Hyperlink creation is the process of receiving links from other websites to your platform. Thanks to it, internet users can easily navigate between websites. On the other hand, link building for SEO is a popular SEO practice whereby site owners or marketers attempt to get links from trusted websites to increase their website’s trust and overall performance on Google and other popular search engines.
Proper link building, along with creating high-quality content, is one of the most publicized steps to increase the overall ranking of websites, blogs, and forums. In fact, it is one of the hardest parts of every digital marketer’s job. That’s why you should be aware of modern approaches to link building, which are common in the world’s leading SEO companies. There are many platforms that offer link building assistance. So, if you lack the time or just need professional support and look for such sources, you can always use a helpful link building service or follow the link-building tips below to enhance your link building strategies.
How Effective is Link Building in Modern SEO?
First things first, how effective is SEO link building in 2020 and beyond? Well, a lot of top marketing gurus advises against heavy link building campaigns as that can result in Google penalizing your website instead of promoting it. But with all these warnings and advice, should one still engage in SEO link building in 2021?
The answer to this is “yes” and “No” with these solid reasons. It’s a yes because you’d need good links from trusted, high-quality domains to increase your website’s trust in the eyes of Google, Bing, and other search engines. It’s “a no” because heavy link building campaigns can result in manual action (link Spam) penalty; thereby, cause your website to be de-ranked or completely removed from the top Google search results.
So moderation is the master key to a successful link building campaign. Always prioritize unique and highly engaging contents over mass link building campaigns. Low and poor quality links would do your website no good in the long run, especially now that Google is looking away from the number of links to other modern ranking factors such as E.A.T, page speed, web page vitals, mobile-friendliness, etc.
The Link Building Strategies to Adopt
Whilst there’s no “one-size-fits-all” rule for doing modern SEO link building, these tips would help you to sharpen your link building strategies for maximum result and greater ROI.
Consider the Site’s Importance
If you want to improve your website’s search engine visibility, you probably understand the importance of links. Nowadays, not only the utility of site content is substantial, but the number of users linked to your page also matters. In this case, link quality, the relevancy of the site, and the authority of the page linked to yours make a huge difference.
So, choose sites for getting links wisely. According to Forbes, link building is always a little bit about PR; therefore, you should get attention from valuable sites with great quality and good trust scores.
Being involved in similar communities and keeping connections with authoritative figures in your work sphere are the key points in the link-building strategy. Backlinks from popular big and trusted platforms like TechCrunch, which has users all over the world, will always be more preferable.
Take Note of the Anchor Text
Sometimes, you need to get a link to your site by using an anchor-text, which is known to ordinary users as a colored clickable text section of a link. Then, make sure that the anchor text doesn’t replicate keywords because it might seem a bit spammy.
You’d also need to do your best to create more partial-match, branded, or even naked links. Pay attention to the words that appear around your anchor-text, which also give some specific information on what the page is about.
Get Rid of Old and Dead Links
Check the site by using special tools (such as Ahrefs, SEmrush, Serpstat, Openlinkprofiler, etc.) or by hand to find broken or outdated links and refresh them as required. Do the same with your desired internal link sources and contact the site or blog owner, asking them to replace the broken ones with your piece of content.
It takes time and effort but produces great results. Don’t neglect such nice opportunities to get quality backlinks.
Create Designs, Videos, White Papers, and Infographics
A useful piece of your content can come in handy for other people; therefore, they will link to you within the content’s related parts. Even if they don’t leave the link for you voluntarily, there is a way to encourage them to do it by using Google Images Search.
Try to offer them to link your website before filling copyrights complaint; in this case, you both will be winners – they’ll avoid troubles, and you will get new backlinks. Also, an effective method to gain more links is creating Ego bait pieces of content – something that people like because it’s about them.
Let It Be on the Top
Links that appear in the header or footer of the page are less profitable than the ones that are placed at the top of the page right to the fold line. Users tend to click on the link that appears after some introductory text. It causes trust.
Avoid Black-hat Techniques
Let’s admit it’s really hard and tiring to make authentic, high-quality content to build an engaged community, which has high active rates and loyalty, to create an effective promotion for companies. There is a big temptation to do more and faster without these unnecessary movements by using dirty methods like, for example, showing different content to the search engines and your auditory, which is known as cloaking.
Another frequently used technique is hidden text on the page, which is generally full of keywords with which the site should be ranked; it is invisible for users but not to search engines. That’s why you should always remember that there are grave consequences for engaging in such schemes. There are special mechanisms to detect and stop such activities, and, what is more unpleasant, it will cause penalties for a website from search engines that last a certain period until the problems will be fixed.
