Suppose you have a website that collates facts and figures about cutting-edge research and the latest trends in the pharma industry. The website is new, and only a few people know about it. The information on the website needs a wider reach. One fine day, Lancet, the highly-reputed peer-reviewed general medical journal, quotes a vital snippet from a recent article on your website and adds a hyperlink to your blog piece. The website sees a sudden surge in visitors and a rise in subscriptions.
Let me tell you if you are wondering how this happened. A simple reference from an authoritative blog focused on the website and brought instant visibility and traffic. Sustained traffic converts casual visitors into buyers and a little-known business into a brand.
While this may sound like sweet serendipity for the website above, link building is an SEO technique to help a business reach its target audience. The more links from reputable websites in your niche connect to your web pages, the better. Over time, executing different link-building strategies as part of off-page SEO techniques leads to brand-building. Let’s discuss more about it.
What is link-building in SEO?
It is an SEO process of getting links from other websites to yours. Search engines use crawlers to crawl your website using these links. It would help if you got mentioned on a website with an authority in the field. This allows the search engine to discover your website and rank it higher. A high rank leads to brand-building.
We have a mind-boggling number of websites today. Their numbers exceed 1.15 billion! A good number of them are non-active. Still, we are left with a sizeable count, jostling for space and the viewer's attention. As surprising as it may sound, Ahrefs suggests that 91% of the pages never get organic traffic. Any guesses why? It is due to the lack of enough backlinks. A staggering 85% of websites have just 0 to 3 backlinks. Most of them are missing out on the benefits of off-page optimization.
Google algorithms have significantly changed, bringing new metrics to rank pages based on its people-first approach. The value of links in driving organic traffic to a site has stayed the same over the years. Today more than the number of connections, it's the quality that matters.
The search quality guidelines in Google got an essential addition in 2014. It is known as the E-A-T guidelines. Google uses it to determine whether a given content is valuable to the readers. If it is, it ranks it higher. Link building for SEO in 2023 has to include Expertise-Authority-Trust (E.A.T).
Importance of link-building for SEO
Today with the massive surge in mobile devices, 46% of all searches on Google include local intent. It means local businesses benefit from queries.
The more backlinks pointing to your website, the greater the chance for local visibility and business opportunities. Local SEO backlinks help your business appear when people look for the services.
Let’s look at the benefits of link building and how it helps in brand building.
1. Traffic to your website
Links bring direct traffic to your website. The on-page and off-page SEO combine to generate quality leads. Marketers benefit from the linking strategy that helps their products or services reach the intended audience and drive sales. Your products and services are accepted in the competitive market.
It enables you to establish yourself as an expert in your niche and creates a high trust factor, which allows clients to choose you over others. The caveat is it should be consistent, high-quality content, not a run-of-the-mill offering.
2. It increases referrals
The question is, why are we keen on getting mentioned by other reputable sites? We want to see our site buzzing with traffic! More traffic means leads. These websites have a vast readership. It means visitors are more likely to trust the information available there.
Keeping things simple and taking a simple analogy from our daily lives, you are more likely to connect with a person introduced by your trusted friend than the person approaching you directly. It would help if you had referrals from high-DA websites to generate quality leads. Consistency pays. A website churning quality content will likely reach the top pages in the SERPs. Getting potential clients through referrals is essential.
It indicates customers approve of your service offerings. Firmly positions your online business and helps in customer retention and new customer acquisition.
3. Brand-building
Suppose artificial intelligence (AI) is your area of interest. You would place your content on similar websites that work in AI rather than web development, though we don’t deny that the latter doesn’t involve AI. This helps you discover like-minded businesses in your niche and rise, ensuring wider exposure.
As you forge a new relationship, in the long run, it translates into a steady stream of potential customers and a brand name. It’s a win-win situation for both sides. Big names in the industry today are respected for their thought leadership who consistently pursue their brand-building exercise by offering their readers and customers unique ideas.
4. Quicker site indexing
Google employs an intelligent bot called the Googlebot. It keeps an eye on the entire web and collects data from websites. It indexes the collected data. This indexing is the key to website ranking done by Google.
Your high-quality content, fulfilling user queries appearing on a reputable page, and linking back to our own, give Google all the reasons to push you up in the rankings. Get your site indexed.
Types of links
Let's quickly go through the broad categories of links for a clear understanding.
1. Backlinks
Recall the example at the start. A backlink gets created when an external website links to yours. It is also called the inbound or incoming link. This is probably the most common one you would have heard in the SEO jargon. It is an integral part of SEO.
