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The Role of Link Building in SEO: A Significance Guide Off-Page SEO

by Jaselyn Royan

  • 2024-04-24

Link building is the foundation of marketing, and organizations are learning to leverage its power.

Link-building can drive organic traffic to a website through search engines. Quality, relevancy, and accuracy are today's three most important needs.

Combining strong technical SEO, great on-page SEO, perfectly created content, and link building can drive more organic traffic.

This guide is crafted to help you build a great website that ranks higher and gets the top-rated links. Without further ado, let's get started.

What is Link Building?

Link building is the process of getting other websites to link to yours. It is an important part of SEO because it helps a page rank higher in search results by obtaining high-quality links.

Some of the most common ways to build links are through content marketing, email outreach, broken link building, unlinked brand mentions, and PR.

How Link Building Works?

Search engines use links in two main ways: to find new websites to include in their search results and to help them determine how to rank a page.

When search engines crawl web pages, they can extract information from them and add it to their databases. This way, they can decide whether a page is good enough to rank well for related keywords. Google made a short video to demonstrate this process.

This is something that search engines decide by looking at more than just the page's content. They also consider how many links to the page come from other websites and how good those other websites are. A general rule says the better websites that link to you, the higher you should rank in search results.

Links, used as a ranking factor, helped Google take over the search engine business in the late 1990s. PageRank was created by Larry Page, one of Google's founders. Google used PageRank to determine how good a page was by looking at how many links led to it.

This metric was then used as part of the general ranking algorithm. It was a strong signal because it was a good way to tell how good a page was. After adding this to their algorithm, Google could give better and more useful search results than their competitors.

The idea was that a link could be seen as a vote of confidence on a page. In other words, a page wouldn't get links if it didn't earn them. When someone links to a website, they say it is a useful resource. They wouldn't link to it if they didn't think it was good, just like you wouldn't send a friend to a bad place.

However, SEO experts quickly learned how to change PageRank and search results for certain terms. At this point, Google was much more advanced than most search engines. But it could still be hacked because it wasn't good at telling the difference between good and bad links.

Google started looking for ways to find websites cheating search results by adding low-quality links. They also started releasing regular changes designed to eliminate websites that didn't deserve to rank because of bad links.

Some link building strategies that used to work well, like sending your website to other websites and getting a link in return, are now being looked down upon by Google. At one point, Google suggested this method. But SEOs started abusing and using it too much, so Google stopped giving that link as much weight.

Over the years, Google has actively lowered the rankings of websites that tried to use these methods too much in their link building. This is often called "over-optimization." This went to the next level with the first of many changes in 2012, called Penguin. These updates targeted certain ways of making links and may have changed how links are built forever.

From now on, building links with low-quality sites might not only be a waste of time but also make it very hard for a website to rank well in organic search results. This is why we suggest learning the Google Webmaster Guidelines and making plans that won't break them.

That's Google's "secret sauce," so we don't know its formula to decide its search results. Although this is the case, most SEO experts agree that links are still very important in that system, and new studies back this up.

Most people agree that the number and quality of links leading to a page can affect its ranking if all other factors are the same.

But for now, getting good links to your site will help it rank higher and get more visitors.

We've used the word "high-quality" several times, and there's a good reason: Since Google is getting better at ruling out low-quality links, the focus on quality is growing. This directly affects SEO because the link building methods you choose need to focus on that quality.

Types of Link Building

Certain types of links can be earned and incorporated into the website. These include:

1. Backlinks

There are links on other sites that lead to yours. These are called direct links or backlinks. Search engines show that you are an expert and that they can trust your site. This is why link building is so important.

2. Outbound Links

These are links from your site to other sites with a different name. There is no clear link between outbound links and your site's authority, but they can improve the user experience and connect your audience to useful resources.

3. Internal Links

On your site, these links take people from one page to another. It's easier for people to get around your site with them, and your content should be taken seriously.

