SEO, SEO, SEO. The three letters that you can hear practically everywhere.
In fact, we have talked about it quite a lot as well; so much that there’s really no need to explain its importance all over again.
So, instead of dedicating space to general introductions, we’ll dive directly into the insights about one part that plays a vital role in SEO, and we haven’t talked about that much so far: link building.
Explained in simple terms, link building is the process of finding a way to appeal to other pages, so they link back to your website. So, backlinks are the actual links on other third party sites that lead to your page.
As we already said, link building is an essential part of SEO, but most of the SEO experts claim that it is the hardest part as well.
You can think of link building as a type of networking – the more contacts you have, the more relevant you are in your industry.
No. Scratch that.
The correct statements would be: the more powerful and relevant contacts you have, the more relevant you are in your industry.
Which takes us to…
As with everything online-marketing related, link building is not as straightforward as it sounds.
It used to be when websites could use what are now known as unethical techniques to climb the SERP ladder; keyword stuffing, hidden links, link farming, and content spamming were general practices which actually yielded results.
However, that’s no longer the case. Long gone are the days when you could populate your content with low-quality links and randomly written keywords so you could rank higher.
Nowadays, these ingenuine techniques, known under the umbrella term Black Hat SEO, are heavily discouraged, as Google’s algorithm has changed and no longer considers solely the number of keywords and backlinks, but their quality as well.
Moreover, sites who still decide to try and squeeze in Black Hat SEO in their practice, could also get penalized.
The antipode of Black Hat SEO is White Hat SEO, which works toward building backlinks from trusted sites with high domain authority. To be able to do this, White Hat SEO experts do research, analyze keywords, create relevant meta tags, build quality backlinks and most importantly, create content that brings value to their audience.
As Google ranks sites according to their domain’s authority, external links and their strength – a well done White Hat SEO results in almost a certain “climb-up” the SERP ladder.
But, note that White Hat SEO is far from easy and cannot yield results overnight. It requires constant effort, research, and, of course, time.
Okay, you’ve got the basics down. Now, check out the most effective ways to go about building high-quality backlinks listed below.
At some point in the past, mass blogging (posting irrelevant and bulk blogs with no real insight or value) was “a thing.” And now, along with every other ethically questionable SEO technique, it’s dead.
But its effects can still be felt… in a bad way.
The mass blogging mania has cast a dark shadow over guest posting in general. That’s why so many people frown upon the idea of guest posts right now.
And, in all fairness, guest posting is anything but bad. When it’s done right, that is to say.
The reason behind this is simple: we live in a world where not only brands, businesses, or sites can have authority – but individuals as well.
And, there’s no better way to build authority than through showcasing your expertise through blog posts.
How do you find where to publish your guest post? Research the past experiences of the top influencers in your niche, that regularly blog post, and then pitch to those sites, as chances are, they’d be interested in the type of content you write, AND since influential individuals publish with them, you can rest assured that their sites are of a high-quality.
So go ahead. Find something to say, think of how to say it, and then find the place to do it.
You’re surfing the Internet, trying to get some information, and then suddenly, after clicking on a link of some page that seems to offer what you need, you encounter ERROR 404.
Error 404 is an error message that shows up on your screen when the clicked link is broken. What’s a broken link? Merely a link that no longer leads anywhere.
Many times, broken links result from modifications or redesign of the linked website, so the particular pages to which the link should lead, no longer exist.
Nowadays, almost all websites have broken links, the most famous and well-maintained websites included. But have too many of them, and you’ll start noticing that your popularity is taking a hit.
In order to stop this from happening, you need to go on a broken link hunt.
The process is pretty straightforward: install a link-checking tool, which will allow you to find the websites that have broken links, and email the owner of the website asking them to replace them with valid ones.
And boom.
You can wave bye-bye to your broken link problems.
The biggest mistake you could make is to think that good content is enough for you to make it.
I mean, you might be lucky, but would you really want to leave your success to pure luck?
Of course, you wouldn’t.
A much wiser approach would be to see what works and try to incorporate it into your practice.
No, we’re not talking about plagiarism. We’re talking about being smart.
Along this line of thinking, the Skyscraper Technique was born. This technique consists of three simple steps:
Easy-peasy, right?
Be it through press releases, social media marketing, email marketing, or paid advertising you have to spread the word about your business if you want the link building process to be less of a struggle.
You can find ways to make your content more shareable. For example, consider creating infographics, as those are much more shareable than long blocks of texts. A picture is worth a thousand words, right? And, it seems that nowadays it’s worth a couple of backlinks too.
Another strategy you might want to try is to look for bloggers who regularly run roundups. As these people are constantly on the lookout for new content, if you introduce your tutorial or guide to them, and they find it of value, they’ll surely add a link back to your page in some of their future roundups.
Now, make sure that your content is valuable, and that you give them the space to make the final decision.
Sure, link building is a vital factor in the ranking of websites.
But, putting all your effort into building backlinks would be a humongous mistake! Instead, you should first spend some time creating great, valuable and sharable content that people would find interesting and informative. Just by doing that, you’ll surely have a couple of sites linking back to you without you even asking them to.
Of course, that does not mean that you should focus on content creation only. What it does mean is that without content that’s worth sharing, no high-quality site will accept your request for a backlink.
Online marketing is a puzzle in which you have to place every piece where it belongs. So, first improve your content, and then think about finding backlink sources.
And remember, to be recommended by a great website, you have to first create a great website (and product) yourself.
Intro Producing content on social media can be a painstaking process. Anyone in social media…
Intro Having a platform to communicate with your audience is one of the keys to…
Online marketing can be a little tricky sometimes. That’s why having helpful tools to use…