Building links is the process of getting other websites to link directly to your website. This facet of search engine optimization should be of interest to digital marketers because having a higher number of links drives referral traffic, as well as increases a website’s authority.
Additionally, because Google’s algorithm is complex and constantly evolving, backlinks remain an important factor in how a search engine chooses what site ranks for which keywords. Building links is a great way to increase the rank of your site because the more backlinks your website receives, the more it is viewed as a reliable source by a search engine. It’s because of this that sites with more backlinks often gain a higher ranking.
Link Building for SEO
Once a search engine has crawled a page, they can view the content of that page and add it to their index. By doing this, they are able to decide whether they feel a page is good enough to rank well for relevant keywords. When search engines make this decision, they don’t just look at the content of the page, they also take a look at the number of links referring to that page from an outside website, as well as the quality of that external website. The higher authority websites that link to you, the more likely you are to rank higher in search results.
Nofollow vs Dofollow Links
To the typical user, it is nearly impossible to tell the difference between these two types of links. However, for an SEO manager, there is a huge difference between nofollow and dofollow links. Simply put, dofollow links help your search engine rankings and nofollow links don’t.
To tell the difference between them you’ll have to look at a link html. If the html contains the code snippet ‘rel’ then they are a nofollow link, if it does not contain that snippet then it is a dofollow. When it comes to their use in SEO, nofollow links are typically links that aren’t citable. For example, websites that contain nofollow links are Quora, Youtube, Twitter, Reddit, etc. These websites are all considered open source sites so they don’t retain a high level of reliability.
How Can Link Building Benefit You?
Link building often involves outreach and building a relationship with other companies in your industry. Typically this sort of outreach is related to the promotion of something you’ve just created, such as a guest blog or an infographic. A common goal of outreach is to gain a dofollow link from someone else’s site. However, outreach can do more by helping you build long-term relationships with major players in your industry. The process of outreach can be widely beneficial because you are creating genuine advocates for your business in the process.
Strong link building can also build your brand and establish you as a reliable source in your industry. Link building techniques such as content creation showcases the expertise of your company. For example, if you wrote a blog centered around industry data and published it, you have a chance of being linked to as a citation. The more times your website becomes a link on another website, your authority increases as well as your ranking on search engines.
The Main Takeaway
Link building is key to conducting a successful SEO campaign. There are no shortcuts when it comes to gaining quality links to your website. You’ll need to find out how your website adds value to the internet and capitalize on the opportunities that arise within your website’s niche. The more your site is viewed as a reliable source, the more likely it is to gain dofollow links from other sites in the same industry. By producing strong content your site will quickly improve rank as well as authority.
–Written by Jonah Ericksen