Whether you’re a fresh-faced beginner in this area or already have an SEO-enriched site but looking for more up-to-date information, this informative guide to link building will answer your burning questions.
Link building is vital to SEO; it’s one of the best ways to further improve your reach and visibility online, especially after you have invested in a comprehensive on-page and technical SEO overhaul on your website.
Generally speaking, links and quality content are two of the three most critical factors that Google and other search engines use to determine whether a site is trustworthy. Trustworthy sites naturally rank higher on search engines and earn large traffic volumes from their link placements.
What are Links?
Hyperlinked text is found throughout the internet. It is used to provide proof, help readers learn more, and get users where they want to be online. Links either connect to an external website (external links) or internally to another page or post on the website you are currently visiting (internal links). Both are useful and important when developing your link building strategy.
Internal Links
Internal links connect to pages under the same domain and are very useful way to keep users on your website and to also show Google which pages are important. You always want a good mix of internal and external links on your pages and posts.
External Links
External links (also known as backlinks or inbound links) are the links that point to an external website, the latter which is sometimes called a “referring domain”. External links are considered the currency of the internet and work to improve your rank and domain authority. As such, an effective backlink strategy is paramount to your SEO efforts, working in tandem with other elements of search engine optimisation to bear fruitful results as a collective.
Your rank and domain authority is determined by PageRank. Essentially, being linked to by a very established, very authoritative publisher online will help improve your own domain rank significantly, whereas ten, twenty, or even a hundred low-quality or spammy sites pointing to your website can actually hurt your visibility.
What Is a Referring Domain?
A referring domain – sometimes called a linking domain – is simply a website that links to another website. A referring domain can have one or any number of links to another website.
Generally, if a referring domain links to you only once, the number of your acquired referring domains and backlinks in your backlink profile will be equal to one another. Although, it’s quite rare that these are ever equal because you’ll typically get multiple backlinks from a website on numerous occasions when you build a lasting partnership with a website or business.
Referring Domains vs Backlinks
One of the chief differences between referring domains and backlinks is that a referring domain is a website that your backlinks come from. Conversely, backlinks are the actual links on this website (the referring domain) that links to your website or pages. As mentioned, a referring domain can have one or any number of backlinks to a website.
The E-A-T Algorithm and Your SEO
Google uses a very sophisticated algorithm to understand links and the weight they have behind them. This algorithm is E-A-T.
What is E-A-T?
E-A-T stands for Expert, Authoritative, Trustworthy, and plays a major role when undertaking meticulous link building step by step. You need not just your website or your link to adhere to E-A-T principles but your entire digital presence. Ensuring that your website and link building efforts showcase these characteristics is the best way to future-proof your digital presence.
How Does E-A-T Impact Your Trust and Authority?
Proving that you are an expert, have authority, and are trustworthy is a combination of on-page and off-page methods. On-page, having a completely optimised site and high–quality content is a great place to start, but off-site it is more complex. For best results, you need sites linking to yours that also display the E-A-T qualities and have a high domain authority.
Followed vs. Nofollowed Links
On top of inbound and internal links, there are also follow vs. nofollow links to consider. Technically speaking, only follow links work as that “vote” that will increase your domain authority, but there are benefits to both, and every high-ranking website will have a healthy mixture.
What is a Followed Link?
A follow link is a link that encourages search engines to follow the link, and as such, it counts as a “vote” for the domain the link is going to. These handy followed links will help improve your domain authority and increase your PageRank.
You can insert a follow link by using the <a href=””></> html code.
What is a No Follow Link?
Nofollow links request that search engines do not follow the link, and therefore do not pass link equity and don’t work towards boosting your rank or visibility on search engines. There are many reasons why you will want to use nofollow links on your own site. Google currently recommends using nofollow links on sponsored posts or guest posts.
You can insert a nofollow link by using the <a href=”” rel=”nofollow”></a> html code.
Why Do You Need NoFollow Links?
Nofollow links may not be useful for search engines, but they still bring organic traffic to your site. Users can still click on the link and be taken to your website, so advertisements, guest posts, and sponsored posts still have value even if search engines do not follow the link themselves.
Your Link or Backlink Profile
A question you’ll likely have is, “what is link builder strategy and how do you create one?” – that’s probably why you’re here seeking guidance, after all.
Naturally, one of the best ways to improve your link building strategy is to understand your link or backlink profile. This profile is a backlink intelligence catalogue; it’s a full backlink guide and a collection of all the links you have earned and also entails the quality of the links themselves. You will want plenty of high-quality links found on a diverse range of high-quality websites for the best results.
