5 Tips for Quality Link Building
When building your website, you may come across a business that provides link-building services. If you’re technologically savvy, you already know about search engine optimization (SEO) practices, or the practice of utilizing keywords so that your website appears high on the list of results in a search engine. Link-building services are the next step in that chain: links between websites act like votes of confidence. If links on your website are legitimate, helpful, and authoritative, the websites that you link to are also considered to be legitimate, helpful, and authoritative, and vice-versa. Your credibility will be boosted through others’ credibility, and theirs will through yours.
A link-building service will help you find sites relevant to your target audience. You can establish relationships with other site editors this way so that you can boost your own audience while helping someone else boost theirs.
Here are five tips for quality link building:
1. Keep It Clean
Link building must be done ethically, otherwise, your website will be flagged by Google, which is counterproductive. The aim is to only use white hat link building instead of the black hat kind. White hat link building is all about building a solid foundation based on relevant and valuable links organically. These links will improve user experiences.
Black hat link building, however, uses spam tactics. Not only is it annoying for your user, but it can be a serious breach of Google’s guidelines, and can risk the integrity of your website. It’s not worth the gamble: sticking to white hat techniques will be better for you in the long run. Once upon a time, black hat link building used to be a standard practice, but since Google’s algorithm has improved over time, it can detect SEO tactics that can be viewed as manipulative.
Black hat link-building techniques include creating private blog networks (PBNs), spamming your blog comments, low-quality guest posts, and/or guest posts that have only a tenuous connection to your website.
2. Networking Is Key
In order to make the most organic connections possible, this is an easy way to help boost your company’s audience. Maybe there is an expert in your industry who you want to have a conversation with or someone whose company is similar to yours but slightly different or who has some kind of niche specialty. That could be a really interesting connection. You can request they post a guest blog (more on this in a bit), or you could write a conversation blog where you both discuss new changes to your industry or products.
Just be aware that keywords are important since that’s what Google tracks and how it rewards you. Potential link partners can easily be found by a search engine search as well. Once you’ve found a connection, send them an email with a request to include them in future content or ask for a collaboration. Networking can seem like an overwhelming prospect, especially if you’re cold-emailing or cold-calling someone. It gets better with practice.
Once you’ve built a network, take the time to maintain it. If you only reach out to your network in times of trouble or when you need them, they’re less likely to respond to you over time. Make sure you connect with people to ask about their projects, and don’t reach out only when you’re working on your own campaigns.
3. Choose a Guest Blogger
Guest blogging is standard practice. Guest bloggers write an article for another company’s website within their own industry or niche. It’s best if you can find guest bloggers who belong within your industry, but there can be exceptions. What if you’re a mystery writer and your guest blogger is a private eye or a police detective? Or you could find someone who works in the publishing field. It doesn’t have to be about writing mysteries specifically. Chances are, there are many related subjects your readers might be interested in.
If you want to write guest blogs for other websites, make sure that you carefully vet each site before you request to be a guest. The other site may accept everyone and every subject, so it may not be worth your time or effort.
4. Add Your Link to Every Social Media Platform
This is a housekeeping tip that can help boost your visibility without a lot of effort. On your website and your blog entries, make sure to add all links to platforms you actively share content on. Google labels links as “dofollow” or “nofollow,” and most links are seen as “nofollow” on social media sites. It reduces spam, but it also means that search engines don’t follow them and then they don’t influence your page rank.
Generally speaking, a link on a profile page and description pages hold weight, so these are more likely to be “dofollow.”
Asking for reshares can be a bit of a risk here, since people tend to ignore company profile requests unless they’re familiar with the company or they know someone at the company. Using a real-life person as the face of the company can be a way to start relationships with real people.
5. What Haven’t You Tried Yet?
If you only have a website with a blog, maybe it’s time to shake things up. Do you know of a podcast within your industry you could approach about visiting for an episode? Podcasts especially have grown in popularity. In 2006, only 22 percent of adults in the US knew what podcasting was. In 2021, the figure was 78 percent!
These days, there is a podcaster for about every topic, so there’s probably someone you’re aware of in your area of expertise. Then, once you’ve appeared on a podcast, you have a new link to use, and you’ve promoted your brand to that podcaster’s audience as well.
Some other ideas might include a YouTube video, a text interview, or an infographic.
You don’t have to go the process of link building alone. Expert digital marketers can help you connect with the right networks through top-notch link-building services. Contact the team at InnoVision to see what our professionals can do for your business.
