In today’s digital marketing landscape, it’s apparent that millions of business websites are vying for people’s attention. So, as a marketer, part of your job is to make your website stand out and ensure that it’s one of the first to pop up when someone searches in search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. 

People nowadays won’t bother looking at the second page of the search engine results pages (SERPs). Hence,  it’s crucial that your website appears on the first page and, even better, in the top three results of SERPs. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can make this possible.  

One of the essential ranking factors determining whether your website will be on the first or tenth page of SERPs is the quality and quantity of inbound links pointing to your website, also known as link building.

So, what is link building, and how will it benefit your business? Read on to learn more.

Understanding Link Building

In SEO, link building is the process of acquiring backlinks from other websites. Backlinks, also known as inbound links, simply mean that another website links to your website. These links act as votes or endorsements, telling search engines that your website is reliable and trustworthy. Therefore, the more links you have, the higher your website will rank in SERPs.

Benefits of Link building

There are many benefits of link building, but the most important ones are:

1. It helps increase your website’s visibility and organic traffic.

Increasing your website’s visibility in SERPs through link building will result in more organic traffic. Organic traffic is the number of visitors who come to your website naturally without being paid or prompted. This traffic is more valuable because it consists of people who are actually interested in what you have to say or offer and are more likely to convert into customers or subscribers.

2. It helps build relationships with other websites and influencers in your industry.

You’re opening up communication opportunities when reaching out to other websites to ask for links. Thus,  link building is not only great for bringing your website on top of SERPs but also for building possible partnerships with people in your industry. 

Likewise, when you build relationships with social media influencers, you’ll be able to tap into their audience and reach a whole new group of potential customers.

3. It helps drive referral traffic to your website.

Referral traffic is any traffic that comes to your website from sources other than the major search engines. In other words, it’s when people stumble across your website from links on other websites or social media platforms.  The more places your website is mentioned, the more likely people will click on the links that will redirect them to your website.

4. It helps create brand awareness for your business.

People will start noticing your brand when you get links from high-authority websites. High-authority websites refer to those with a large number of followers, traffic, and engagement. They are usually well-established websites in your industry and considered trustworthy and credible by both search engines and internet users.

Getting a link from one of these high-profile websites will boost authority and increase brand awareness, leading to more exposure, website visitors, social media followers, and eventually, customers or clients. 

Level Up Your Link Building Strategy

Now that you know the benefits of link building, it’s time to level up your strategies. Here are a few ways you can do that:

Guest blog on high-quality websites in your niche.

Guest blogging is a great way to get links from high-quality websites. When you guest blog, you write an article for another website in your industry in exchange for a backlink to your website. It’s a win-win situation because you get exposure to their audience, and they get content for their website. 

Make sure you’re only guest blogging on high-quality websites relevant to your niche.

If you have a blog post about pets, you wouldn’t want to guest blog on a website about cars. That would be irrelevant and wouldn’t do anything to help your link-building efforts. Instead, look for pet-related websites that accept guest bloggers and pitch them an article idea. 

By guest blogging on relevant websites, you can get your brand in front of a new audience and build relationships with other websites in your industry. 

Participate in online and offline communities related to your industry.

Participating in online and offline communities is a great way to network with other professionals and get your name out there. For example, if you’re a web designer, you could participate in an online forum for web professionals and answer questions people have about design. Or, If you want to take things offline, you can attend industry events or start your meetup group to network with other professionals. 

By getting involved in the community, you’ll be able to promote your content, connect with potential link partners, and strengthen your link-building campaign.  

Reach out to bloggers and influencers for backlinks and features.

Another great way to get links is to reach out to bloggers and influencers in your industry. You can do this by sending them an email or using social media.

For example, let’s say you have a website about healthy eating. You could reach out to food bloggers and influencers and pitch them an article idea about a healthy recipe you created.

If they like it, they’ll feature your recipe on their blog or social media post with a backlink to your website. Doing this can help you get links from high-quality websites and attract a pool of new potential customers. 

Analyze competitors’ backlinks.

One of the best ways to find new link-building opportunities is to analyze your competitor’s backlinks. It can give you an idea of where they’re getting their links from and how you can get links from the same places.

To do this, you can use link-building tools like ahrefs.com or majestic.com. Just enter your competitor’s URL into the page, and it will show you all the links pointing to their site.

Once you have a list of their backlinks, you can start reaching out to the same websites and asking for links. This is a great way to get high-quality links from websites already linking to your competitors.

Create valuable content that people will want to share and link to.

If you’re looking to level up your link-building strategy, one of the best things you can do is create content that people want to share and link to, such as informative blog posts, infographics, or videos.

You can create informative blogs such as How-To Guides, listicles, or even market research. Also, you may use infographics or visual images that present complex data or knowledge to easy and visually appealing output. 

Another great way to get people to share and link to your content is by creating informative and entertaining videos, such as tutorials, interviews with industry experts, or even just funny videos related to your industry.

Keep track of your progress and analyze your results.

You can keep track of your progress by media monitoring and tracking your search engine rankings to show you how well your link-building efforts are paying off. You can use tools like  Google Analytics and Google Search Console. You can also ask your link partners to provide a link report to get an idea of how many people click on the links. 

Keeping track of your progress can ensure that your link-building efforts are paying off. And if they’re not, you can adjust your strategy to start seeing better results.

Final Tip 

When it comes to link building, there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy. Every business and website is different, so you’ll need to tailor your techniques to fit your needs. That said, some tried-and-true methods always work well, and staying up-to-date on the latest trends is important to stay ahead of the competition. 

Link building can be tough, but it’s essential if you want to rank higher in search engine results. Following these tips can level up your link-building strategy and get more high-quality links pointing to your site.