What Makes Up a Healthy Link Profile?
A healthy link profile is a natural collection of link building from relevant publishers who themselves have characteristics of E-A-T. There are many ways to ensure that you have a healthy link profile.
What is an Editorial or Earned Link?
The first method in the list of good link building factors is editorial or earned links. These links are often added without your knowledge and are typically used when a publisher is linking to your domain or content. Content marketing and being newsworthy are two of the best ways to get your website linked to naturally by a variety of sites, particularly high-ranking ones.
What is an Earned Mention, and How Can You Turn it Into a Link?
Not every instance where your business or content is referenced will there be a link. These are called earned mentioned, and they are a great opportunity to increase your link profile. There are tools available that will help you find earned mentions, at which point you can get in touch with the webmaster and ask for your link to be included. As they already have mentioned your brand, many will be happy to add the link upon request, though there is no guarantee.
Why Publishers Matter
If the website linking to yours is relevant to your industry, then this link is going to be more worthwhile than one that isn’t. If the link is earned naturally on a site that isn’t particularly relevant, then you don’t need to actively have it removed, but your focus should always be on increasing links on sites and publishers that are relevant to your brand.
Understanding Anchor Text
Anchor text refers to the text that is connected to the link. It often appears a different colour from the rest of the text and indicates where users can click. Anchor text is frequently chosen to help users understand what the link is about and what they can expect when they click on it. Ideally, the anchor text needs to tell people what information they will get by clicking on the link, and usually consists of a word, short phrases, or even a sentence at times.
In most cases, natural and branded anchor text is often considered best, especially when looking to increase your link profile. If too many links share the exact same anchor text, this tends to look suspicious, and Google will consider these links spam.
The Dangers of Link Building
Google has recently rolled out the “link spam update”, which is designed to improve its spam-detection methods. This update has put greater emphasis on quality links and continues to penalise brands that have been found to use:
- Purchased Links
- Excessive Link Exchanges/Reciprocal Linking
- Low-Quality Directory Links
Investing in the latest SEO link building strategies means ensuring that future links adhere to the new guidelines and that your link profile is cleaned up. If you don’t, your use of links might have the opposite effect, tarnishing your SEO instead of boosting it.
Cleaning Up Unwanted Links
There are many ways that SEO experts can remove unwanted links from your profile. After collecting a list of unwanted links, the first method is to get in touch with webmasters to turn those follow links into nofollow links. If the webmaster does not respond, there are means to disavow the links in question to help keep your link profile healthy.
What Your Link Building Strategy Should Include
- Earned/Editorial Links
- Links from Authoritative and Relevant Publishers
- A Slow Increase of Links Over Time
- A Healthy Mix of Follow and NoFollow
How to Build a Healthy Link Profile
There are many strategies available to improve the health of your link profile. These include:
- Finding Earned Mentions and Turn Them Into Earned Links
- Manage a High-Quality Blog
- Create Unique, High-Quality Resources
- PR Marketing and Community Engagement
- Remove Unhealthy or Unwanted Links
Tips to Improve Your Content Marketing Efforts
Many of those tips to improve your link profile health revolve around content marketing. Great content that is read, engaged with, and is seen as authoritative is often linked to by other writers who want to reference the information they are talking about. To improve your content marketing efforts, these tips are ideal:
Create High Quality Content
Invest time and energy to create high quality blog articles and other content pieces, and market this content using a mixture of social media, PPC, and PR marketing. This improves your reputation and is also an excellent tactic for increasing healthy backlinks.
Update Older or Popular Posts and Content
Update older or popular content so that it continues to provide the most up-to-date information. This is a great way to bring in more traffic and links from high-performing content.
Be Newsworthy and Use PR Marketing
Doing something newsworthy and using PR marketing is an excellent way to have your brand written about by news sites and other webmasters. It is one of the oldest and most effective marketing methods that has translated to SEO.
Be Genuine and Personable When You Reach Out
When asking for an earned mention to become a link or getting in touch with others for link-building opportunities, it is important to be genuine and personable. There are many instances where you can earn a link on high-performing content when you customise your approach.
Monitor Your Link Building Efforts
It is important to continually monitor your link profile. Between changes to publishers, your links, and to the search algorithm, a healthy link profile can become unhealthy before you know it. Staying on top of your link building strategy works to safeguard your link building strategy and allows you to continue increasing visibility and reach online.
Improve Your Trust and Authority in Other Ways
Link building isn’t the only way you can improve the trust and authority of your website. Investing in a winning content strategy, improving your on-page SEO, and more all work to increase your domain authority and help your link building efforts soar.
