Why is link building important for seo?
Once upon a time a good and bad system would be designed that SEO people would try and exploit for ever after. The Google ranking algorithm in the early days worked out that the better websites worth showing could be easily identified by the number and quality of the links pointing to it. Link Building- When the SEO community reverse engineered this and found it out an industry was born; Link Trading.
Things have changed but links remain still an important ranking factor for websites.
TL;DR
Don’t buy or obtain links the wrong way. This article will hope to show you the best way to go about getting backlinks.
Buying Links
Previously to Google’s Penguin algorithm update in 2016 buying links worked. I will say that if you know which links to get it still works. But all of a sudden spammy low grade links have been neutralized.
If you want to see what junk links are then go to Fiverr and spend some a small amount of money. The cheaper the better- Cheap Backlinks!
I have actually hired these service providers to see the state of affairs..
Most all links were on non indexed pages and worthless. They would have zero effect as the page was not even on Google’s radar since the page was also not crawlable. At other times the list of links was stuffed with non existent pages or the link was missing.
The scary thing was the amount of glowing reports and how professional these people look! You are really seeing the equivalent of the car salesman. Either the reviews were fake or people really didn’t know what they were doing and thought the service was actually good.
You get what you pay for!
Think about Negative SEO, how easy it would be to buy bad links to your competitor websites. This is a problem for Google to solve too.
The good news is that you might not need backlinks to rank these days, it depends on your competition. But sadly if you want to rank in a tough neighbourhood then you will need to get links (and not only do this). Buying links is unlikely to work to get you the right link anyway. But do try and get them naturally.
It is better to work out the SEO aspects you do control first. Then see how your website ranks through free tools such as Google’s own search console. Get your technical SEO in order first, which is giving Google the best and easiest way to view and index your site. Then make sure to optimise and write great content.
What is a bad backlink
I am going to mention that this list includes links which aren’t bad just don’t have any effect too these will be marked with (null)
- Links on non indexed pages (null)
- Links on pages without traffic
- Links on pages which have hundreds of other links
- Links which have certain targeted anchor text in a high percentage
- Links from unrelated topical pages
- Links from websites with a bad link graph
What is a good backlink
- Links on pages with traffic
- Links on pages with good authority (Page Rank,PA, DA etc)
- Links on other domains about the same subject (topical links)
- Links on pages within good link graphs
- Links on home pages
- Links on secondary pages
- Links high up in the page content
- Links at the end of an article for further resources
How To Build Backlinks
So you came here for this right! I am going to show you a different way that is more likely to work than all the tired ‘methods’ which don’t work such as HARO or outreach with lame emails to website owners.
Competitive analysis is now easy using tools such as Semrush where you an find who links to your competitor that don’t link to you. This is fine but do better outreach for goodness sake.
“I was reading your wonderful blog on travel and I just have to congratulate you!..do you accept guest posts with links?”
Make it STOP.
Think about how links get inserted into a webpage. There is nothing NATURAL about link creation. It requires a small amount of technical knowledge yet we are to believe it happens like a weed on my patio. What the SEO community means of course is a non paid for link.
You allow the link to be created without you even knowing about it.
Most links get inserted because people search for a related article of high quality to link to. So if you get sucked up into page 1 and have the best looking SERP you will attract good ‘organic links’.
Here it is. Build the best most linkable content. Content that isn’t already there but using different words. Content that hasn’t been discussed in the depth or at the unique angle you can do it at.
“Different has no competition.”
Unknown
Think about farming, how does a farmer go about growing a targeted crop? He has the seed but still needs to create the right environment for the seed to grow.
As an SEO you need to take that website into the linkable zone. Target some long tail keywords if you don’t rank at all. Create some interesting content that is in depth with data and shows some insight that bloggers just need, and want to link to.
What happens when an SEO video shows (on link building) to 75k views telling people to do something? That something may have worked but it’s going to stop pretty quickly. Stop following and start to inject your own personality in your work. Sure get some ideas and that’s where creativity is at it’s best hey Lady Ga Ga?
Outreach aka Link Building Campaigns
Take the time to build a rapport with content owners and website owners on social media. Down the line you may be a true friend and you will may be surprised to get a free backlink. In other words network.
Link Farms & Content Farms
I have owned sites in my long ago past that people paid me to put links on. Yes I did it! These sites then evolved into content farms. Medium and other sites allows authors to create their own articles thanks to web 2 and insert their own links. These links though nofollow can be beneficial in the PR sense. nofollow links do have value. Authors now reach out with articles tailored to fit which encapsulate backlinks to client pages. Agencies prefer these kind of grey hat SEO techniques and will generally not directly buy links. They also will have campaigns with PR pieces designed for industry leaders to share and generate a link building environment.