Link Building Basics
Inbound links were the first major off-page ranking factor used by search engines in determining a website’s popularity and relevance.
Today, links remain the most important external signal for search rankings.
As an SEO, link building is the most critical and challenging part of your role in ranking websites. In order to be successful, you need to be creative, spend time and money. There is no “right” way to approach link building and no two campaigns are identical – it depends on you, your style, and the website niche.
The Three Types of Links
The days of spamming for backlinks are over. The search engines want a varied and diverse link footprint. Link building patterns that appear unnatural or manipulated will eventually be found by search engine algorithms and discredited or penalize your website.
1. “Natural” Editorial Links
These are natural or organic links given by other websites that link to your website. By creating great content and marketing it – other websites will find it and create the links themselves. The SEO has no specific role in this type of link.
2. Manual “Outreach” Link Building
These links are created by directory submissions, paid linking, or by contacting a webmaster and requesting a link on their website. Either by completing online forms for the submission, locating and arranging paid link resources, or by identifying and contacting webmasters – the SEO does it all.
3. Self-Created / Non-Editorial Links
These links refer to guest books, forum signatures, blog commenting, and user profile links. These links are typically a “lower value” link, but can still have an impact on rankings. If over used, the website’s linking profile can appear spammy and there might be penalties which would affect ranking.
Campaign Goal Setting
As with any marketing activity, creating a plan of action with a time schedule is the most efficient method. By creating the campaign elements before you begin (identifying link target acquisitions, developing the content necessary for linking, and identifying which pages you are building links for), you have the best chance for success.
Measuring your progress is one of the hardest aspects of a link building campaign. Typically, you have to wait for search engines to crawl the web page where your link is placed and then wait for the search engines to consider that link in your linking profile. Sometimes there is a very long wait for the link to be indexed.
Identifying Link Targets
Search engines consider link profiles as one of the most external signals in determining website ranking. Each site is weighed and analyzed with mathematical metrics to compute trust and authority. But with all of the algorithm changes at Google, how do you know which link partners are good?
Link Target Metrics
When searching for link targets, knowing “who” you’re getting a link from can be just as important as getting the link. Here are some metrics to check:
- Precise anchor text links – Do they look spammy and unnatural?
- Site wide links – The same link in the footer or sidebar that are site wide.
- The quantity of outbound links – Fewer outbound links are more important than spammy web pages with 100’s of outbound links.
- Links from suspect country code TLD’s (like Russia or Brazil).
- Links that return 40x and 50x server errors.
- Poor link metrics – Like domain and page authority.
- Web pages that offer “follow” links. Anchor text links created without rel=”nofollow” offer more “link juice” that links with the relation.
Although SEO’s don’t have access to web page data directly from the search engines, there are a number of tools SEO’s can use to identify link targets.
READ: Despite updates by Google, links are still the fuel that drives Google’s algorithm, so building and maintaining a strong, clean link profile is central to the SEO’s job description. In his article, How To Spot A Bad Backlink, David Moth summaries the Brighton SEO conference “Manual Link Building” talk delivered by Paul Madden (former link spammer).
READ: If you’re lost on where to start link building, here’s an excellent post by Garrett French (Search Engine Land) that offers plenty of ideas. Follow as Garrett questions 30 experts on link building campaign design: 30 Link Builders Discuss Backlink Analysis for Campaign Design: Part 1.
READ: In part 2, Garrett French (Search Engine Land) continues his group interview series and asks his panel the more technical aspects of analysis, and what elements that link building experts look at to gauge the overall strength of a backlink profile. Follow as Garrett questions 30 experts on the technical considerations of link building: 71 Technical Factors for Backlinks: Part 2.
READ: In the 3rd and final installment of his link building series, Garrett French (Search Engine Land) looks at ways that the experts apply backlink analysis beyond link building campaigns, and wrap up with questions the experts suggested and then answered. Follow as Garrett questions his 30 experts on: Backlink Analysis: 20 Uses Beyond Link Building: Part 3.
