The purpose of this link building guide
Everyone has probably come across the term SEO (Search Engine Optimization) at least once.
If our goal is to get a site to rank high in Google search results, we cannot ignore link building.
It is one of the most important tasks of SEO.
This requires that we, as beginners and old hands alike, understand all the ins and outs of link building. Furthermore, you must always be up to date with the latest information on the subject.
The following guide will teach you how to build on existing strategies and learn new ones, which can lead to the highest rankings.
It also details tactics that are a waste of time and almost always ineffective.
In the following we will focus on topics such as:
- What is link building?
- The essential role of link building in SEO
- The key elements of successful link building
- The key elements of SEO
- So-called toxic links and the negative effects of bad strategies
- The newest link building techniques for 2022, and how to learn from them!
What is link building?
We can state that link building plays a key role in any successful SEO project. In fact, this definition includes the process of adding links from various websites to your own site, which basically requires nothing more than a simple link.
Let’s start with the basics, so that it will be perfectly clear in the end.
Essentially, the link building process is based on a site A and a site B, as a link must be created between the two web pages, linking them together.
This is because it is based on Google’s algorithm to get the website to rank higher in the search list. This in turn will allow you to get a much higher number of views (organic traffic).
To do this, however, we need to use certain keywords on which we will build the link. Not all links are equally useful, of course, and some may even reduce your view rate. Therefore, it is worth considering carefully which tactics to use.
The essential role of link building in SEO
To really appreciate link building from an SEO perspective, we need to understand the huge benefits it can bring.
As mentioned above, links can significantly increase traffic, which in the case of websites equates to increased revenue. In essence, it is therefore important to give link building a prominent place in SEO campaigns.
In addition, link building should be included in SEO projects because:
Your website can be ranked higher in Google search listings.
This can lead to a huge development of your business.
The credibility and reliability of your company will be greatly increased.
Of course, to achieve results and success, we need to work with up-to-date techniques. We also need to build credible and rapid strategies. If we do our job well, we can quickly and almost easily move ahead of our competitors.
The key elements of successful link building
As mentioned above, link building basically requires a lot of planning and precise task delivery. It is important to be aware of the fact that not all links are of equal value and therefore may not have the same impact that you need.
The more time you spend on the work, the more rewarding it will be. If you need to put together a link building strategy, you need to keep in mind the key elements listed and described below.
Use contextual links
By contextual links we mean links that are likely to be clicked on by the most people. They represent the highest value and therefore have the greatest potential to influence ranking. In other words, they have the potential to produce the highest click-through rate.
Contextual links are usually placed at the top of the landing page or main content page of the website, as opposed to the footer or sidebar.
Simply explained, if a link is in a font or colour that contrasts with the main content area of the page (think a more prominent, click-hunting look) – and also uses exciting, unique text – then it is highly likely to be successful.
It does matter what attributes you use to mark your links
For example, if we use the increasingly popular rel=”nofollow” attribute, we are telling Google to ignore it altogether and not link the two websites.
So be very careful about the proportion of these, so that they don’t inadvertently become the majority.
Focus on editorially placed links
In fact, these types of links are created when a third party decides to add a link from their own website to ours.
In principle, this does not involve any payment or other obligation. But many people may ask, what is the benefit then?
Well, it is actually very simple. It’s one of the most natural and effective ways to move up the rankings.
The benefit of links focused on specific referral areas
Link profiles that already have links from a larger number of unique referring domains can be considered great.
After all, a successful strategy should always focus on the tactic of building a link building campaign from new domains that have never been used before. This can be much more effective than focusing our links on one large domain.
This is because it is statistically proven that a link profile consisting of a larger number of unique domains can really help a site to stand out and stay ahead of competitors.
Use natural anchor texts
Google’s algorithm is becoming more and more efficient at reading and interpreting anchor texts built into links. It is therefore advisable to make sure that they are as unique as possible. Avoid keyword stuffing and other unfair tricks.
White Hat, Black Hat and Grey Hat link building tactics
For newcomers – those who have never worked in SEO before, or who may be completely new to link building – the terms White Hat, Black Hat, and Grey Hat may seem very strange.
In fact, these terms are partly relevant to link building and are all essential. If we want to put it simply, we could say the White Hat is law-abiding, the Black Hat is already pirating, i.e. cheating, yet the Grey Hat is somewhere halfway between the two.
The White Hat SEO method mainly favours tactics that strictly adhere to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and take an ethical approach to gaining even the highest ranking positions.
Black Hat is the exact opposite of the aforementioned method: the Black Hat SEO tactical repertoire no longer respects the guidelines. It uses techniques that break all the existing rules. In addition, an important element is manipulation to get a website to rank higher in order to make a quick, unfair profit.
The third method, Grey Hat, is a kind of golden mean: this SEO method uses both tactics at the same time. Grey Hat even favours the same manipulation methods that we see in Black Hat, but tries to avoid high risk.
Which of the three methods should be used?
Well, we certainly recommend sticking with White Hat. However, if you want to get ahead faster, you can even experiment with Grey Hat – but we would urge everyone to be extremely cautious.
Black Hat should be forgotten!
Google tries to filter websites that use such methods, so it is easy to get banned from the rankings and all the work you have done will be completely ineffective.
