WHAT IS LINK BUILDING?

 In simple terms, link building is the act of securing links from other websites back to yours and in doing so further strengthening the reputation of your own asset. 

It’s a common process that pretty much every online business undergoes and many link brokers and link building agencies offer you the ability to do this on a scale larger than you’d be able to do in-house.

These ‘back-links’ send signals that aid ranking and reputation on search engines and help to widen the footprint of your website.

The placement of your ‘back-link’ also determines the value your site gets from the coordination. The quality of the referring site directly impacts on the worthiness your business secures from the relationship.

Similarly the link placement on the chosen site also had an inherent value. For instance a link placed on a key page on the referring site, be that the homepage or another page with high visibility and traffic, will also directly impact on the value of the back-link.

The accruing of strong relevant links to your site will help to increase exposure to your site from across the internet, which in turn aids your company’s reputation and its ranking on search engines.

In the SEO world the term ‘Link Juice’ refers to the inherent value secured from one site to another, chiefly done so via link building efforts and back-links. The way to secure these links, and resultant link juice, is done in two ways. 

Direct means relate to those efforts made in link building efforts in the form of guest posts, content placed on other websites, social media marketing, press releases and other direct connections between your site and others.

Indirect linking refers to more natural means, where content on your site is of sufficient quality and interest to cause readers to share this elsewhere. 

The success achieved in this tranche is dependent on the quality of sites that your content is shared. 

So whereas indirect marketing is natural, you don’t have as much control over the quality of the link juice you receive from these efforts. 

The direct path is more within your own control but the quality is very much determined by the level of service provided by the agency you choose to work with.

If done effectively, a link building strategy can work wonders for your asset. 

The fine art of successfully adopting a link building plan of action is a tough nut to crack and many link brokerages and agencies drop the ball on a number of factors in the process.

Some will offer low quality sites to work with, while others may offer assets that are not relevant for your niche or vertical. There are some in the link building field who will simply look to bombard you with possible referring domains without any regard to any overall strategy.

Such an approach can actually end up damaging the reputation of your site and a great deal of time, energy and resource should be dedicated to you in order to make sure that any strategy is both thought-out and bespoke to your needs. 

Link building, if done well, will not only improve your standing on search engines but should also lead to a constant level of traffic from the relevant back-link sites, just so long as these are of high authority and relevance.

There are many strategies applied when it comes to building an effective link building campaign, but all of the differing schemes agree on one thing. The key is the quality and relevance of the referring site. However there are many other factors to take into account when getting started.

Your company should ascertain an overall game plan when it comes to a link building strategy and that plan of action is rarely as basic as simply wanting to improve ranking, though clearly that is for many the overall goal.

You should decide on an overall link strategy. Perhaps you are looking to directly improve the reputation of certain pages on your site, converting pages. Maybe you are looking to specifically secure links from big players in your field. 

Maybe your site is new to the internet and you feel that a strong marketing strategy is to pick up direct links from key sites to act as a base for your product or company.

One thing is certain. An effective link building campaign should take into account, and pay close attention to, the following.

• Back-Link Site Relevance
• Quality of Linking Site
• Link to Quality Content
• Measure the Results 

If indirect linking results from the natural spreading of your website’s core messaging, then your direct link building strategy should look to replicate relevant parts of that journey.

For instance, a natural back-link is very likely to come from an interested party. I.e. great quality content on your food blogging site is likely to attract the attention of other food bloggers or those interested in this niche.

It would be of little value if you were to have a direct back-link to your food blogging page from a cryptocurrency website, and would look forced and the value to your asset is therefore severely diminished.

The referring site should have a solid reputation as well otherwise the quality of the linking relationship will fail to aid your overall goals, whatever those goals are. 

A hugely important aspect to take into account is the content itself. Whatever content you publish on your website, and especially the relevant pages you are looking to secure a link building connection to, should be of the highest quality. 

It’s especially useful if the content itself has divergent themes between your site and the referring asset, which can further aid the value of the link building project.

You should also make sure to measure the effectiveness of each step of such campaigns, this is especially relevant when taking into account any updates Google, or other search engines, releases.