By now it should be obvious: link building is an essential element of any website’s SEO strategy. Google openly states that backlinks help their crawlers find a website, ranking it higher in online searches.1
However, creating an effective link-building SEO strategy isn’t as simple as other SEO practices.
In truth, link building is hard work and one of the most challenging SEO skills to master. It’s not a case of spamming content with links and hoping for the best. Fortunately, here’s some good news:
The experts at Full Circle SEM, a company that provides services for search engine optimization in Rochester, NY (and truly across the United States) are here to help you create a link-building SEO strategy that works.
What is Link Building Strategy?
A link is the text a user clicks on to jump from one web page to another. Each link has two ends called anchors. The source anchor is the page the link features on, and the destination anchor is the page the user lands on when they click the link.
The main aim of a link-building strategy is to get reputable websites and online pages to link to your website. The more reputable links you have, the higher your site’s ranking. Links to high-ranking sites tell Google that your site has valuable, authoritative content to help users.
In fact, research shows that 52% of digital marketers say that link building directly impacts organic search rankings.2
While link building isn’t the only element of SEO (technical SEO and keyword research still matter), having no link strategy may result in less organic traffic to your site. And that will certainly hurt your business in the modern digital era.
How To Create A Link Building SEO Strategy
Link building isn’t easy, but it’s not impossible. You have to plan your strategy and persevere – gaining reputable links takes time.
Find Reputable Websites With High Domain Authority To Link From
Link building is about getting backlinks from reputable sites, but how do you know what’s reputable? The best way to boost your ranking is by earning links from high-ranking, authoritative sites. That’s one essential part of your link-building strategy.
The reason why boils down to what is sometimes termed “link juice.”
When a higher authority website links to another website, it passes on some of that authority. Because the site already has a high ranking, Google is more likely to trust your site.
Better-known sites like the Washington Post will have a much higher domain authority than a small business page. Most of us realize that already. But it’s not easy to get links from the sites with the highest authority.
One thing you can start to do TODAY is to make a list of all the reputable sites and write content relevant to their audience, making them more likely to want to link to you.
More commonly, you’ll find it’s “easier” to get links from smaller websites. Before you do so, you must check that the website is trustworthy and reputable – do they have links to other trusted sites? If so, it’ll be an excellent place to gain a backlink.
Create Content That Resonates With Your Ideal Audience
Want to know the key to gaining good backlinks? Write link-worthy content that users want to read.
Make no mistake about it. A great link-building strategy needs excellent and relevant content creation at its core. Without good content, it’ll be much harder to gain backlinks.
Use your customer research to examine audience interests. Perhaps they’re searching for a “how-to” post? Or maybe they’re just looking to be entertained with a topic they’re interested in.
Tap into your audience’s pain points and write quality content. In addition, think about the type of content that gains links and check out your competitors to see who they’re getting links from.
According to Backlinko, long-form content gets an average of 77.2% more links than short articles. And infographics are used by 53% of SEO experts due to their ability to generate backlinks.3
Link-worthy content should always be informational, inspirational, educational, or entertaining.4
Become Part Of Your Local Community
Most businesses within your local community will have websites. Network with local businesses and offer to write guest blog posts if their audience matches your customer personas. You could also engage in charity events – charities will often list links to companies donating. Or offer to write articles for local online news channels in return for a link.
Network with other like-minded businesses and offer to place a link on your website in return for a link on theirs.
In general, interacting with other local businesses can make link building a little easier and earn you some high-value links from authoritative sites.
What Is The Difference Between Do-follow And No-follow Links?
Not all backlinks are created equal. When it comes to SEO strategy, search engines prefer do-follow links more than no-follow links. So, what’s the difference?
A do-follow link instructs a search engine to follow a link back to the originating site. By doing this, it also boosts the original site’s page rank.
A no-follow link with an HTML tag instructs search engines not to follow the link back to the original site.5
Surprisingly, no-follow links still have their uses. This is because a no-follow link still drives traffic to your website, increasing brand awareness. For example, articles on Forbes.com are attributed with no-follow links.6 The exposure a brand gains through a feature on Forbes is still valuable, however.
Put simply, do-follow links are best but don’t exclude no-follow links completely.
One of the Best Search Engine Optimization Companies in Rochester, NY
At Full Circle SEM, our experts take link-building strategies to the next level. Contact us today to learn why we’re the top choice for SEO companies in Rochester for many local businesses. With our help, we’ll get your site ranking high on Google and boost traffic flowing to your business.
Sources:
[1] https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/40349?hl=en
[2] https://aira.net/state-of-link-building/link-building-measurement-and-reporting/
[3] https://backlinko.com/content-study
[4] https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/11/types-content-links/
[5] https://www.searchenginejournal.com/link-building-guide/link-worthy-content/
[6] https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/dofollow-link#