Role of Link Building in SEO

In off-page SEO, link building helps to boost the “authority” of the webpage for search engines. The algorithm ranks the pages higher, resulting in more search traffic. Here’s how link building impacts SEO.

Building Groups

Reaching out to other websites and blogs in your business that are related to yours can be a part of building links. This kind of marketing is often about promoting something you just made, like an infographic or a piece of content.

One of the main goals of outreach is to get a link, but there's more to it than that.

Outreach can help you build long-term relationships with important people in your field, making people respect and trust your business. Even if we don't talk about building links for a moment, this is important because you're making real fans and supporters of your business.

Sending Traffic

We've already talked about how links can affect your results. What about how links can affect the traffic that comes from other sites? A good link from a website that gets a lot of visitors can also bring more people to your site. There's a good chance that the traffic to a relevant website will also be relevant, which could mean more leads or sales.

In this case, a link is valuable for SEO and sales. If you can get links to your site in front of people interested in your work, they may click through.

Building a Brand

Link Building is the right way to help you build your business and become an expert in your niche. When you build links in certain ways, like by writing content, you can show people how knowledgeable your business is, which can help build your brand.

Using data from your business to write and share content might make you famous in that field. When you approach and try to get links to your content, you show that you're an expert in the field and ask other experts to help spread the word and do the same.

SEO Penguins can be your partner for building links. It helps you increase traffic by earning credible links, grow the website by generating leads, and boost conversion.

The Process of Link Building

Link Building efficiently requires an approach that is both structured and strategic. The process of building links can be broken down into the following basic steps:

Establishing Clearly Defined Objectives

One of the most important things to do before beginning a link building campaign is to determine your objectives. Do you want to boost your website's organic traffic, enhance your ranks for particular keywords, or establish yourself as an authority in your field? Your clear aims will direct your efforts.

Research and Critical Thinking

The cornerstone of good link building is extensive study. Examples include identifying target keywords, examining competitors' backlink profiles, and investigating potential link sources.

Outreaching

Outreach to people and businesses interested in your products is a good practice. You can effectively reach people through email or social media campaigns.

Connecting through Customer Relationships

To successfully build links, it is essential to cultivate relationships with other webmasters, bloggers, and influential people in different industries. Outreach entails contacting these people and organizations to get backlinks or collaborate with them.

Content Production and Promotion

The currency of link-building is creating high-quality, shareable content. An essential component of the process is producing content that is either educational, interesting, or valuable and that others would like to link to.

Monitoring Progress

Link building must be continuously measured and analyzed for its effectiveness. Monitoring the results of your efforts, such as shifts in rankings and organic traffic, is beneficial to continuous strategy improvement.

Building Authority

SEO professionals have built links for many years and have found that links from more well-known and trustworthy websites have a bigger effect on how well your page ranks in Google.

The basic idea behind the PageRank algorithm is that pages that have more and better backlinks to them are more likely to "vote."

Relevancy to the Niche

Google will give more weight to links from websites (and pages) about the same subject as your blog, like those about health and living, than to links from websites about cars or money.

If other well-known websites on the subject link to the page, there is a good chance that the information on it is good. However, you shouldn't avoid getting links from sites that aren't about the same thing as yours.

No matter what your website is about, dozens of other websites are about the same thing but not the same niche.

For example, the niche “health and lifestyle” can be linked to sites like ‘fitness’ and ‘nutrition’. Fitness and nutrition are directly related to health and lifestyle.

Leverage the Power of Anchor Text

If you don't know what "anchor text" means, it's a piece of text you can click on to go to a different page. It usually gives a short summary of the related page's content.

It's not a surprise that Google looks at the link text to determine what the page is about and what keywords and phrases it should rank for. Not only that, but Google's original PageRank patent makes this very clear.

Page rank, anchor text, and location information are ways Google works to improve the quality of searches.

Placement of Link

A web page has three parts: the text, the sidebar, and the footer. In general, people click on links in the content more often because they are most interested in the content block.

