Everything I think you'll be interested in knowing about link building
When we talk about?Link Building, we refer to one of the most popular?off-page SEO?marketing strategies. It is very likely that you have heard about Link Building in?content strategies, SEO, and digital reputation.
It would also not be strange if the concept confused you a bit. (I'm the first to admit that Link Building can be difficult to understand.) But this is the good news: I'll try to make it very easy and practical for you.?
A Simple Definition of Link Building
In a nutshell,?Link Building is a technique that allows us to get relevant links that point to a website. As a result, quality links drive traffic to your site and make it easier for search engines to find and rank you.
In addition, they help build a relationship between authority sites, reinforcing the relevance of their content and the trust users have in them.
It is essential to practice?Link Building ethically?and through approved methods for obtaining links, avoiding certain frequent methodologies that have no value and can be penalized by Google.
Some of them are, for example, the generation of their own sites to increase the number of links or the systematized purchase in marketplaces.
?And… What Is a “Link Building Campaign”?
Purchasing a random link is not Link Building. For the technique to be effective and all its benefits to impact a website, it is necessary to design a Link Building campaign and follow all of the required stages:
1. Backlink audit
Backlinks?are all the links pointing to a site today. The first step of a Link Building campaign is to perform a deep audit of the site's backlink status, using specialized tools. Some factors to review are:
How many, where are they coming from, and what type of traffic or authority are they driving to the site are some of the questions that you should?
In this process, you can be surprised and discover that, for example, we have?toxic backlinks?pointing to our domain from poor quality sites or penalized content.
The audit detects a series of useful findings to determine the action plan and calculate evolutionary progress.
2. Goals
We will set specific and measurable objectives depending on the backlinks status, the available budget, and the KPIs?we seek to improve.
Link Building, like most SEO strategies, is a technique which results will have impact in the medium to long term.
In the meantime, we will work to strengthen the domain’s authority (selected main KPI, in addition to organic traffic.)
3. Keyword strategy
Keywords?are the connectors between the links and the website's content.
Within a Link Building campaign it is necessary to design a specific map of keywords, which will help implement the content strategy and?anchor texts?(texts on which you place the actual links.)
4. Media map
Based on the three previous steps (backlinks, goals, and keywords) we will have to create a media map.
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This is one of the most delicate stages of the Link Building campaign since, in general, there are many agencies or sellers of fake or own links.
The ideal is to contemplate sites of great authority, with positioned brands and relevant content for the niche of users who perform searches through our keywords.
Another important aspect is the?TLD of the domain. If our Link Building campaign is running in a specific country, it is recommended to use a regional TLD (for example, “.uk” or “.us”).
Depending on the analytical tool that we use, we will find different indicators of quality and authority of a site. For example,??'Authority Score'?or?“Domain Trust”.
Finally, it is important to note that when we talk about 'media map' we are not only referring to websites.?We can also link to social media accounts, podcasts, and many other platforms that allow linking.
5. Content generation
A Link Building campaign is useless without quality content to back it up.
Depending on the selected keywords, it is possible to create a calendar of publications that add value on the different topics that are related to the site. This technique is called?“topic clusters“.
The content is published in the chosen media and includes a?“dofollow” link. This means that they convey the authority of the linked page in the anchor text.
In turn, the anchor text should look natural and organic, not contain a branded keyword, and avoid generic wording.?Let's see an example of correct and incorrect uses of anchor text:?
Incorrect use:
“To discover all the fashion shoes that will set the trend for the next spring season,?click here”.
Correct use:
“This coming spring season is expected to see a revival of many?fashion shoes?that were all the rage in the '90s.“
Some Link Building strategies may suggest a combination of links with?“no-follow“ tags to?make them look more organic and natural, and ultimately optimize your content for Google bots to the max.?
In any case, the most important thing when creating content for a Link Building campaign is to?add value and respect the relevance between a site and the linked one.
6. Control
Although all SEO techniques require monitoring and control, a Link Building campaign implies a constant check-up of the state of the links and the content.
It is important to remember that, to some extent, we depend on other sites and what happens to them.
That a site removes content, loses a link, or modifies its condition are frequent problems that we can find and for which we must draw a quick solution.
A Brief Review of a Link Building Campaign Advantages?
Now that we are on the same page about?the stages of a Link Building campaign, from the backlinks audit to the goals, keywords, media map and content, it’s time to review what is the point of running it:?
I hope this article has clarified more than confused you and that the next time someone talks to you about Link Building you feel more empowered than yesterday. Until next time!