlinks. For this purpose, guest articles on other websites can also prove to be helpful. Not only are these sorts of articles often remunerated but an exchange of links and helpful content also frequently takes place.
Conclusion
You now know about the basics of link building, arguably one of the most rewarding disciplines of SEO yet also among the more difficult to implement. The implementation of link building is far from easy and definitely involves some risks but, with the basic information on the requirements of your link profile firmly kept in mind, you are now ready to take on this new challenge. If you want to learn more about SEO, visit the website of Werbepresse to dive deeper into the subject matter.
