If you have a basic grasp of SEO, you’ll have heard about the practice of “link building.” In a nutshell, it’s where you develop links to your website from other external ones. For instance, your site could be about lawnmowers and a gardening site might link to you.
As with most things, there are good and bad methods to follow when it comes to link building. But, the one thing that everyone agrees on is how important it is for any website marketing strategy.
If you’re building an online brand, you may not realize it but link building should be a crucial part of your plan. Here’s why:
Links between websites are important to search engines.
The whole concept of the World Wide Web revolves around linking content together. We all know that the Web is quite an open concept and that it serves as a public resource.
Search engines place great emphasis on links between sites for a few reasons. First, it helps them to discover new content on the Web, such as new pages and sites. Second, it helps them to work out how well each page should “rank.”
Links between relevant pages will often increase the rank or clout of the sites that host them. Search engines want to provide users with good quality content. Their algorithms ensure that spam gets blacklisted and seldom shows up for search terms.
Links direct users to useful content.
Let’s go back to my gardening website examples from a minute ago. Now, it’s not unusual for a gardening magazine site to link out to products on other sites. They do that because it gives their readers the opportunity to do more research.
Likewise, a lawnmower website might link to a gardening magazine for tips and tricks. As you can appreciate, such links will drive more traffic to linked web pages and sites. If link building isn’t part of your marketing strategy, how will you grow your audience?
By now, you might be thinking that link building is a complicated affair. The good news is link building for entrepreneurs is quite an easy task. All you need is access to the right tools for the job!
Link building fosters working relationships.
There will be times where you want to collaborate with high-profile websites and blogs. A link to your content from such a site is more likely to boost your traffic than other methods.
You also have the chance to encourage working relationships with those sites. That means there is scope for future publicity of your brand. And, the bonus is that publicity is often free!
More inbound links can mean more revenue.
Do you sell products and services on your website? If so, imagine having a few hundred relevant links to your product pages.
If the referred pages generate high traffic, many of those visitors will go to your site and look at what you sell. You then have the opportunity to convert them into paying customers! It’s a useful strategy if you want to build your brand and sell online at the same time.
So, when will you work on your link building strategy?
