If you want to get into sustainable link building, there are a few things you need to understand. And the most important among them is that link-building campaigns shouldn’t have start and end dates. However, there’s a lot more to the story. The point is that since the beginning of the internet and websites as we know them today, the main currency in digital is visibility. Therefore, all efforts made by SEO specialists are always directed toward achieving the highest visibility possible. To put it simply, everyone wants to rank on page 1 of Google. And that is not a simple task. It’s safe to say that no two businesses have gotten there the same way. Therefore, there’s no definitive receipt for SEO success. However, most successful stories are conceived on link building and rely on it substantially. So, if you want to rank well, you can hardly do without it. To understand what we are on about, make sure to continue reading.
Why backlinks are so important
Although you might want to do your business without interacting with other websites, you will find that way of operating hardly possible. You see, link building is of great importance for search engines because it’s used as a metric for ranking. Even Google, which is a company that rarely shares insights into its algorithms, notes that webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality backlinks.
On the other hand, this doesn’t mean that you can get a couple of hundred low-quality links from link farm sites and call it a day. If you go down that path, websites with no outbound links will rank better than yours. That is if they have at least high-quality inbound links sorted out. All this means that you need to work towards getting a natural link profile. So, there shouldn’t be any traces of forced and unnatural backing building if you want to rank high on the SERPs.
How to build a natural link profile
According to experts, there are three different basic types of backlinks. And each of them entails a different set of tactics. These are:
- Natural Editorial Links. These are the links that come naturally from websites that find your content relevant and compelling. They don’t require a specific action that you, as an SEO specialist, should do. Besides creating the content and making it visible, that is.
- Manual Link Building. These are links that you get by requesting them. So, submitting sites to directories, guest posting, or buying backlinks. Therefore, there’s an engagement of the link target made by the SEO specialist.
- Non-Editorial Backlinks. Here, we’re talking about self-created links. Many websites allow visitors to create links through forum signatures, guest book signings, and blog comments. It goes without saying that these links offer the least value of the three. But, they still can have an impact.
As you can predict from what we just explained, there are types of backlinks that your business needs, and there are types that aren’t that desirable. If you have a sudden influx of pretty much any kind of links, search engines will suspect that SEO scheming is going on. So, ideally, you want to get links at a constant rate. And that’s why sustainable link-building is such a big deal.
How to increase your chances of getting links
We have established that the way you want to build your links is sustainable. And this means that you should use only white-hat techniques in the process. Therefore, you can mostly focus on natural editorial links and manual link building. To help you increase your chances, we put together a list of algorithm ranking factors.
Stay relevant
One of the first lessons for anyone getting into link building is to publish only relevant, valuable, and unique content. Also, make sure to never neglect grammar and spelling. Well-written content indicates that the page has quality. And that is what attracts natural editorial links. Relevance to the sites you’re getting links from is also important. For instance, if you are selling cooking appliances on your site, links coming from a website that focuses on giving fashion advice won’t be worth a lot to you.
There are also a diversity of backlink types and anchor texts. You have to be careful never to link to the same page in the same way, even when you’re writing guest blog posts. This is where working with a reputable link-building company like Link Department shows its’ value the best. SEO experts know what things are important and focus on them.
Keep an eye on numbers
The number of incoming links is essential. However, the overall scores are not the result of simply adding one link on top of another. The key ranking factor to pay attention to is the number of linking root domains. It shows how many relevant, established publishers have linked to your site. Besides that, you also should care about the number of linking pages and the number of links from separate C-class IPs.
If you’re leading the campaign by yourself, make sure to keep a healthy ratio of incoming nofollow and dofollow inbound links. This influences the metric named link velocity. Generally, you want to stay in a positive link velocity number for the best results. You can check out our recommendations for the best 5 SEO tactics to maximize internal links if you want to learn more.
Pay attention to details
And to finish off our sustainable link building insights, we’d like to turn your attention to details. If you can, try to get some links from country-specific top-level domains. Otherwise known as TLDs, these can boost your rankings in a specific country if you need that. Another trick is to get a link from Wikipedia. Although this is a somewhat controversial idea, experts assure us that it’s not that far-fetched. It’s established that long-lasting wiki links are a sign that you’re on the right track.