READ: Still confused on identifying link targets? This article, Making Strategic Decisions About Difficult-To-Get Backlinks, by Paul Shapiro posted on Search Engine Land offers a methodology to help evaluate the sites you should be getting links from and “how to” strategically choose prospects based on acquisition difficulty and link authority.
Relevant Search Terms
Using the search engines to determine the value of your keywords and identify possible link targets. Your search query will not only return which websites are ranking for your terms, you will discover possible link targets. Links from these topic specific websites would make ideal inbound links.
Competition
By examining your competition, you are able to reverse engineer their linking pattern and find possible link targets. These sites are already ranking for your chosen keyword so any intelligence you can gather from them will be beneficial. There are several tools available to help SEO’s discover links.
- Backlinkwatch.com – This popular free tool will help you find the backlinks of a website or blog. The website also offers information about the quality of the links and visitor stats.
- Majestic.com – This free/paid service provides valuable diagnostic reporting on website backlink profiles. The database index is updated daily, is easy to use, and there are also tool kits available to help you do more from its backlink checker service. You will need the paid version to access all of the data available.
- ahrefs.com – This paid service offers one of the largest databases of backlinks available. ahrefs data offers new and internal links, anchors, best pages and linking domains of a website. It is also capable of checking ranking and competition on keywords that you use on your site.
- Open Site Explorer – Created by Moz.com, OSE is one of the favorite free/paid backlink checker tools available. The free version allows 3 searches a day while the paid version allows unlimited searches. The premium version also provides additional features and diagnostic tools that will help you monitor your competitor’s website and other useful tools that you can use for your SEO strategy.
Other Potential Link Sources
Build links for your audience – not the search engines. By finding links aligned with your audience, you will increase your chances for click through traffic from targeted visitors. These types of direct click-through links will drive website metrics which will provide better search engine value for ranking.
Incorporate website analytics into your link building to see where you are receiving the highest influx of visitors. By identifying which sites are providing the biggest traffic gain, you can adjust your campaign and focus on creating more links from sites like those.
READ: According to Matt Cutts, “Backlinks, even though there’s some noise and certainly a lot of spam, for the most part are still a really, really big win in terms of quality for search results” – 2/19/14. As the former head of Google Webspam team, that statement says a lot about the importance of back linking. Link building is one area of SEO that has changed significantly over the last several years and for that reason, it has never been more important for marketers to truly understand the “how to” build backlinks. This guide, Beginner’s Guide to Link Building, created by Moz is an excellent starting guide to learn effective link building techniques.
Other Considerations
Before you begin your campaign, determine the number of backlinks necessary to competitively rank your web page. There is no sense in planning on creating 1,000’s of links when your strongest competitor has 10.
Another consideration is the speed with which you build backlinks. Backlink velocity is a metric that search engines use to determine if links are unnatural or manipulated.
READ: Google’s analysis of link building and over-optimization can result in website penalties. Modestos Siotos offers his view published in Moz Blog: How to Survive Google’s Unnatural Links Warnings & Avoid Over-optimization.
The “Real” State of the Industry
As you seek more knowledge about SEO and link building techniques, be aware that everyone (white, black and grey) are all fighting the same fight against the search engines (Google). There are far too many “opinions” floating around the internet passed off as fact when no one really knows for sure what’s “what.” By blindly following opinions, many beginners and even intermediate SEOs end up traveling down the wrong path.
In SearchEngineLand’s “State of Link Building” survey, marketers share their tactics for link building and how they are coping with changes in the the industry.
Five takeaways from the 2016 Link Building Survey:
- Many SEOs bundle link building, and integration seems to be increasing.
- Link building is done mostly in small teams.
- Time spent building links is greater than the typical budget for link acquisition.
- Content-based link building is the most popular tactic, and viewed as the most efficient.
- Most respondents still identify with the term link building.
The data from the 2016 link building survey was generated from a survey of 435 respondents. Of those 435 respondents, 180 were agency, 118 in-house SEO, 51 consultants and freelancers, 41 business owners, 39 in-house content marketers, and 6 in-house PR.