The meaning of link building
Link building means collecting links from other websites that point to your site. This can lead to more visitors on your website and more authority in the eyes of search engines. The 2020 Search Engine Ranking Factors study by SEO software company Moz shows that link building plays a significant part in your site’s ranking. There is a difference between external and internal link building. With external links, other sites refer to your website. With internal links, you refer from your own site to other pages within your website. In this blog we focus mainly on external links, or backlinks.
The do’s of link building
We have listed a few tips to keep in mind when you start working on backlinks.
- Publish articles on other sites
A good way to collect backlinks is by publishing articles or news items on other sites. You can do this by writing guest blogs or press releases, for example. It is then very important that your content is relevant. Look into how you can make your content valuable for other websites and how you can offer it to them. Because the more authority the site has where your guest blog with a backlink appears, the happier that makes Google. That way internet users find your site on the search engines even faster. Read more tips about link building through guest blogging in our blog.
- Make sure your links stay current
Search engines also take into account how current content is, and with it how current links are. If the number of links pointing to your page grows, Google considers your site current and relevant. Great, then I will make sure a good 50 links point to my web page, you may be thinking. Unfortunately, that is not how it works. Google quickly notices when you focus too much on the marketing and not on the substance of the contribution. That can actually hurt your site’s ranking, so be careful with it. Frankwatching recommends placing 3 to 4 substantive content links per week.
- Put the link in the middle of the relevant content
So not in the header or footer, for instance. In 2016 Google stated that links that are ‘tucked away’ do not have much effect on your rankings. Keep that in mind and check where the link has been placed.
The don’ts of link building
And now a few things you had better not apply in your link building strategy.
- Do not buy or sell links
Google does not like it when you build your links the wrong way. So do not buy links and do not work with dubious sites either. That goes against Google’s guidelines and the search engine will penalize you for it when it finds out. And as Google keeps getting smarter, the chance of getting caught only grows.
- Exchanging links in excess
Google strongly disapproves of it: ‘Excessive link exchanges (“Link to me and I’ll link to you”) or partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking’. Not a good plan, then, since it has a negative impact on your site’s ranking.
- Too many keywords in the copy
If you use a keyword too often in a guest blog or in anchor text, Google sees the text as unnatural. So having a guest blog written in which your target keyword appears a lot can have a negative effect on your rankings.
Link building tips
Hopefully these tips have been useful and you now know how to approach link building. Do you have more questions about your website, for example about SEO? Get in touch with us. We will make sure your site is in top shape, in the rankings too.
