Many things are great about SEO however, it is very misunderstood and underappreciated as a marketing strategy.
There are so many things that you can do to a webpage to optimize it, but without backing this up with a thorough link-building strategy, your website won’t be able to reach its full potential in search engines.
There are many things to talk about in SEO, however, in this article, we are going to focus on link building. Link building is a great SEO technique, that is nowhere near used enough for many businesses, so it should become a priority for your business.
What is Link Building?
Link building is essential as it helps build authority to a web page, making Google recognize the page more. They will then reward these pages by increasing ranking positions, as it will be seen as a good result for their users. For example, you have a location page, and you are not sure what else you can do, when you have added all of the content that you can, improved the user experience, and all the other little bits and pieces of SEO. However, you may still be missing that first-page ranking. That is where link building comes into play.
Link building can take time to get right, but when you do, it can be so beneficial. There are many websites that you can build links to, but you need to make sure that they are good enough quality for them to have the benefit you’re looking for. That is why you should ensure that the links you are building to your website or a client’s website are relevant and that the websites also have a good authority themselves.
With link building, there are many types of link building techniques that you can do. You can write a guest post, create an infographic for a website and build directories. There are plenty of links that you can build, however, some take a lot less time than others, and, as mentioned before, some are far more valuable than others. It is down to you to decide what is most valuable as every business is different but making sure they are relevant and authoritative are the main things you should look for.
Is Link Building Still Important?
The short answer to that question is yes, link building is still important. It is a part of SEO and digital PR and marketing that plays a vital part in building authority for your website, which is also vital to help you improve and retain ranking positions.
There is only so much you can do on an eCommerce website which is why link building is there to take you that little further. Link building has changed quite a lot, and search engines like Google are much stricter over the links that they see as good, so you can’t just build hundreds of links to really spammy websites. However, link building should be a core part of any SEO strategy alongside on-page optimization, content optimization, website speed, and user experience.
Can You Pay For Links?
Yes, you can pay for links, however, Google frowns upon this and you will soon be punished for it. If Google identified that the links you are building are all very low quality, the content is very poor or there is something to indicate that they look spammy, it will not be beneficial for your website and can even cause harm through decreased rankings, potentially dropping you further than where you originally started.
Our advice would be to steer away from those link-building farms, as not only is Google against these types of links but they are also low quality. Spend a few hours on gathering a valuable link through purposeful guest blogging, writing high-quality content, and potentially building a relationship with the site owner or media publisher. You never know, they may have other high-authority sites that you can use to benefit your website.
How Can Link Building Benefit My Website?
There are many benefits of link building other than building authority for your website, a lot more than you think. Let’s start with the basics and work through the few benefits of building links to your website.
Brand Awareness
Building links to the website which gains a lot of traffic not only helps to build online authority but can also help with brand awareness if you are choosing very relevant blogs for your business. For example, if you are a company that specializes in night out dresses, you want to ensure that you are sharing a link on relevant websites, like women’s lifestyle and fashion blogs, which will help both the website and bring potential new customers to your way.
Build Relationships
There are thousands upon thousands of websites out there that you can build a link to. Furthermore, there are thousands of website owners. Once you have submitted content to a website owner, they may want you to write content for their other websites, which can be highly beneficial for both parties. Not only are you keeping their websites active but, you are also building even more authority to your website.
Conclusion
There are many benefits to link building when it is done correctly. You must build links for improving your authority, raising brand awareness, and potentially getting more traffic onto your site. Make sure you stick to the best practices of SEO then you will not go far wrong!
