Link building done correctly

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Apr 20, 2018 / by
Link building done correctly

Link building is one of the core facets of SEO. Put simply, the more high-quality links you can accumulate from relevant authority sites, the higher your site’s visibility will be in results pages.

Ten years ago, you could generate lots of links with sneaky, underhanded tactics. This was a way to game the search engines in order to achieve high rankings (whether you deserved them or not). Fortunately, Google has made a lot of adjustments in recent years in order to reward sites who generate links organically (as a result of good content and healthy link building practices) and punish those who seek to game the system.

Content is king

If you’re looking for a magic pill strategy to accumulate tonnes of links in a short period of time, you’ll definitely be disappointed. With content marketing, you won’t truly see the fruits of your labour until you’ve been posting content week in, week out for years. Because most marketers aren’t able to make this commitment, you can really benefit if you’re the exception.

By creating, publishing and promoting high-quality content on a regular basis, you’ll start to acquire return readers who will naturally share your articles. Ultimately, high-quality content must provide value to your readers – usually with plenty of actionable advice. If you’re not sure what your readers value, be sure to do some market research and if you already have an audience, make sure to fire off some questionnaires to learn about the frustrations and ambitions of your typical reader.

So long as your intention is delivering high value information rather than merely soliciting links, infographics can be a great content type to deploy. With every infographic, you can include HTML code beneath which allows webmasters to easily repost it on their sites (giving you a new backlink in the process).

Christopher Cemper states,

It’s great that people write about you and link back to your website, but just as long as they create links naturally. Stuffing the anchor text with commercial keywords is far from natural and will surely get you in trouble. Using brand keywords or navigational phrases is a good option in this case.

Quotes and references

QuotesWhen crafting content, it’s always a good idea to include plenty of external links and references. This helps to give your readers some additional information about the points that you’re discussing, which ultimately improves their understanding and encourages them to keep reading your content. However, this tactic is also important in acquiring backlinks too.

If you mention a thought leader in your niche in one of your articles, reach out to them on Twitter. You may wish to politely ask for a retweet or a share. Usually, thought leaders are flattered to have been referenced so it makes them look good when they show the article to their followers. Try and include one quote in every article you write and see if it improves your engagement in link building efforts.

Don’t pay for links!

Please, don’t run the risk of getting penalised by Google. There are no shortcuts to link building, and you’ll get yourself into more trouble than it’s worth if you try to take one. Google has specifically stated it takes a hard stance against, “Any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site.”

For more information about link building tactics you should firmly avoid, check out this article. Ultimately, if you aim to perform link building in a way that benefits the end user, you’ll remain in Google’s good books.

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