Some problems you should know about
Now, there are a few issues that make link-building extremely risky, and we would like to talk about some challenges before providing you with some potential remedies that can make your link-building a bit less risky. Several issues that you should avoid just as much as black hat tactics include:
- Content-driven link-building can be very risky – The challenge of content-driven link-building is the uncertainty of whether or not your content will be successful. It’s quite uncertain whether or not you’ll obtain any links by using this route.
- A good idea may not be a great content idea – It’s not the same thing to have a wonderful content idea and have a content idea that will generate links. It is crucial that you understand the distinction. We’ll spend some time discussing potential solutions to this problem and if you check out our blog you will find plenty about this problem there.
- It takes time and money – It is time-consuming to create content, especially graphic material, and to undertake design and development. Independent contractors are acceptable. Developers and designers are needed. This requires a substantial financial and time commitment. Investing effort and money into a marketing strategy should only be done if there is reasonable certainty that it will yield positive results.
- Starts and stops – You conduct a link-building effort, abandon it, and launch a new one. This is a big no-no. We would like to dismiss the thought altogether and propose that you think of link building as an ongoing process, rather than a campaign that you launch, run for a set period of time, and then forget about.
We also know some solutions!
Buying links is not the only option! The issues listed above represent some of the challenges we face while attempting to develop links through content. Worry not, we will discuss several strategies for mitigating the potential downsides of content-driven link-building and boosting the success of your link-building strategy.
You should not tie your content to any specific date or event
The first is that it is simple to create material that coincides with specific dates or events. Connecting your content to a specific event is an excellent strategy to use if there are significant happenings in your client’s business, such as current festivals. However, this can backfire if you produce material with an expiration date and it fails to gain traction before that period passes.
Keep an eye out for data sets that provide many opportunities for outreach
Second, there is plenty of content inspiration to be found in statistics. Thus, you can obtain a dataset and generate content ideas from it, as well as viewpoints and tales to tell. Now, this may be very perilous, since you never know if data will provide you with a narrative or an angle unless you dive into it.
Can you, for instance, use different data points to target local newspapers and magazines in different parts of the United States or the United Kingdom with the same pitch for content? Another case in point: are diverse demographics possible targets? Can you specifically reach women, men, children, and seniors? Is it possible to segment the data in a variety of ways, targeting specific groups with several versions of the content?
Link-worthy content is the best way to work on your sustainable link building
Third, we would like to tell you about something that’s now helping us a great deal and that you should try if you haven’t already. That’s why it’s important to view link-building as an ongoing process rather than an event. One must stock one’s own or one’s client’s website with information worthy of links. Make an effort to compile material deserving of links, rather than having content as a stand-alone item. You may repeatedly reach out to people with that. In our minds, the content creation process looks like this. You are the one who initiates the creative process. First, you design it, then you spread the word, and finally, you’re done. In actuality, you need to start anew and execute this process numerous times for the same content.
Find your ideal content formats
Not all content formats work the same for everybody. For example, blogs are good for some, and a total bust for others. At first, it will be trial and error but you will soon find what works best for your business, and once you do that it will be easy to keep working on a content format that is proven to work best for your business. Obviously, finding it will take some time (and energy) and maybe you don’t have that.
In that case, you should outsource this part of your business. If you let experts handle it you will be able to focus on other parts of your business and that is always a good thing. Just know that once you hire people to handle your SEO it takes some time to see results but they are inevitable.
Before we go our separate ways
Our little talk about sustainable link building is coming to an end. But worry not. We left you some great reading material here in the text so you can keep researching. One thing we have to say once again before we go is – link building efforts should not have a beginning and ending date. They should be continual, continuing to gain you links throughout time. This is the most important piece of advice we have for you. Now you can continue on your own. We showed you how you can increase your chances of getting links, some common problems, and solutions! Now it’s up to you! Good luck!