In Step 4, we looked at building the foundation of your house (HTML & Meta Tags). Without a solid foundation you can never build anything concrete, the same principle is applicable when creating your website HTML, CMS and coding, they ‘hold everything together’. But it doesn’t end there.
In this chapter we’ll be looking at how link building enables your website to be ranked by search engines.
Imagine a house without any plumbing, electricity, or unstable walls…Not much of a home is it! Link building is not any different. The elements (activities) you engage in on your website such as social media, blogging, commenting on posts, article writing, guest post appearances etc. are part of the many different ways in which you can build links.
Link building is about people being able to find you and sending traffic to your website.
Step 5: Connections to your home so it’s a place to live! (Link Building).
What is Link Building?
Link building is about gaining high quality relevant links from websites that will add value to your website, not just for rankings but also for your users.
A typical example of link building would be:
Think of link building as a highway of information. A city with links between the pages being the streets. Well search engines crawl the web to find new info and places. The more streets leading to your website the more likely you are to be found.
So why is it important for your website to build links?
It is important for your website to build links as search engines consider them as ‘brownie points’ or votes. The look at how you got your links and value them according to their source as well. Another important point is link building reflects on the signal of your site’s authority.
What type of SEO is link building?
Link building is Off-page SEO and is considered the most important type of off-page ranking factor amongst Social media, PR and Marketing. Search engines determine the value of your website according to the type of links you produce, how you get those links (internally and externally) and the number of links your website has. But it’s more about quality than quantity when it comes to link building.
There are various ways (metrics) in which search engines determine whether a link is good or not, let us share with you important ones that search engines usually use for link examination.
Domain Authority – Domain Authority refers to the age of a website, the content produced within a website and its social presence or popularity.
Ranking words popularity – The number of keywords words which rank on Google will determine the value of your website.
Traffic – The number of visitors to your website will point out its popularity and relevance.
Domain Age – How old you website is will to some extent give credibility when search engines rank your website.
Website backlinks – The type and amount of websites linking to your website give credibility to its relevance.
Google PageRank – Usually set at a scale of 1-10, Google ranks a website’s page according to its measuring tool and examines your website according to a set of criteria highlighted on the tool.
Social Presence – Social Presence refers to the number of ‘likes’, ‘tweets’ from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc….
What we’ve just discussed with you are some of the metrics search engines use to evaluate the value of your links. We thought we’d share with you as well the different link building techniques and the value they carry in search engine ranking.
The following are link building techniques that can help you rank with search engines. We’ve also provided for you the value they hold in search engine ranking:
Blog creation – High ranking: Creating your own blog can really boost your ranking with search engines provided that you produce great content and always ‘keep it fresh and fun’. The nice things about having your own blog is you can easily create internal links every time you write a new post and externally from people who follow and comment on your blog.
Interlinking – High ranking: Interlinking refers to linking content from one post to another. This is a great way to earn ranking with search engines and it makes sense to your website viewer to go from one related topic to another.
RSS feeding – High ranking: RSS feeds can trace other websites which are trying to steal your content and they have an RSS Footer Plugin which allows for a link to be added every time you make a new blog post.
Guest blogs – High ranking: Guest blogs are a good way in getting your website out there and being ranked by search engines. Just make sure that the blog you feature your content in is a reputable one and popular as well. Both these factors equal good link ranking.
Green content – High ranking: Green posting or content refers to writing an article that has environmental safety or awareness as its basis. It’s a social well-being article and therefore environmental communities would more than likely feature it in one of their websites or blogs, and even share it amongst other green communities.
Create your own column – High ranking: Whether be on your own website or another blog, feature your own personalized column and get people to read, share, comment and like your blog. That can only spell ‘good link creation’ for you.
Make use of your Twitter profile – Moderate Ranking: Twitter is one of the easiest way to get links as 1) Through your posts you can get many followers 2) Followers = Retweets = More Links!
Social Bookmarking – Low to Moderate ranking: Social Bookmarking allows you to save certain websites on the server and share them with friends, family etc… It has been overly used though that search engines no longer provide a high ranking for it.
Google plus – Low to Moderate ranking: Google + likes are another way of getting your links ranked by search engines.
Update old content – High ranking: Yes, it is not plagiarism you are allowed to ‘revamp’ old content provided you put or own spin to it and add some new info. Do your research!
Get links by fixing broken ones – High ranking: You can either fix the link and ask the website owner or author to link the ‘updated link’ to you. Or without even fixing it just let the webmaster know that you’re experiencing difficulties linking the page.
Ask your customers for links – Moderate to High ranking: Your customers are unlikely to refuse to link to your website as you have built trust and a relationship with them.
Confront anyone using your infographics – You can ask anyone using your infographics to link back to you after all it is your image being used for their good.
Live Blogging – High ranking: Covering a live event is a huge way in which to get good links. Everyone will be looking at you for updates and information on the event which will also give you a reputable name online in the industry you specialize in.
You can host other people’s events on your website – Moderate to High ranking: This is another way to get quick good links as people will be referring to your site to get more info about the event and you tinges of fun to it maybe attach a cute prize to it, online quiz etc… whatever you do make it fun and engaging.
Reactive content – An engaging way to get links. Unlike live blogging, you can write an article or share something on a topic that is currently affecting society at large at national or international level .i.e. Passing of Mandela, World Aids Day, coverage of The Academy Awards, there are many topics you can get reactive content from. The idea is to attract a ‘hype’ from people and getting into a link building conversation with them.
In Conclusion
That pretty much covers your link building techniques. But what about search engines, how they have ensured that the links that are built and followed by websites are not bad ones. Well let’s take a look at how they’ve gone about it.
As we can see, link building (off-page SEO) plays a vital part in your Search Engine Optimisation and website ranking. It is of much importance to for your website designer to engage in ‘White Hat – SEO’ at all times to avoid being penalized by Google and end up with low rankings.
