Link Building: What Is It And Why Should You Do It?

One of the primary ongoing recommendations that we provide to clients, in an effort to improve their Organic Search performance, is to develop their link profile by increasing the number of links back to their website from as many unique sources (websites) as possible. Since link building should be part of any ongoing SEO strategy, I thought I would put together a high-level overview of link building starting with what it is…

What is Link Building?

Link building is the process of getting external web pages to link to a page on your website. Links are the streets between pages as search engines crawl and index the ever-expanding expanse of the web.

According to Moz, “Since the late 1990s search engines have treated links as votes for popularity and importance in the ongoing democratic opinion poll of the web.” Over time, the search engines have refined the use of the link data they index and are able to perform detailed evaluations of sites and pages based on the data they receive from the links to a webpage.

Links allow the search engines to determine the popularity of websites and webpages based on the overall number of pages and the popularity of the pages that are linking back to the website in question as well as through the use of metrics such as trust, spam, and authority.

Some of the link signals that are used by search engines are:

• Global Popularity – The more popular a website is, the more juice links from that website will carry if there is a link back to your website
• Local or Topic-Specific Popularity – Links from websites that are topic-specific to the content on your website matter more than links back to your website from websites that have nothing to do with the content on your website
• Anchor Text – This is one of the strongest signals the search engines use because if there are lots of links pointing to a specific page or website with the right keyword phrases being used as the anchor text of the link, it is very likely that the page or website will rank well for the focus keyword phrase
• TrustRank – Search engines use different systems for measuring trust. Obtaining links from trusted domains such as universities, government, or non-profit websites, can result in a boost in TrustRank scoring
• Freshness – Search engines use the “freshness” signals of links to judge the current popularity and relevance of a webpage so it is important to continue to earn additional links over time

Source: Growing Popularity and Links – Moz

Why should I invest time and resources in Link Building?

There are a few reasons that you should have an active link building strategy in place that includes, but are not limited to:

1. Google says so – According to Andrey Lipattsev, Search Quality Senior Strategist at Google, the top two factors for Organic Search ranking are Links and Content (not necessarily in that order) followed by RankBrain, Google’s machine-learning AI
2. Increase Domain Authority – Domain Authority is a score developed by Moz that is designed to predict how well as website will rank on a search engine results page
3. Improve Organic Search ranking and visibility – Ultimately, the focus on link profile development will improve your organic search ranking, making your website more visible in the search results which will ideally generate more traffic to the website

What are some examples of Link Building Strategies?

1. Preformatted Link Outreach Email – Most companies use Google Alerts to “listen” for mentions of their company. Making sure that there is a link back to your website in an external article is a great way to increase your backlink profile and all you need to do is shoot an email to the author or webmaster requesting that a link be added if it is missing. To do this it is best to have a preformatted email that contains the following:
   1. Introduction – This should basically introduce yourself, identify the article that your company was mentioned in and thank the author of the article for mentioning you.
   2. Request for Backlink – This section should note that you noticed there was no link back to your website and provide the needed code to have a link added
      1. PROTIP: Send the actual HTML that you want to be used for the link
         1. Easy to Copy and Paste into the Source view of any CMS
         2. Allows you to control the anchor text exactly
      2. Closing – Thank the author/webmaster again for mentioning you in their article and, if they choose to add the link back to your website, you may have opened the door to a source of future backlinks.
   3. Develop Content for High Domain Authority Sources – If you are focused on growing the “story” of your company, you are probably already looking for ways to generate content externally to spread your message. A way to incorporate the improvement of your backlink profile, while focused on getting links from high domain authority sources, is to put together a list of websites that you feel would be willing to use the content you are developing, check their Domain Authority score using Moz, and then focus one the development of content that you feel will be willing to be used by websites with the highest domain authority on your list.
      1. PROTIP: It may take some relationship development to get your content added to these websites, so feel free to make contact with these companies you are hoping to use a source to initiate the conversation about adding content that contains a link back to your website.

For a much more extensive list of link building tactics, check out this amazing list of strategies put together by Jon Cooper of Point Black SEO: https://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies

If you need any help with link building strategies, please feel free to reach out to us at Anvil Media.