Link building is an essential part of SEO for any website. When your content contains links to a credible website, you are not only establishing yourself as an authority in a subject matter; you are also increasing ways for other people to find your website. Link building can be done to outside sources or to other areas of your website.
Having good backlinks will improve your rankings in organic search. If done correctly, it will also help build relationships with other like-minded sites. Being connected to similar sites will help you become an authority. This will also help raise your rankings in search.
Creating The Ultimate Link Building Strategy
There are several things that you can do that will help you build solid backlinks to your website:
Guest Posting or Co-Authoring Content
Placing a guest post on a similar site that links back to your website is a great way to build authority and start link building. You can search for opportunities by searching for your product or niche with the words “write for us.” This is usually sites looking for guest blog posts.
You may also contact sites and offer your services or take opportunities to work in collaboration with other sites to create content that will include a link back to your site. This takes a little effort, but it is well worth the time.
Niche Posting
Niche posting occurs when you contact an owner of a website or blog post and ask to be included in their posting or on their site. You will be surprised how many people or companies are willing to add a link to your site because it also boosts their rankings.
This type of backlink is perfect for your site because you are being connected to a website article that already have been indexed by the search engines and is receiving traffic.
Social Media
Social media is crucial to the success of your website. You must make an effort to establish social media accounts on all relevant sites. Make sure to include sites like Yelp and LinkedIn. Consider using sites like TripAdvisor as well if it applies to your business.
You need to create a very detailed profile on these sites. Make sure to use good quality keywords relating to your product or service. This will ensure that your websites are indexed correctly and that people can find you on these sites,
You will need to post informative and useful information on each of these sites at least twice a week. After several months you will start ranking with authority because of your posts and their relevance. This will also be an excellent time for influencers to find your social profiles and start promoting your product.
Community Pages
Similar to social media, community pages include Facebook fan pages, Instagram pages, and YouTube channels. It is essential that when you use these sites to promote your business, you do not do the “hard sell” in your content. These are supposed to be “friendly” pages where companies share real-world information.
For example, if you are a business selling beach umbrellas, you could make a piece entitled the “Best 10 Beaches You Didn’t Know About In Florida.” Make the piece and make sure that your umbrellas are featured in a majority of the shots. At the end of your article, give your credits to all parties, including a link to your beach umbrella site.
Google Site and Property Stacks
One of the easiest ways to build quality backlinks is to create a Google Site for your niche and include documents and slides created with Google programs. Creating Google documents or Google sheets and making them available for public use allows Google to find and rank you much easier.
Make sure the content that you post is informative and relevant and that it contains links back to your own site, This is often easier than finding niche posts or guest posts and gives you more control of the information being used to bring visitors to your site.
Make Sure That You Link To Specific Areas Of Your Site
In the past, creating a link to the main page of your website was considered to be the best type of link. It was believed that this would give the viewer a general idea of what you offer and allow them to search your site from there.
Times have changed. People want direct information, and they are more apt to click off a site if they do not find what they want immediately than take the time to search for the information. Google has changed its search rankings based on this information. Now, Google ranks a link based on the value of the information that the link contains based on the word it was linked from.
For example, if you sell beach umbrellas and you create a link using the word beach umbrella stand, the link needs to go directly to a page or article containing information on beach umbrella stands and not to your main store page.
When you are building links, you want to take people to all areas of your website. This is also very beneficial to you as the site owner. Creating interesting content about a general topic is much harder than creating content about a specific item or service.
A Final Note On Link Building
Link building is very important to the rankings of your website. If you do not have quality links and establish yourself as an authority, you could risk not being found by the search engines or potential clients.
Always make sure that links you have posted remain active and remain relevant. You can also avoid penalties from the search engine by restricting the number of paid links that you purchase for your site. Google ranks organic (original) links much higher than paid for links.
If you are not sure you know how to drive traffic to your site through link building, you may find it useful to consult with a link building expert.
