Digital PR
What is link building and why should I care?
Acquiring good quality links has quickly become the currency of the internet. Not only do they give your site authority and boost your credibility as a business but Google has confirmed that it is one of the three most important ranking factors for SEO. So they’re kind of a big deal!
But what exactly is it and how can you build a link building strategy?
What is link building?
Quite simply, link building is the process of acquiring inbound links from other websites back to yours. Websites with a higher number of quality links back to their site tend to have higher domain authority and appear higher up in Google and other search engines’ results. That said, thanks to updates like Google Penguin, acquiring good quality links is complex and time consuming and has quickly become every marketers kryptonite.
Quality or Quantity?
Not all links are created equal: A link from an authoritative website like The Times or the Guardian will have a far greater impact on your rankings on the SERP than a link from something like Joe Blogs Weekly, but high-quality links are harder to come by.
If we rewind a few years, webmasters tried to build as many links to their site as possible through methods like forum posting, blog commenting, footer links, and in some cases out right spamming. The more links a site had, the better, and the more likely it was to rank highly in the results for various keywords.
The world is very different in 2021 (in more ways than one!); quantity is still important but Google has upped its game so SEOs have had to do the same. Weak or spammy backlinks won’t help your rankings at all. In fact, these links can even get you a Google penalty and severe loss of your organic traffic. Fear not, as there are free tools available that can help you audit the backlinks you have and disavow the spammy ones if you find too many.
How can I build quality links back to my site?
So now we know they’re important for rankings, how do we go about getting them? From digital PR to building your own data tools, there are literally hundreds of different ways to create quality backlinks to your website which we will be diving into in our next few blog posts.
With so much contradictory advice out there creating a link building strategy can seem overwhelming. However get it right and it will pay dividends. Talk to one of our experts today...