Link building is a huge part of digital marketing, and an area which has previously been scorned by black hat SEO tactics, but gone are those days! With search engine checks and algorithms improving, the need for good quality linking is more important now than ever.
So, what does link building mean and how can you adopt this digital strategy to improve your SEO ranking and overall online visibility? Let’s find out!
What Is Link Building?
Doing what it says on the tin, link building is a process of acquiring links to your site to build your link authority and online visibility. This works by external links linking to your site, which is called a backlink.
A backlink on a high authority, well-trusted site, will boost your website’s link authority and online visibility as Google rankings relevant backlinks in your site’s SEO ranking.
Furthermore, links from relevant sites will direct users who are interested in your products, information or services to your site to find out more, making backlinking a valuable source of online traffic.
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Why Is Link Building Important?
Link building is one of the core elements of SEO and is the foundation of a good website, along with technical SEO, content and strong user experience. There are several reasons why link building is important, but here are what I consider to be, link building’s key, tangible benefits to businesses:
1. Links Give You Credibility
Links from external sites are fantastic for building your domain’s authoritative strength and the higher the number of quality links to your website, the better your website’s credibility will be.
Link credibility is based on each website’s domain authority and trust flow, which is determined by the search engine provider through a range of SEO metrics. For marketers and business owners, we can easily check the domain rating of each site using a tool such as Ahrefs and set a cap for the domain score of external link sites we’d be happy to link to. For example, setting your external linking domain target at sites with a rating above 40 is a good place to start.
Backlinks from authoritative sites will work to drive your site’s credibility as Google works on the basis that good publishers will link to your content because it is relevant, useful and will help boost user experience, proving that link quality is more important than quantity.
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2. Links Help Your Ranking
One of Google’s main ranking factors is your linking structure, both internal and external, so gaining high authority, relevant external links are one of the main ways you can boost your ranking and SERP position.
No matter how great your content on your web page is, if it doesn’t include any internal or external links, it’s not going to perform very well. This is why your link building strategy needs to involve a thorough review of both internal and external linking systems so you can improve your SEO rankings through both means.
3. Positions Your Organisation As An Authority In Your Industry
If your brand name and website is constantly being linked to from industry-specific, trusted sites, audiences are going to associate your brand as an authority in your niche – and this is the ultimate brand awareness goal!
A strong link building strategy is a prime tactic for getting your brand name to the forefront of your industry. This is where link building and digital PR intertwine, as a digital PR team will work to put your brand at the centre of any relevant or trending stories within your brand’s niche. This digital PR strategy will build a targeted brand awareness and authority campaign to get your brand noticed by the right people and make the most of a direct link through to your website.
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4. Increase Visibility & Lead Generation
With your brand website linked to incredible sites and sources, or popping up in relation to trending topics and search questions, you’re going to see an increase in site visibility. But better still, targeted link building not only drives your site’s visibility, but it increases your valuable site visibility.
This means that the people clicking through to your website already have an interest in your topic or niche and are, therefore, more likely to convert this interest into a sale or valuable action for your brand.
By targeting industry-specific backlink sites, topics and referral searches, you are going to gain more valuable clicks and traffic from users who are actively interested and searching for what your brand can offer.
Further still, link building can also help with lead generation for your physical stores as well as your online success, as you can geo-target specific websites or publications relating to your shop’s location and capture local interest.
5. Improved Sales Opportunities
This brings us nicely onto my final point, and one of the key focuses of digital marketing – your organisation’s ability to capture fresh sales opportunities and drive revenue.
With targeted backlinks comes an increase in online visibility and site rankings, as well as an improved brand visibility and targeted audience capture; all of which lead to an improved opportunity to increase sales and drive your business forward.
Plus, link building (when done correctly) can be a continuous source of referral traffic, meaning that, unlike paid marketing tactics, it will continue to work for you and your business long after you’ve created the initial campaign. This will help lead more potential customers to your site and widen your sales funnel opportunities.
For more information on how to develop your link building, or to devise your own link building or digital PR package, speak to one of Absolute Digital Media’s experts today on 0800 088 600.
