Company owners often have a seemingly never ending list of things that need their attention and that they need to learn in order to grow their business and keep things running smoothly as they scale up, and time and time again marketing skills are something that every business owner finds themselves reading up on.
Within the area of marketing, SEO is one thing that (given enough time) every business owner will come across, and link building is perhaps the most dominant part of a successful SEO strategy. So, in this article we will explore what both are.
SEO
Let us start by first defining what SEO even is: the process of optimising a website to rank highly for its target keywords.
SEO strategies help websites be positioned higher up the search engine results page (SERP). Since most searches are currently made on Google, SEO tends to focus on improving a website’s ranking within Google’s search results.
Why does SEO matter?
Well, if the above doesn’t make it clear already, SEO is important for businesses since it is a way for them to get in front of targeted searchers who have the potential to turn into new customers.
For this reason, website owners and SEOs look to leverage a wide range of techniques and strategies to drive SEO growth. These techniques and strategies tend to focus on one of three key areas (or a mix of all three!):
Technical SEO – How search engines (and users) crawl and index a website
On-Site SEO – How optimised a website is for specific keywords and search terms
Off-Site SEO – How popular and recommended a website is, and how this may influence where that website ranks in the search results
In short, while much of a company’s marketing activity will be focused on paid advertising efforts, at some point every business looks towards organic channels like SEO to scale their brand and acquire new customers. This is why SEO (and link building as a result) is a skill that any serious business owner must master.
Link Building
Link building is when someone looking to improve their website’s SEO performance builds or acquires backlinks from other websites to drive their SEO growth.
A link (or backlink) is simply a hyperlink from one website to another, and a few different kinds of link exist which we will offer details on later in this article.
Search engines like Google have long looked at the other websites linking to a given domain to help determine where it should rank in their search results. In fact, incorporating backlinks into their algorithms was one of the key things that Google did to gain a lead within the search engine market.
There are many different ways that an SEO or website owner can build links, some better than others. Nonetheless, links remain one of the most important signals looked at when determining where a given website should rank, so it too is a skill that every business owner should learn.
The Different Kinds of Backlinks
When it comes to backlinks, not everyone is created equal. In fact, multiple kinds of backlinks exist which carry different information and ranking impact. Let us explore the different kinds of links that exist below:
NoFollow backlinks – A nofollow backlink is where the linking site has highlighted to Google that they don’t want the link to carry any weight or authority, although Google has said they may still use such links in their algorithms
Follow backlinks – Follow backlinks are what most SEOs are looking for, they send maximum ranking authority/signals
Brand/URL mentions – Within link building you will also come across unlinked brand mentions, which reference a specific brand or web page without linking to them
Find below a few examples of each link type in the same order as above:
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How Do I Get Links For My Website?
There are a huge number of ways that you can build links, and the right method for you will depend on your goals and available budget.
For example, if you are a more established brand then you may find that public relations results in a wide range of links pointing to your website. If you aren’t a major brand though, you may opt to invest in strategies like digital PR and/or guest posting to earn links. Let’s look at these methods below:
Traditional PR – You may find as a result of your general marketing and PR efforts that other websites end up linking to you whilst talking about your business
Digital PR – Unlike traditional PR, digital PR is not quite so brand focused. Instead digital PR activity focuses on sending press releases to earn new backlinks for your site from high authority publications
Guest Posting – When you need guaranteed links fast, you may consider reaching out to and negotiating with blogs and magazines in your industry to acquire new backlinks
A ton of other link building methods exist, although in all honesty many of these are not worth the risks involved in building those links or the budget needed for the impact those links offer.
As someone new to SEO, your best bet is to focus on one of the link building methods above (or a mix of them).
Conclusion
So, now that you know a bit more about what SEO and link building is, you can go and build some new authority links to your website. Enjoy the learning process and best of luck with your SEO campaign!