Putting links in a prominent place may give them more authority.

Another thing that can change a link's CTR is how high up on the page it is. Most people are more likely to click on the links at the beginning of a story than late at night.

Tips for Link Building

Building links is not an easy task. It requires outreach to people and converting them into customers. New website owners and SEO professionals can use the following tips while link-building to boost its effectiveness.

1. Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is all about writing good content for other websites in your niche or business. Many times, these websites will give you an author bio in exchange for a link back to your site. By guest blogging, you can build your reputation and get relevant backlinks.

2. Broken Link Building

Finding broken (404 error) links on other websites and giving your content as a replacement is what broken link building is all about. This approach gives you valuable backlinks and helps webmasters fix broken links.

3. Diversify Your Link Profile

A good website will have many different links. Look for backlinks from various sources, such as blogs, news sites, business directories, and social media sites.

4. Skyscraper Technique

Using the skyscraper method, you create content that is better than what's already available on a certain subject. When you're done creating better content, you ask people who linked to the bad content to link to your better resource.

5. Influencer Outreach

Creating amazing content that people want to share, also known as "link bait," can easily attract backlinks. Organic backlinks can come from content marketing efforts that use infographics, videos, and interactive tools.

6. Content Marketing and Link Bait

Creating remarkable and shareable content, often called link bait, can naturally attract backlinks. Content marketing campaigns, such as infographics, videos, and interactive tools, can generate organic backlinks.

7. Quality Over Quantity

It is better to have great links than a lot of them. A few useful, high-quality backlinks are worth more than many low-quality links. Focus on getting links from sites that people trust and authorize.

8. Social Media and Link Building

Sharing your information on social media sites can make it more visible, which could lead to more shares and backlinks. Using social media to interact with your viewers can also help you build relationships that could lead to link opportunities.

9. Relevance Matters

Relevance is very important when making links. Links from websites and content that are very related to your niche or business are given a lot of weight. Make sure that the information around your backlink makes sense in this context.

10. Acquire Natural Link

If you get a link automatically, search engines like it more than if you try to trick it. Do not do things that can get you in trouble, like buying links, exchanging too many links, or joining link farms.

11. Avoiding Link Building Pitfalls

Watch out for link schemes, anchor text optimization that goes too far, and low-quality link sites. If you do these things, it could hurt your website's SEO.

12. Ethical Considerations

Building links ethically means being open and honest. Be honest in your outreach, and make sure that any rewards for linking are easy to see.

Difference between Link Building & Link Earning

"Link building" used to mean almost everything that had to do with getting links, and in many places, it still does.

But there are a lot of different ways to get links to your site, and having a catch-all phrase isn't helping our business anymore. Sometimes, a "link builder" writes a huge original story and sends it to the media, and other times, they pay $10 a link to a shady black-hat link-building agency.

I believe it all comes down to the method. Link building means doing everything you can to get links. It doesn't matter how you get them as long as you do it.

Making sure you're making something valuable that deserves good links is part of getting links. This is why links are used to measure authority in the first place: Google thinks that someone who links to you does so because they trust the content you've written.

You need something useful to link to before you can build links to it. It's usually the home page of your site. But most of the time, you build links to specific tools like a blog post, tool, research study, or graphic.

These items may already exist before you start building links to them. There are times when you make these tools with the goal of building links in mind.
This explains the ideas of "deserving to rank" and "earning links."

Building links to low-value pages is hard, but it's much easier to start with something valuable that people will find useful or worth sharing. Also, in the long run, you're making it more likely that people will send you links you didn't ask for.

Wrap Up

Your website’s link to related websites is great for increasing traffic and adding authenticity to the search engine. The link-building strategy can be simple yet effective. You just need to build a few foundational links, build relations with other site owners, and, lastly, create interesting and intriguing content.

Building credible links is a great source to add to the website's authenticity. It gains the users' trust and helps to increase Google's rankings.

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