SEO or search engine optimization has been an exceptionally fascinating and often an equivocal subject, owing to its execution through numerous strategies. Every new strategy revolving around the new SEO trends has been a part of some misconception. Speaking of which, the most contentious SEO subject, as many SEO professionals have agreed to, is link building.
Link building is one of the most vital elements of an SEO campaign, where you can build your domain authority by placing or achieving links directed to your website. It was the core element of a typical SEO campaign until the recent changes in Google’s search algorithm, which gave rise to many unanswered questions particularly about link building.
Here is a compiled list of the most frequently asked queries on SEO and link building along with the solutions provided by the top-rated SEO professionals.
What is the importance of link building?
First and foremost, you might be thinking that when every webmaster knows about the fact that a wrong link building campaign or even a single inbound link that turn out be spammy can cause their site suffering a heavy penalty from Google; then why everyone is so dedicated towards link building in the first place? The answer is very simple. Links can be called as the votes of confidence or the assets that the major search engines take into consideration while examining your site’s authority and trustworthiness.
Even today, links are one of the most powerful ranking factors that determine the position of a website in the search engine result pages (SERPs). The more inbound links you receive, as well as, the more credible the sources are from where the link has been generated, the more influential your site will be in the eyes of Google. As a result, with authoritative links, you can easily have better rankings for your website in the search engine rankings. Moreover, you already know higher rankings on the web can do wonders to your organic search traffic.
Will it be sufficient to have only natural inbound links?
This is one of the most commonly asked questions, as often webmasters think that they can do more than just letting links coming back to their site in a usual manner. The SEO experts recommend creating the highest-quality content you can and allowing the incoming of links to your site as genuinely as possible. This can work if your content is one-of-a-kind and you have the patience to wait for the inbound links to surface on your site. However, it is quicker, as well as, comparatively more efficient when you decide to create some links on your own. It is also more ethical and makes sense to work on developing links along with receiving them from other domains side by side. This becomes of utmost importance when you are operating your business in an industry with stiff competition, and your peers are investing heavily in their link building campaigns while you are simply waiting for the inbound links to come, it is going to be really hard to overrun them in the search rankings.
Why can’t you simply post links arbitrarily?
While it is not advisable to simply have a passive approach to receiving inbound links, it does not mean that you have to post links directing to your site in an unsystematic way. If you start posting links to wherever you feel like, including blog comment section and external forums, your website will become susceptible to many issues. Your links will possibly be reported and removed by the editors of those sites and your user accounts will receive a ban for posting spammy links. Also, your website can be highly penalized for employing unethical SEO techniques on the web.
How can you define the value of a link?
Not every link pointed to your site offers the same impact, so it can be sometimes hard to determine that which ones are the most effective to earn. Generally speaking, the more trustworthy the site linking to your domain, the more valuable the link will be for your website’s domain. Links from authoritative sites will help in improving your website’s rankings. It is imperative to consider the influence and popularity of a website before creating your link building strategies.
Does anchor text still hold any importance?
Anchor text refers to the clickable portion of the text that incorporates the link. Before the announcement of Google’s Penguin algorithm, the advantage of anchor texts was heavily leveraged by SEO professionals who integrated links in certain keyword-rich anchor text. Nowadays, this practice of using anchor text for manipulating links can get you a serious warning from Google. Although this does not imply that you have to completely eliminate the usage of anchor texts in your link building campaign. You can still benefit from providing your links with relevant and useful anchor texts.
What are consequences of developing a spammy link?
If you build a bad, absolutely unnatural or clearly irrelevant link, you might see that the site’s editor has removed it. In case the editor avoids or does not remove it, there will be hardly any negative impact on your site or rankings. However, if you place numerous bad links to your site, your website will be declared “poor” due to the presence of spammy links and you will be penalized or might be prohibited from appearing in the search engine results.
What are the best strategies to build quality links?
Although there are a lot of ways to build incredibly good links, it all narrows down to two main considerations:
- Posting top-notch and relevant content.
- The need for an effective content marketing strategy.
When you build links to your website’s content, it will not be fruitful unless you have a great publication and promotional campaign to support it. You have to either become a publication expert in your own niche or you have to identify the best publishers who can publish a reference of your content on their site.
Conclusion
Finally, these are the most sought-after questions on link building that can be found on the Internet. Hopefully, the answers will enlighten you with a better understanding of a good link building campaign, and how it can boost your ongoing SEO.
