Link Building

Link Building Definition: Link building is the process of getting another website to include an HTML link from your website.This process can include tactics like guest posting and email outreach.

Why is Link Building Important?

As recently as 2017, Moz research shows that link building is the second most valuable search ranking factor. This means that understanding how link building works and including it as part of an ongoing SEO plan is paramount to ranking well. 

When other reputable websites link to yours, it sends signals to search engines that your site has high-quality, trustworthy content. The idea goes that as more trustworthy, reputable websites link to your website, your traffic will also increase because the content on your linked page is perceived as more credible by search engines. 

Link Building Tactics

Some link building methods are more successful than others depending on your industry, but there are those which you should definitely avoid to remove the possibility of your website being penalized. These are called black hat link building tactics. Examples include activities like linking to your website in spammy forum comments or creating dummy sites for the purpose of linking back to your site (otherwise known as “link farms”). 

Link building “properly” and in a way that doesn’t game the system takes more time and effort but often produces better long-term results. 

Effective link building tactics and their meanings: 

• Broken link building – This process involves finding websites in your industry that provide links to other sites that are now broken and lead to dead pages. After informing the webmaster of these “dead” pages ask for a link back to your site. 
• Guest posting – Also known as “Influencer Outreach”, writing an article or blog post for another website that links back to your website is essentially the process of guest posting. You can use tools like Ahref’s “Content Explorer” or Buzzstream to help you find influencers for guest post opportunities.
• Outreach – Though often performed through social media or email, this process includes any method of contacting a website owner and simply asking for a link back to your website. They key is to provide high-quality content and good reason that the site owner would be interested in linking to you. 

Link building is an invaluable part of any SEO campaign and must be an ongoing process to be successful. There are several ways to go about building a healthy backlink profile that can lead to better rankings. Start with one tactic and then go to the next or use a combination of multiple tactics. As long as your content is link-worthy and your communication is meaningful, it should be relatively simple to gather links the proper way.

Also see: 

• What is SEO? 
• Inbound link Definition
• Reciprocal link Definition