The negative effects of so-called toxic links and bad strategies
As we can see from the previous chapters, not all links have the same benefits or results. So-called toxic links can easily have a negative impact on the ranking of your website, and thus on your traffic and revenue.
Using the Black Hat tactics mentioned above, there is a chance that toxic links will appear in your backlink profile.
Because if Google considers that the material used for link building violates the Webmaster Guidelines and rules, the ranking of the site will not increase, but on the contrary, it will decrease drastically.
And restoration is a very difficult and time-consuming task. It may take years to regain the ranking. Therefore, we advise you to choose the long, time-consuming effort to achieve ranking and the regular methods.
That way you can be sure of long-term success and results!
If, despite this, you still find suspicious links of this nature in your profile (which it is crucial to check regularly), you should remove them immediately.
The latest link building techniques for 2022, or something to learn from!
In order to achieve the desired traffic and rankings through link building, it is important to prioritise the right strategies.
(We should be clear that by strategy we mean a specific project, i.e. what we are going to do. And tactics means how, in what way, the plan will be implemented.)
From year to year we come across different link building techniques and strategies. And what is clear from the tactics we have seen in the past is that the energy invested in the work has paid off in every case.
Here are some of the tactics we can build a complete project around in 2020:
Quick-Win link building
As you can see from the name of the tactic, the basic idea is to make a quick profit, i.e. to get ahead in the rankings.
Although it has been mainly implied that link building is a complicated and time-consuming task, this tendency is not fully upheld here. One such quick-win method is broken link building. This means, among other things, finding pages that are relevant to us that contain inactive links – links from pages that have certainly not been updated for a long time or have been closed down.
This is inconvenient for the owner of the site, as Google interprets it as if it doesn’t care about the site and therefore places it lower down the results list. However, we can offer to replace the broken links with a fresh piece of our own. This way, both parties can make a mutual profit.
Of course, it is important to remember that the simple links we get using this tactic can be accessed by almost anyone – even competitors.
So, if we opt for Quick-Win tactics, we may be successful, but we may not be able to outperform our competitors.
In order to take your SEO activity to the next level, you need to build a different strategy after taking advantage of the quick-win opportunity. Because unfortunately, this tactic only gives you a momentary head start. It is not a long-term solution!
Traditional link building
This can be done for example as a guest post on a relevant blog, a simple link booster, a link on a forum and a thousand other similar ways.
To build successfully, it is important to follow the tactical points and check them regularly. This is exactly why this method is also known as manual link building.
Let’s take a close look at what we are talking about here, the links that are used in manual link building are usually not of the highest quality and therefore can be dangerous.
Because according to Google, all links that are not placed in an editorial way are considered manipulation. They are therefore likely to have either less impact on rankings or to be ignored altogether.
However, it is also possible that they may harm the site (for example, if they add no value at all, or are explicitly SPAM suspicious).
As with Quick-Win, as with traditional link building, we can see that competitors can easily copy the tactics and thus set us back.
However, link building tactics are a passive method and require a lot of effort to prepare properly.
However, we can see that the benefits come proportionally, as do the many advantages.
If we choose to do this, we must be prepared for the time and effort required to do it perfectly. We need to make our content extremely useful and user-friendly so that it attracts the attention of as many people as possible.
Even Google’s Webmaster’s Guide tells us that the best way to provide other sites with relevant, high-quality links is to create unique content that can promote itself to the right degree (even on its own, on its own).
This can pay off in a fantastic way.
Indeed, links will almost invariably count as editorial votes in this tactic. In other words, the more useful the content behind them, the more likely it is that someone else will find them and link to them.
This tactic should be remembered. After all, it’s one of the most useful and natural ways of link building, and one that can easily help you rise above your competitors.
Paid link building
It is also considered as manipulation as most Black Hat tactics. But only if the link in question does not have a =”nofollow” or rather a =”sponsored” attribute.
On the contrary, this tactic breaks all Google Webmaster rules and, interestingly, is still one of the most popular link building strategies in 2020.
But what do we achieve by using the above-mentioned tags?
By using =”sponsored”, the PageRank exchange (or website linking) does not take place, just like in the case of =”nofollow” mentioned above. However, regardless of this, on a proper, relevant page or blog, a precisely placed PR article and link has tremendous value. Just like interview type videos and podcasts.
These paid methods, when placed on a website with a high PageRank, can generate tons of potential visitors to your website, plus they can increase the prestige of your company to an amazing degree. However, that doesn’t mean that it can’t be done wrong and knock us on our ankles.
There are a lot of websites that have paid sponsor links, mainly from sites that are not thematically aligned, thus not generating enough traffic.
Summary
The means of “link earning” and “paid link building” are roughly the same. The difference is, of course, that while the latter is a quick and expensive solution, the former, although free, is not necessarily dependent on us for its success, and it takes a long time to make your own website content valuable enough to be found and used by others.
Paid link building, when done properly, is therefore more like a digital PR campaign. But it is still highly effective.
The guide below contains a lot of useful information that can help even beginners. And it is clear to see that link building is an essential task in SEO.
To summarise the above, there are nowadays a number of link building tactics that are very popular and can easily get your website banned by Goolge.
Therefore, only experiment with White Hat or possibly Grey Hat methods. Although this is a much longer process, you can be sure that the results you achieve will be long-lasting.
All you have to do is start building links efficiently and effectively, using the strategy that best suits your goals.