Mastering link building is not something that happens overnight. It takes some time to get the hang of it. However, there are some ways to learn more about it! Whether you take link building classes online, or even read through some link building articles like this one, there are good ways to learn about link building and how it works.
What is Link Building?
As a beginner in the field of SEO, you’ve probably just begun doing your research on the various factors of optimization. One of the biggest – link building. So, what is it? Directly defined, link building is the process of gaining hyperlinks from different websites, leading back to yours.
Why is Link Building Knowledge So Important?
Everyone knows, or should know, that link building is important to your optimization. In fact, you’ve probably heard several times that a good link building strategy can make or break your digital marketing success. Well, that’s as close to the truth as you can get. Knowing about link building, and developing a good linking method will make a huge difference in the success of your website.
It may be helpful to know that search engines crawl pages link-by-link, and page-by-page. They take the content of your pages, and index them. In doing that, they decide the quality of the page to determine search engine rank. One of the biggest determining factors is the number of links pointing to your page. Naturally, if your links are being shown on high-quality, reputable websites, your chances of ranking are great.
If another website is linking to your website, you can likely consider it flattering. This is almost as if another website is saying, “we trust (your website) to provide some awesome or useful products or information!”. Therefore, making your website obviously look more attractive to the consumer.
Once you know what links you’re looking for, and which high authority websites to target, link building can be pretty simple. However, a good rule of thumb to remember: not all links are good links! Not every link obtained on other websites are beneficial to you. Sometimes, links to your website can be distributed by very spammy, or poorly developed websites. Receiving links that are poor-quality could potentially hurt your ability to rank, if the search engine doesn’t find it sufficient.
Identifying Link Quality
There are essentially two different classes of links quality: the good and the bad. Identifying which is which, is the trickiest part.
Good Links
You’ve probably been told a hundred times (and will hear it a hundred times more) to obtain only good links. What makes a link a good link?
- It is relevant to the focus of your website.
- It is placed naturally within the webpage, not just randomly put.
- The site is trustworthy/has high-authority.
- The link to your site is inside the content of the following site.
Bad Links
It is probably quite obvious that bad links are exactly the opposite of a good link. You may be wondering, what does a bad link look like then? Bad links are:
- Shown on spammy websites.
- On irrelevant pages or unrelated to your topic.
- Not on trustworthy/high-authority websites.
- Placed within very low-quality content.
On top of knowing which links are which, there are also a number of tools available to you to help make this process easier. Some of our favorite are:
- SEMrush
- Majestic
- Ahrefs
- BuzzSumo
If you’re not a fan of those tools, or unsure where to start with link building, there are other options available to you. At New York SEO Training Academy, we specialize in helping identify what could be happening behind-the-scenes with your website (bad links), making it harder for you to find SEO success. If you’re in need of assistance with your link building strategy, give us a call today at (888)736-7766.
Steve Scott is the CEO & Director of Training at the New York SEO Training Academy. He has taught SEO skills to people from around the world and currently offers his hands-on search engine optimization training workshops in New York to individuals and businesses of all sizes. Corporate SEO training classes and consulting are also available.
