“Out of sight, out of mind” is a saying which is becoming extremely important in today’s times when people have a short memory span. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to stay alive in the minds of the consumers. To do so, we require link building.
What Is Link Building?
Link Building can be described as a process where links or connections are made between pages in the same website or with other external pages. This is done to rank high in search engine result pages (SERP) like Google.
In addition, it helps increase your visibility, spread information on a particular subject, etc. Some of the common link-building strategies include – email outreach, broken links, anchor texts, etc.
Important elements to consider while link building is:
The page you want to connect your page to should be relevant.
The pages or website should have high authority. A measure of this is page ranking and ranking. The higher the page ranking or domain authority a page has, the better it is for you.
Common Link Building Techniques
1) Anchor Text
Anchoring texts that connect the word with pages within the website or outside the website helps to direct the visitor to multiple pages that are used for the following purposes:
Interconnecting pages – Anchor texts help with interconnecting pages on similar subjects. The best strategy of anchor linking is using relevant keywords to anchor the page.
E.g. – If a statement says, “Celebrity marketing is a form of neuromarketing”. The page connected with neuromarketing should explain what neuromarketing is.
Increase visibility – The more you are visible within and inter-relevant sites, it increases your visibility. The catch here is that the sources you are wanting to link to should be ranked high according to Google.
Credibility – The benefit of the website is that it can promote the interconnectedness and interdisciplinary nature of subjects.
What if I said that marketing has a lot to do with psychology? Well, on the first go, it is difficult to accept. However, when we look at sensory marketing which uses Gestalt psychology, it is easier to understand the interconnectedness.
However, if we were just told to believe it, without it being linked to some sort of research work, then it would be difficult to believe.
On the other hand, it is difficult to cover many topics in one article as it can disturb the structure and the flow of the work. So link building is used to develop credibility for the work along with maintaining the flow.
2) Email Outreach
To outwit your competition, it is important to use email outreach as your link-building strategy. Outreaching people via emails can help in creating credibility and authority for the brand.
Most importantly, there are certain cardinal rules that you need to ensure while doing email outreach link building which you should follow:
Value addition – The external sources should feel that your content adds value to their site. Only then will they be wanting your content on their page. Along with that, if the external source for which you have written, has high page ranking and domain ranking, then you are in the best possible situation.
Effective use of the Homepage, service, and Pillar pages – Pillar pages are those that contain in-depth information about a particular article. While the homepage and service page describes what the company has to offer. Since these are the pages where people first come to get a detailed idea about the product and what the company has to offer. Therefore, effectively anchoring keywords in these pages will help substantially.
Quality matters – The quality of content provided should be of good quality that adds value to their existing resource. Only then, will an external source want to link your content to their page.
Pitch – The pitch and style of writing an email for link building are important. Even before your content reaches the external source your email does. Therefore, while writing an email request for link building ensure that your email is concise, personalized, conveys a good reason why they should consider your article. This section needs to have elements that will entice the firm to read your article on the first go. E.g. – How you have written an article on a topic that the company had missed out etc. Even before creating content, strategize the companies that you want to send your content to and write accordingly.
Follow up without spamming – Most companies like to link good quality content to their website. Nonetheless, it becomes difficult to track and pay close attention to all the email requests. Here follow-up emails come to your rescue. However, make sure that you do not start spamming the external body to whom you want to link your content.
3) Broken links
A broken link can be described as links connected to a dead page that does not open. Since the page is now dead, you can create content on a similar topic. Thereby, asking the bodies that had linked to the dead page to now link to you.
The strategy of broken links is of significant value as you can retrieve data of the sources who were connected to the dead pages with the help of digital tools.
4) Create high-quality content with skyscraper technique and circulate it by link building
“Skyscraper”, a term coined by Brian Dean of Backlinko, refers to creating more engaging and better content than the ones that already exist.
Thereafter, communicate and connect to the sources that were connected to the previously existing pages and inform them about your new content.
Backlinking with skyscraper technique helps in the following ways:
Existing demand – As there are existing pages for the new content you have prepared. It signals the existing demand for that content.
Higher chances of getting potential links – Since you’ve created better content than the previously existing ones, the likelihood that the sources connected to those pages would want to connect to your page is high.
Increased ranking possibility – As the chances of your page having potential customers are high, it will also significantly push your website ranking up on Google. As link building is one of the important SEO strategies to increase your Google ranking.
Higher website traffic – Higher the visibility of your website, higher the website traffic. As people can find you in the first few searches, the organic ranking of your website will substantially increase.
Link Building Done Right
To conclude, although link building is a very powerful subpart of SEO, certain techniques can land you trouble with Google.
Paid Links – If there is aggressive link building that points at paid link building in google algorithm, then you can land into trouble for Black Hat SEO. Consequently, it will harm your visibility and Google ranking.
Overstuffing Keywords – To boost SEO, marketers overstuff keywords in their content. This also comes under Google’s malpractice list, hence, should be avoided at all costs.
