Spend 20 minutes reading on the Internet and chances are you will come across a dozen links. A link is code that directs you to another site when clicked. Links are the footnotes and currency of the Internet, allowing readers to know where content came from and helping to rank websites. In other words, links play an important role in SEO. A better understanding of links and how to build them will absolutely increase your SEO rankings.
Google has confirmed that high quality content and links are 2 of the 3 most important factors in organic rankings. Google wants each search to result in the user finding exactly what they want. Quality on-page content is obviously necessary. And links function as the “votes”, demonstrating what content is valuable and helping your site accrue “points”.
External and Internal Links
There are several kinds of links, External, Internal, Inbound. External links are used to reference other sites. They can function as the Internet’s footnote, referencing where information was sourced. Internal links are within your site, referring to other pages on your site. These can be valuable for SEO. They provide search engines with information on the content of your site and its’ structure. Internal links show search engines how your content is inter-related and how to value your pages.
Inbound Links
The links of greatest importance are inbound links. As explained by Olu Ajanwachuku of GVATE LLC “One of the many ways to boost your website traffic is through a high volume of quality inbound links. There are two kinds of backlinks, Do Follow and No Follow. In simple terms, Do Follow backlinks contribute to your page rank or your ability to rank #1 on Google and No Follow does not contribute to your page rank.” Google will follow a Do Follow link while Do Not Follow tells Google not to follow the link. The more Do Follow links directed to your site, the more “points” or credit Google assigns to your site, moving it up in ranking. That does not mean that No Follow links are bad or worthless. The average person reading a web page will not know the difference. No Follow links can drive lots of referral traffic to your website and are a valuable component to your link mix or profile.
Link Value
Back links or Do Follow links can have different value depending on where they come from. The value is based on the website that is providing the backlink. One of the most common ways to rate the benefit is through a Domain Authority. DA is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine result pages. It runs on a scale of 1 to 100. A backlink from a highly respected site like the New York Times will have more “juice” or points than from a high school newspaper.
How To Build Links
The best way to develop a successful link profile is by publishing high quality content. Then reach out to publishers of sites that are relevant to your business and see if they are interested in your material. If they are, return the favor in the near future and link back to their sites. If you sell products, ask your vendors if they will reference your content. If you know of blogs that are popular with your target audience then explore guest-blogging for those sites. While this is time-consuming to start, after you have some practice it will get easier.
How Not To Build Links
Just as important is what NOT to do. Spencer Gellman of Jane Creative warns that “Google penalizes sites that use spammy links. Don’t buy links, as Google and Bing can detect fraudulent links and the penalties are severe. Beware of “link sharing”. You may get an email from someone you don’t know offering to link to your site if you link to theirs. That can get you in hot water.” Also, be careful with low-quality directories that promise to list your site with a large number of other sites.
Links are extremely important to your SEO performance. The sure-fire way to obtain them is to make your site a reference source. Regular creation of interesting content will give publishers/people reason to backlink your site. Become a thought-leader in your field. As an authority, publishers will want to understand your thinking and share it with their audiences. When more people are exposed to your content, more quality traffic will hit your website. And after all, that is the goal of an SEO campaign, to drive quality traffic to your site.
