If you are working to improve the visibility of your website, link building tactics are something you should consider including in your online marketing arsenal. After all, these strategies always go hand in hand with other marketing activities. Amit Singhal of Google also pointed out in an interview at SMX West 2014 that links are still valuable as they send a signal to search engine algorithms about the importance of your content.
However, getting other websites to link to yours to hike its search engine ranking is no easy feat. While submitting your site to directories and article links may have worked pretty well in the past, they are not effective anymore. Building networks for the sole purpose of beefing up links to your site can send a bad impression to Google. And if you continue doing this, you are putting your website at risk of getting penalized or taken out.
What is Link Building?
Basically, link building is the process of obtaining hyperlinks from other websites to your own. A hyperlink is one way for users to navigate between pages on the internet. As for search engines, it uses links to crawl the web. They will crawl the links between entire websites.
There are many techniques for link building, and it varies on the level of difficulties. According to SEO experts, link building is one of the hardest parts of their job. A lot of SEOs spend a huge amount of their time performing link building and doing it well.
Why is Link Building Tactics Important for SEO?
Link building plays a major role in how Google ranks web pages. Google says that you are more likely to have your content rank higher for keywords you are targeting if you can get other websites to link to your pages.
More so, there are several strategies you can make use of to get other sites to link to you:
- Reviews & Mentions. Seek the help of influencers and other big names in social media. Make your brand known via their mentions or reviews. You can seek help from social media influencers like YouTubers, Instagrammers, etc.
- Content Creation & Promotion. You may do so by creating quality, unique, and engaging content that people would want to naturally link to and would also share with other people. Take note that you need to actually spread the word before expecting others to find your piece and link to it.
- Links from Affiliates & Friends. You may ask other people or your friends to link to your site. Especially people in the industry with the same niche as your type of brand, this will add more value to your brand than making use of links from random, unrelated sites.
Of course, that is the last thing you would want to happen. So how do you go about link building to improve search visibility? Here are a couple of link building tactics you might want to consider doing.
1. Re-purpose Old Successful Content
Chances are, you have a handful of content available on your site that may have been successful at attracting visitors, links and social shares. Rather than letting them go stale, consider repurposing them. You may update the content with new information or find a different angle that will help spice it up. You may also transform the content into infographic, Ebook, slides, video, etc. Doing these things will make an otherwise old piece look more interesting to a wider audience, which in turn will encourage visitors to link back to your site.
2. Go with Ego Baiting
Ego baiting is all about having influencers link to or promote your site or content. This tactic accomplishes two important things: it gets your site or content more exposure and it allows you to be acknowledged by influencers, which over the long term can aid in your marketing efforts.
So how do you get influencers involved? A classic strategy is to write something about your niche or industry and look at known people who can share their opinions about your topic. You may also interview with industry influencers to support your story. The final output would be much like a team effort of industry experts.
3. Provide Solutions by Answering Queries Online
To establish your website as an important resource, you need to know the issues that your customers usually face. There is a strong chance that the customers of your business voice out their concerns about the industry you are in or the products or services you provide online. As such, it makes sense to know where they hang out (example: forums, blogs, social networking sites) and help them out by providing honest answers to their questions.
Take note that results for this effort will not be instant, as this is all about establishing your expertise. Once you are known and become an authority on those platforms, people will more likely recognize you and start linking to your site.
These are just three of the many tactics you may include when you plan for your link building campaign. However, if you want to earn quality links to your site, there is no better way to do so than by knowing your audience. This will enable you to figure out ways how to make your site relevant and also produce content that appeals to them and solve their problems. Once you can deliver what they want, everything else will follow and they will likely promote your site and your content through social media and other online channels at their own accord.
Outsource to PrimeOutsourcing
Link building is no easy work. So if you do not have the time to handle the task or perhaps you have no idea where to get started, then outsourcing it might be a good option. Prime Outsourcing can handle the link building campaign of your company. Consider giving it a try today and rest assured that your site will rank higher on search engines. Talk to us and we are sure to answer all your questions! You may also read through our FAQs to know more about us.
