While producing content widens the net of total keywords you can rank for, link building accelerates the ranking for those keywords. The benefits of link building are compounding and can snowball quickly depending on your niche.
Link building is essential to a successful fast-paced SEO strategy, and it’s only becoming more important. According to Ahrefs, 90% of web pages receive zero traffic because of having no links. Link building is also one of the best ways to capture more search real estate.
But what exactly is link building? How does it work? And why should you be investing time into developing a robust link building strategy for your website? This article will answer all these questions and more by exploring the benefits of link building. By understanding the importance of link building and taking advantage of its many benefits, you can get ahead of your competitors.
Difference Between Black Hat, Gray Hat, and White Hat Link Building
There are three major link building techniques: White Hat, Black Hat, and Grey Hat.
White hat link building involves creating content that naturally attracts links, such as blog posts and infographics. It also involves link building outreach to relevant websites, which could include creating guest posts, creating content in exchange for links, and more.
White hat link building is the safest way to build links as it follows best practices and Google’s guidelines.
Black hat link building is the riskiest of all three approaches, involving tactics against Google’s guidelines. This could include using automated link building software, buying links, and creating link farms. These techniques may produce short-term results, but they can also get you into serious trouble with search engines and may lead to your website being punished or even banned.
Gray hat link building is a more risky approach and lies somewhere between white hat and black hat tactics. Gray hat link building can involve private blog networks (PBNs) and providing links in exchange for payment. While these tactics may produce results quickly, they can be dangerous, leading to manual penalties from search engines.
How Link Building Works
Link building is the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your own. When constructing a link building strategy, focusing on quality over quantity is of the utmost importance. Search engines value links from authoritative and trusted websites over those with low trust and topical authority. Links should come from websites that are relevant to your own for them to be effective and needle-moving.
To ensure link building is done correctly, creating high-quality content that other websites will want to link to is important. Your anchor text (the text you place the link on) should be descriptive and informative to alert readers where the link is going. They should be relevant to the page and make sense to visitors.
6 Benefits of Link Building
Here are six benefits of investing in a link building strategy for your website.
Improving Search Rankings
The higher the number of quality inbound links to your website, the more likely your website will appear higher on search results pages. Search engine algorithms use links to determine the relevance and quality of your website, increasing its chances of appearing at the top of search results.
Building Credibility and Authority in the Industry
Links from other authoritative websites in your industry can establish you as an expert and build credibility. This trustworthiness will be beneficial when potential customers come across your website.
Creating Opportunities for Networking
By creating relationships with websites that link to yours, you are fostering networking opportunities. You can collaborate on content and share content to drive more traffic.
Networking with professionals in your industry can open up valuable opportunities to learn best practices, find mentors, and build relationships that can help further your career.
Expanding Reach and Increasing Referral Traffic
When you are featured on an authoritative website, the readers of that site can be exposed to your website and content. This helps increase brand recognition and referral traffic, leading to more leads and sales.
Improving Overall ROI from Marketing Efforts
Since link building is one of the most cost-effective digital marketing strategies, it can help you maximize your return on investment (ROI). By investing in link building, you can gain more leads, website traffic, and sales at a lower cost than most other digital marketing methods.
Key Takeaways
Link building effectively improves your website’s visibility and rankings on search engine results pages. You can build a successful link building strategy by creating high-quality links, reaching out to web admins for backlinks, and looking for opportunities to get featured on other websites.
With a robust link building strategy, you can:
- Boost search engine ranking by acquiring relevant inbound links
- Establish yourself as an authority in your industry through link building
- Expand reach and referral traffic to drive more leads/sales
- Maximize ROI from marketing efforts at a lower cost than other strategies
