Backlinks are oftentimes referred to as the currency of the world wide web. It is the yardstick that is used to measure the value of a website. Most SEO experts assert that one of the ways you can increase the value of your blog to search engines is by building links to them.
Other SEOs are of the belief that with good content, backlinks would come to your site naturally. In the course of this article, our stand is that with a mix of good content and strategic link prospecting you can be at the top of your SEO game.
Without further ado, let us delve into a complete beginners guide to link building.
What is Link Building?
Link building can be defined as the process of getting high quality websites to link to the pages of your site, so that you can achieve high rankings in search engine results.
Simply put, the best route to getting links to your site is to ;
- Create good content that is link-worthy
- Then show it to top site that can link to your content
Backlinks are a metric that search engines use to measure website value: if a brand can reference your content through backlinks, then your site would be seen as an authoritative source of your niche-specific content.
Why Is Link Building Important?
Link building is an integral aspect of search engine optimization. As a content developer, you can use link building to boost youryour website.
Here are some of the reasons why link building is important;
- the higher the number of inbound links that a blog has, the more popular the website would be
- high number of inbound links also contributes to an increase in Google page rank (PR)
- after opening a brand new blog, it is expedient that you start adding links to the site, so that the newly built site would have search engine exposure
- another crucial benefit of link building is that you tend to get traffic from the sites that linked to you
- one of the major challenges of newly built sites is that they find it difficult to get indexed in search engines. With the aid of a few backlinks, your blog would get indexed quicker.
How to Build Links to your Website
In the course of subsequent paragraphs, we would be elucidating three basic strategies for link building. They are as follows:
- Adding Links
- Asking For Links
- Buying Links
Adding Links
The numero uno strategy for link building, is adding links to your site. There are four approaches that fits into this link building scheme, and they are;
- Submitting your site links to Business directories
- Creating social profiles
- Submitting blog comments in spam free and high quality sites
- Posting content with your links on communities, Q and A sites, and forums
Using these above highlighted strategies can be a five-finger exercise, and for this reason, Google can flag the links as spammy. If you can visit a site a get backlinks easily, nothing would stop your niche competitors from doing the same thing.
All the same, you should not abandon all this link building strategies in its entirety. They have other advantages that they add to your site other than just increasing your domain rating.
Let us delve into an overview of the ab0ve listed link building strategies.
#1. Submitting your website to business directories
You should always try to resist the urge to include your website in every single business directory that you see out there. Truth is, Google would see your link building scheme as spammy and may deal your site a blow a penalty.
Narrow down your business directories preferences to sites that have high traffic and might bring in real website visitors to your blog.
#2. Creating social profiles for your business
It is also a good practice to get your brand name on all the major social media networks. This is because Google interprets links from social media sites as a good signal that a site is not spammy.
An example of networks that are good for link building are; youtube, reddit, Slideshare, Instagram, twitter, Facebook, etc.
If you do not claim your brand name on important social media networks, some squatter would snatch them from you.
#3. Submitting blog comments in spam free and high quality sites
Back in 2014 when I started blogging, the only thing that came to my mind whenever I wanted to create backlinks was “blog commenting”. I thought it difficult to create backlinks with other link building strategies.
Well, it’s 2021, and I believe that Google bots have grown smarter, and link building approaches have gone to another level. Despite these new developments, blog commenting has not lost its relevance. Blog commenting is an effective way for readers and bloggers to interact with each other, it is also a good way to build links.
When you leave a tangible comment on an article’s comment section, it is a good way to start a blogger-reader relationship that can lead to all sorts of good things.
But posting blog comments for the sole purpose of sandwiching a backlink to your site would make the blog owner to hate you.
#4. Posting content with your links on communities, Q and A sites, and forums
The value of forum link building has been a subject of debate in the world of SEOs. Most people are of the viewpoint that it involves some spammy, Black Hat approach that would eventually land your blog a Google penalty.
Truth is, when you implement the right forum link building strategy, you can drive authoritative links to your site.
There is a popular aphorism that “good things are difficult to come by”, this holds through for finding high quality forums for link building. However, do not let this be a let off! There are many good forums out there that can be used to build links to your site.
Here is a basic breakdown of what you should be looking out for in finding a good forum for link building;
- Look for an online forum that has a minimum of 2000 members.
- Ensure that the forum has a minimum of 10,000 posts in total.
- Also make sure that you opt for a forum that makes a minimum of 15 posts daily.
- Ask around for forums that are related to your niche, forums that your potential website visitors are more likely to visit.
- On a strict note, cut out forum sites that have spammy or inadequate posts.
Asking For Links
This strategy involves reaching out to a quality blog, and giving them a compelling reason to link to your content. It is this compelling reason that would motivate the website owner to link to your site page.
Most of the time, website owners accrue zero benefit linking to your site. So, you have to think hard enough of something that they would gain if they should reference your content with a backlink, be it; no follow or do follow.
Here are some strategies that can be used to build links with a compelling reason.
- Guest Blogging – this is when you create tangible content that the website user would benefit from. What sells more in this case is an SEO optimized article;
- Skyscrapper Technique – this is a scenario where you show a website administrator better content that they can link to. In skycrapper technique, you use automation tools to scrape blogs for their backlink profile, then see what anchor texts your site content can fit into, then offer up good content that the site can link to;
- Ego bait- this is another link addition strategy that involves your mentioning of big blogs in your content in a positive light;
- Backlink Exchanges – remember when we talked about blogs asking for what is in for them if they should link to you? Well, in a bid to get quality backlink from a site, you can offer a link exchange. Works pretty much most of the time!
Buying Links
First off, we do not recommend that you backlinks for your website! You might just end up wasting money on spammy links that would have zero impact on your domain authority; at worst, you would land a Google penalty.
However, it would be unfair, if we did not enlighten you that a lot of people in the SEO industry buy links and get away with it.
That be said, let us look at some strategies that can be deployed to buy links both safely and with risks.
#1. Private Blog Networks
This can also be referred to as PBNs, they are a group of websites that are created for one particular reason; to be a source of backlinks.
Over the years, using public blog networks became so risky that most SEO experts stopped using it. So, do not be tempted to build links to your site with PBNs, always build links the natural way.
#2. Fiverr
Fiverr is one of the most popular freelancing platforms in the globe. On Fiverr, you are bound to see a lot of gigs that offer you “contextual, white hat links, and even editorial links.”
They would give you a lot of assurance that their link building scheme is legit and worth trying.
Hey!! Stay away from them! Even if the link building scheme worked for a friend of yours, stay clear from them. The best agencies that offer link building services do not sell their services on Fiverr.
Conclusion
Before you delve into link building for your site, you need to have something tangible to build the links to. Some of the best resources that you can link to include; infographic, research study, a blog post, or most of the time, your website homepage.
Well built links are the currency of the web, they are used to signal search engines to determine ranking positions. I hope that with the aid of this beginner guide, you would put down an effective link building strategy for your website.