SEO

Link Building Blog Series (Part 1 of 10): What is Link Building and Why Does It Matter?

When it comes to search engine rankings, what comes to your mind? No doubt, links are the first thing in the list....

Written by Deepanshu Gahlaut · 3 min read >
importance of link building

When it comes to search engine rankings, what comes to your mind?

No doubt, links are the first thing in the list.

Many never heard of link building or don’t know what a successful link building is. And, those who are aware know its importance in a websites’ Search Engine Optimization (SEO) but often assume it as a tough process.

Most people argue that links are dead and play no significant role in search engine ranking because Google has become smarter in identifying the type, nature, and intent of the link, the core emphasis is now on quality content.

Well, links are still the best way to rank your content and is an important Google ranking signal.

Here is what Google says

Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote by page A for page B. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.

Link building is not dead – only the days of shortcuts and shady methods are over.

Accordingly, I’ve decided to create a ten post blog series on “Link Building” that will walk you through the basics of link building, various link building strategies, tools, and best practices, different Google penalties and updates and how to create a link building plan for your website to get the success.

This is part one of the blog series that will help you understand what link building means and why it is important in SEO.

Let’s start jump in link building 101.

What is Link Building?

Link building is a process in which you acquire or build links from other websites to your website.

what is backlink

Image source: Moz

Link building is like social media – if you are posting great content, people will link it and share it. Link building is not a one time process; it’s a project, long-term strategy encompassed of –

  • Assets – content for which you are building links such as a webpage, blog, infographic, etc.
  • Manpower – those who create links and do link building outreach work.
  • Plan – which specifies your objectives, link building strategies, various assets, and reporting.

In the coming posts of blog series, we will explore all these in detail.

It’s crucial to understand that a link can impact your website positively or negatively. For example, building links from the low-quality directory, article submission sites or link schemes might penalize your website in Google.

Getting links from diverse high-quality websites (those have good editorial control) that are relevant to your niche area is important. The idea here is to acquire or build natural links to help users find better information.

Why Link Building Is Important

1. Higher Search Rankings

Links are important because search engines such as Google, Bing, etc. use it for ranking purpose. Google considers links to be like votes and trust signal.

backlink-high-google-rankings

Image: Top results for ‘buy insurance’ term

Last year Google said that links, content, and Rankbrain are the top three ranking factors.

2. Brand Recognition

Link building helps you showcase your business as a brand. It shows that you have an authority in the particular subject.

For example, If you get a mention along with other authoritative sources in content, by co-citation principle of SEO, you build authority in the particular context, brand yourself, and get relevant traffic to your site, which indirectly helps your search engine visibility.

time-management-apps-hubspot

Image Source: HubSpot

3. Trust and Recommendation

Links show trust and recommendation. For instance, if you get a link from a good publication such as Forbes under a list of the recommended provider of ‘marketing services,’ it is more likely that people will follow the link, trust your brand or might convert into your customer.

Another typical example is link from partner website where one website directly recommends the partner to their visitors and customers for a particular service.

partner-links

Image Source: DimensionData

4. Sale and Conversion

Links are one of the key drivers for your business sales in the online world. The referral traffic coming from various websites can bring you new sales and conversion.

link-building-increase-sales

Consider a forum thread where people are looking for selling old stuff online or in your local area. If you have links from such threads, the relevant traffic will fall on your landing page, which can convert into sales.

Conclusion

Remember, people like to link the website that is either useful or straightforward simple and trustworthy. If you are not still adding a great content to your site or have an ugly design and user experience, I would suggest revamping it before going for the link building process.

No doubt, link building is extremely important, but it’s not a linear process – you build one link then another and so on. Successful link building doesn’t follow this pattern. It creates a strategy that attracts natural links to your website.

In other words, it means creating great content, good UX and a little SEO push for your content.

I hope that you did find this introduction post helpful. I’d like to hear from you in comments.

In the next blog series post, I’ll share the list of various link building techniques that you can use to create awesome links for your website.

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Written by Deepanshu Gahlaut
I write on SEO, content marketing, latest technologies, and social media. You can find me online, or at home watching sci-fi movies, listening songs, or sleeping. In addition, my latest obsession is creating, collecting and organizing visual content on my new blog - Infopixi, to help bloggers, marketers, and businesses. Profile

2 Replies to “Link Building Blog Series (Part 1 of 10): What is Link Building and Why Does It Matter?”

  1. Thanx Sir for Sharing your knowledge. Sir, I have one question that what is the best ways of link building.

    1. Hi Aman, thanks for the comment. I personally believe that creating good content, especially a resource that solves users’ problem is a great way of getting good links and become an authority. For example, if you are in a travel niche, you can create a great guide (I mean something that includes all of the aspects of traveling to a particular location, users always look into those) on traveling in a particular location. Another link building methods I like – are forums and Q/A site where you provide help to your users, and guest blogging where you share your knowledge with others. But whatever methods you are using for link building, always think of users first, what kind of value you are adding, and think about the place where you are linking. Hope that helps,

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