Beginner content creators often think that by crafting the perfect blog post or article, they will rank high on search engines. Unfortunately, this isn’t all true. The truth is – outranking other websites means you have to establish authority in your niche. While crafting great content is vital in ranking high, SEO link building is even more crucial to your web ranking success. This practice helps you improve your website’s visibility by earning links from authoritative websites in your niche.
Although SEO experts are quick to point out that link building is one of their most tedious optimization tasks, they are just as swift to note that the practice is highly rewarding.
And by rewarding, we mean – a well-optimized website, high search engine rankings, and increase domain and page authority.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
In this article, you’ll learn;
- What link building is
- Why link building is crucial in your SEO strategy
- the most effective link building strategies
Without further ado, let’s dive in.
What is link building?
Link building is a practice of getting other websites to link to a page on your website. These hyperlinks are called backlinks, inbound links, or external links.
Here’s what you need to know about backlinks.
Since early 2000, Google has used backlinks to help rank websites. This has been an effective way of ranking websites since Google’s criteria for high search rankings are trustworthiness, expertise, and authority.
Websites need to demonstrate their authority in their niches. And backlinks help search bots determine the value of a page.
Here’s how it works.
Imagine if you were new in town. And you wanted to find out the best dental practice for a quick checkout. You ask your co-workers, neighbors, and acquaintances. They all recommended the same dentist. Chances are you’ll take their recommendations seriously when deciding where to do your dental checkup.
Asking authority town figures, in this case, it’s your friends – helps you figure out the best dental practice in town.
With backlinks, the same is true.
Backlinks act as a means of establishing credibility on the web.
As a means to rank websites on the web, search engine bots crawl web links from website to website. And backlinks are considered “votes” from search engines. They point one website to another.
Getting as many votes as possible to your website is crucial. But not nearly as crucial as getting a relevant and authoritative website to link to your webpages. Just as a recommendation from a friend is more valuable than from a stranger on the street, some “votes” carry more value than others.
For example, if your website is about SEO, getting a backlink from top-ranking SEO websites such as Moz, Ahref, Neil Patel, Backlinko, etc sends more page rank to your website than a link from another website that’s outside your niche.
Simply put.
Your website ranks higher if other authoritative websites in our niche link to it. And since authoritative and trustworthy sites link to similar sites, it sends a strong signal to Google about your authority in your niche.
Backlinks are critical for ranking for competitive keyword phrases.
Why is link building important in your SEO strategy?
Although much of Google’s page rank information is a secret, experts claim that Google confirms Link building and curating quality content as two of the three most important ranking factors.
Apart from the obvious points of improving your website rankings and visibility, let’s go over a few reasons why link building is a necessary ingredient in your SEO strategy.
1) It helps you build authority in your niche: Since getting quality links are the key ingredients to improving your web rankings, sharing links with authoritative websites can improve your authority in your niche.
2) Backlinks from authoritative websites demonstrate the trustworthiness to web visitors: This is because trustworthy websites are more likely to share likes with other trustworthy websites.
3)Boost your brand’s credibility: Having a notable website link to your website demonstrates, not only to Google but also to web visitors that you offer high value. This helps you boost engagement and consequently conversion on your services.
So what are the most common ways to get backlinks to your web pages?
Getting started with link building
You can either create, buy, or earn backlinks. Creating or buying backlinks are two of the least effective SEO link building strategies.
Moreover, Google may penalize your website for buying links or getting web links from spammy websites.
Here we’ll go over the best way to earn high-quality links.
The best link building strategies for building high-quality backlinks to your website is by earning links. This means exchanging value to authoritative websites in exchange for backlinks.
Here are some easy ways SEO experts use in earning links to their website;
- Guess blogging
- Creating content and promoting
- Reviews, comments, and mentions
- Links from partner websites
- Resource page
It’s worth mentioning that publish high-quality content is the key to getting high-quality backlinks.
Google’s main factor for ranking websites is high-quality content. For you, this means consistently publishing great content on your website. However, publishing high-quality content doesn’t automatically guarantee backlinks to your website. You’ll need to notify people about the high-quality content you crafted.
Here’s how to get your high-quality content noticed.
Put your content in front of the influencers in your industry. You do this by reaching out to these authoritative websites – via email. And asking for a backlink to your website.
Most influencers are happy to link to great content as it allows them to provide value to their web visitors. If your content is exceptional, they’ll most likely link back to your content.
Certain content types are a magnet for high-quality links.
These are;
- Ultimate guides
- visual assets
- List posts and how-tos
- Original data and research
Generally, creating these types of content on your website can land you pretty good backlinks. So keep this in mind when you are creating content for link building.
Conclusion
At its core, link building is about getting website owners to link back to your webpage. You’ll need to reach out and build relationships with other website owners. This isn’t a straightforward process, it requires a degree of hustle, creativity, and execution
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