As a website owner, you should aim at quality link building rather than the quantity of backlinks. Links from high domain authority websites are quality links. A quality backlink compels the search engine to note and acknowledge your content as adding value to the reader. This pushes your pages higher up in the SERPs. Traffic moves to pages that are trusted by search engines.
Follow this simple tip to list the websites that will give you quality backlinks. Observation suggests that a website with a DA of 60 to 100 is excellent, 40 to 50 is okay, and below 40 can be avoided. Design your backlinking strategy keeping this in mind.
While there are different types of backlinks, we share a few here, further boxed as follow or no-follow backlinks. Depending on the niche and the business type, these can be utilized as a part of an SEO link-building strategy.
- Guest Blogging backlinks
- Editorial Backlinks
- Backlinks in Business Profiles
- Backlinks from Webinars
- Acknowledgment Backlinks
- Free-Tool Backlinks
- Guest Post Bio Links
- Badge Backlinks
2. Internal links
It points the reader to a page within the same website. Let’s say your blog section has an informative article on the different types of web development frameworks. If a reader wants to dig more into the topic, a hyperlink to a separate piece that satisfies his curiosity is an internal link.
The search engines understand the structure and indexing of your website through these crisscross of internal links. The key is to place these links in a way that makes the engagement value-based. With a fine arrangement of quality articles, your page has the potential to be an authority in the given field. Strictly avoid a spammy structure, which can bring down your rankings.
3. External links
As the name suggests, these links take you to another domain while surfing a website. Also, called outbound links, they are usually added to provide further information to the reader, which generally isn’t available on the same website. These cover both the inbound links (backlinks/links coming to your site) and outbound links (links leaving your site).
It also helps in ranking your website. Strategically place your link. It should appear at the right moment when the reader’s curiosity is enough to consume more information making it easily digestible. Also, as the user consumes this additional bit of information, it should enhance the value of the original article.
Best link-building strategies
By now, it’s a settled fact that link building is an essential component of SEO and brand building. We are sharing here a few best practices universal to most industries and businesses.
- Good quality content- Ensure quality content satisfies user hunger for information. Quality, unique content sells like hotcakes. Chances are your article/post will be quoted and highly shared once the other websites in the same pool acknowledge the value of your content. Your viral moment may be around the corner.
- Guest blogging- It is a sure-shot way of getting quality backlinks. Post your content on blogs/websites with high DA (Domain Authority). Guest blogging helps you gain exposure, build relationships, and acquire backlinks. A sea of content and tons of information is available, but a sure lack of “quality content.” If your post delivers value, you have made it. It is also by far the best backlink strategy.
- Broken Link Building- Get your hands dirty. Look out for the broken links in websites in your niche. Reach out to the webmasters, notify the broken links, and suggest your content as a replacement. This solution-based approach helps you secure quality backlinks.
- Rope in the influencers- This is the era of influencer marketing. Companies are collaborating with influencers or bloggers who have a good follower base. As they mention your brand or link to your website, your brand gains exposure.
- Social media- Leverage social media platforms to promote your content and engage with your target audience. Participate in comments to attract user engagement. Answering additional queries, intimating about the following topic, etc., are some of the practical ways. Organize your own expert round-up, throwing exciting queries for experts, peers, and people to answer and engage. In the end, you have an insightful shareable piece of content.
- Local mentions - Do you know that 64% of consumers utilize Google My Business as their preferred platform for finding contact information for local businesses? If you have a local business, ensure it appears on reputable online directories and review sites, such as Google My Business, Yelp, and Yellow Pages. These local citations provide valuable backlinks and improve your local SEO.
- Competitor analysis - Keep an eye on your competitors. Today tools like Ahrefs, Moz, and Ubersuggest easily give you information on the backlink profile of your competitors. Make a list of the websites that link back to them. Suggest your content to them. It will be accepted on their site if you can offer quality content.
- Forging relationships - Link-building is about honesty, building relationships, and providing value. Connecting with influencers, bloggers, and industry experts through networking events, conferences, social media, and forums is essential. Building genuine relationships increases the chances of them linking to your content or mentioning your brand.
Parting shot
If you are a new business, it takes considerable effort to break into the zone of visibility. Your content may be a mind-blowing piece of sheer delight and never-read-before information, but one cannot expect it to appear overnight on Forbes! These tried and tested techniques are essential to ensure better returns on your digital investments.
Professional SEO agencies make life a lot easier. They have the tools to monitor traffic and content marketing strategies to generate inbound leads, outreach, and networking. Their SEO strategy includes white hat SEO techniques to link building ethically and naturally.
Proquantic offers professional SEO link-building services as part of its customized plans for businesses of different kinds. We focus on providing value and building relationships to raise your brand’s name. If you are looking to create a “strong backlink profile” for your business, reach out to us.
