What is Link Building?
So you keep hearing about this “link building”, but you’re not sure exactly what it means. Not clear if it’s worth exploring, or how to exploit it? Link building is a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy involving the acquisition of hyperlinks from other websites, mainly for the purpose of enhancing search results on Google. This results in more new traffic. But what’s involved and what are the types of link building for enhanced SEO that you should invest in?
There are 2 main benefits of link building. The most important is related to Google’s use of popularity ranking factors that give a “vote” to the website you’re linking to. The more votes a website has, the better its chances of ranking higher on relevant search results. Therefore, companies participate in link building –and help one another out– to produce more votes and appear more popular on search engines.
The second benefit is that these links carry tangible value for an organization’s website. Search engines in the modern era are very powerful tools, and a big revenue generator for most industries. They can greatly help build brand awareness, referrals, credibility and social media shares when different types of link building for enhanced SEO are executed properly.
Link Building in SEO
As important as it is, link building for enhanced SEO cannot exist on its own. It must play one part among a variety of other online marketing strategies to strengthen a website’s ranking. To visualize its effect, think of this as a kind of virtual bridge connecting one website to another. The weblinks are the paths that internet users take to get from point A to B. Remember the last time you read a blog post, and clicked on a link which brought you to a second website? You just witnessed the magic of what link building is all about.
Quality links pointing to your site from other credible websites enhance your marketing efforts in several ways, such as:
- stronger rankings in search engine results
- improved brand awareness
- more conversions (new client leads and ultimately sales)
The number of links from one site to another are so crucial because Google, Bing, and Yahoo calculate the total links pointing to your page (along with the quality of those websites) to decide on your website’s search result worth. In other words, search engines rank web pages on quality.
How It Is Done
There’s a lot to this, and it’s not as easy as it seems. In a world made much smaller by the internet and global enterprise, even small local business cannot rely just on word-of-mouth advertising anymore. Competition can come from virtually anywhere, and consumers don’t just ask their friends for a good tip anymore. They start with a keyword search on Google, Bing, Yahoo, or Yelp and give most of their attention to the first 5 or 6 results at the top of the page.
First thing that makes link building different from traditional marketing tactics is the kind of websites that link to one another online. It’s not always common sense or what one might expect. Certain business sites will link to a specific category of other sites. Some businesses will link out, others never do. It is these funny quirks that makes link building for enhanced SEO unusual and difficult for beginners to figure out.
To put it more simply, types of link building for enhanced SEO is about building content that’s worth linking to. Things that people are interested in sharing and discussing. Then aligning that content with other websites that will link to it, and vice-versa.
Different Types of Link Building
Understanding the different types of link building for enhanced SEO allows for the planning and execution of effective strategy. Most link building can be grouped into 3 general categories:
(1) Link attraction (2) Link requests (3) Link creation
Each plays a role in SEO marketing strategy, and should be employed based on specific needs.
(1) Link Attraction
Developing superior and exciting online content –usually in the form of blog posts– that readers enthusiastically want to link to. This is the most fun, most natural and safest link building tactic that can be used as part of a link building for enhanced SEO strategy. Although creating the content for this link building approach does take time, if done properly the website will attract links for years to come. A few content marketing link attraction approaches commonly used:
Videos, Whitepapers, Slide Decks, How-To Guides, eBooks, Amusing Blog Posts, Authority Blog Posts
(2) Link Requests
This is the hardest type of link building. It is very valuable because it takes a lot of time and effort to execute, providing those willing with an advantage over their competitors. These links help build credibility and a position of authority for your website much faster, and usually deliver a lot of SEO benefit. A few link request approaches commonly used:
Link Reclamation, Competitive Link Building, Broken Link Building
(3) Link Creation
This is one of the simplest types of link building, but it can also be the most risky because it won’t go very far on its own. It’s literally sitting down and manually creating hyperlinks one by one. This can be valuable as part of a larger strategy, but results will be disappointing if it’s the only tactic. A few link creation techniques commonly used:
Online PR, Forum Commenting, Answer Marketing, Social Profiles, Social Blogging, Article Creation
Types of Links to Use
Here are the types of links that you can create on/to your website, and how you can benefit from of a combination of each. The most general categories are:
Internal links — these are links that go from one page on a domain to a different page on the same domain. They are commonly used in main navigation.
External Links — these are hyperlinks that point at any domain other than the domain the link exists on. If another website links to you, this is considered an external link to your site. Similarly, if you link out to another website, this is also considered an external link.
The next level down reveals:
Authority links, Article bio links, Reputation Management Links, RSS/Blog aggregated links, Directory links, Comment and Profile Links, Reciprocal links, Traffic Generating Links, Run of site links, Presell Page Links, PageRank Boosting Links, . Edu and .Gov links, Traditional mass media links, SERP Elevating Links, Press-release links, and One-way links from friends… among others.
Conclusion
Similar to building a real chain out of metal links, each online link is extremely important and depends on the others for strength. Your collective online marketing strategy and link building for enhanced SEO can be thought of like this chain, and the better you are at building links, the more business you will win.
Link building can deliver a big boost to search engine rankings, resulting in increased brand awareness and higher web traffic. Does your organization need help in link building for enhanced SEO? Contact your local full service Digital Marketing and Web Design Agency for a competitive advantage today!
Call 514-360-2187 or e-mail info@marketingwebsites.ca today for a free consultation, and step into the future!