The truth is, there are three important elements you should focus on when trying to improve your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation): content, user experience, and links. And, building links is usually the most challenging one because you don’t really have full control. But, Your Digital Solution (YDS) is glad to help and provide you with a basic guide on how to get started building links for SEO. Here’s everything you need to know about link building:
What is ‘Building Links’ Exactly?
Briefly put, link building is the process of growing the number of links from other websites to yours. But, why are they important for SEO?
Namely, Google uses links as criteria to evaluate the quality and reliability of a page. In other words, your page will have a better SEO if other relevant and reputable websites link to it. And, as a result, your site’s domain authority in search engines will improve drastically. Domain Authority (DA) is a score your site will get from 1 – 100 showing how well your site will rank in SERPs. So, the more links you get to your site, the higher your domain authority and therefore, the higher you rank.
How to Build Links?
Now that you know how important building links is, let’s dig deeper and find out how to build links using some simple methods:
- Link Gap Analysis
Link gap analysis, also known as a competitor backlink analysis, is the first method for building links and it is very common and popular. For applying this method, you should just look at your competitors’ links and find the ones you don’t have.
- Email Outreach
The second method to help you get started with link building, and just as important as the first method, is email outreach. You simply have to master this skill if you want to build links for SEO.
Also, bear in mind that Google doesn’t want you to pay other websites to link to yours. You have to earn those links. Therefore, in order to get other sites to link to yours, you need to tell them about you. Here’s how you can do that:
- Try to make a genuine connection
Making a genuine connection is a successful method since people are generally more willing to help if they know you. Hence, try to build a genuine relationship, for example on social media, before asking them to link to your site.
- Offer something of value
Asking people you don’t know for a favour can be a bit tricky. In today’s society, everyone expects something in return. So, offer them something of value, for example, a guest post, and explain how they will benefit from linking to your site.
- Make your content worth linking to
You cannot expect people to link back to your website just because you’ve asked them. The truth is, you have to be someone people would want to link to. And, more importantly, your content should be valuable enough to link to.
I know link building sounds a bit difficult and challenging, but the benefits are enourmous. It is definitely worth it!
