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5 Essential Insights into Sustainable Link Building

  • Felix Rose-Collins
  • 7 min read

Intro

Visibility is the key for online search engine business. To get a better rank through SEO, getting more visible is the essential factor. To get better business from online marketing, everyone aims their websites to pop up in the first few listings of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) SEO specialists work on promoting their employer's websites and their client's websites to be on top of the listings when a relevant search is made. However, there is no magic formula that would get desired results on the search engine. We can never assure that something that worked for one website will work in a similar fashion for some other website.

The most common trend to improvise the visibility for any website is by having valid link building. There are a few basic steps in link building that would help in better ranking of the website. The first step that anyone would take to start promoting their product/service by a website is by creating good, engaging content that will include researching on the competitors and find out which keywords would be relevant to the website. A top listing on the SERP is expected and one would work on that. A good website makes a number of links naturally. Additionally, link building and SEO based content and a social media presence will eventually help the website to gain more visibility

In online business, it is important to interact with other websites to get good quality backlinks that are essential to rank the website better. Google works in a way that makes sure that any website with a number of links from a high-quality site would be preferred than the other websites. Websites that are rich in high-quality backlinks are usually not rated any lesser when Google changes its algorithm to a new search model. However, if black hat tactics were used, it might affect the website as Google would consider those backlinks unnatural. It is always better to choose legitimate ways to rank the website when the results are expected on the long run. If one is in business for a short duration, they might involve in cheap black hat tactics to generate a lot of backlinks that might devalue the website when the long run is considered. Furthermore, Google would penalise websites that consider the black hat tactics every time there is a change in the algorithm of how Google works. No one can detect the changes or new advancements in the mechanism of Google.

Link building is an essential way to get more visibility to the website. More ways are targeted to the organic or natural link building that would basically lift the web site in terms of better ranking from Google. Basically, there are three types of link building. They include:

These are the organic links that result from attention grabbing valid content on the website. An analyst who works on SEO might just give his attention here if the content is not engaging.

These include any links that are obtained by requesting. Guest posts, paying for listings or even directories submission would fall in this category. It is usually targeted by an analyst who deals with SEO to help the website to rank better. Better visibility is the aim to good manual link building. It is also called as outreach linking mechanism.

These links have very low value, yet would amount to the visibility of the website on a larger picture. They include guest book signing, blog comments, user profiles, or forum signatures.
A huge number of non-editorial backlinks are usually a sign of black hat SEO tactics applied on the website. It could involve blog network link building. Especially if there is a sudden increase in the number of backlinks from the same server, it might lead to Google Penguin penalties. Usually, black hat practices are aimed at quicker results to rank the website better and it might affect the website on a longer run. It is best to keep off from black hat tactics if you are aiming at being safe from the prying eyes of Google.

Legit ways to link building involves only natural editorial backlink and manual link building mechanisms. These are considered as White-hat. When one intends to have effective mechanisms to get better rank from Google search engine page result, it is best to adapt to the following tested ways that would result in a better ranking of the website. The following 5 factors are working methods to improvise the backlinks for any website

Stay Consistent With Content

When you are starting to work on your backlinks, it is very crucial to focus on the current content of the website. Patchy or irrelevant content might make your website lose value. Here are the top factors that will help you stay relevant to the content of your website.

Original content that is engaging and suitable to the website is very important to invite natural and organic listings to the website. Also, it is important to be relevant in terms of web content.
When one has a business related to food, it is important to have relevant advertisements. If the website has links from a fashion website, it might not be suitable.

The link of the website must be consistent with the content of the website to get better noticed from Google.

There must be a diversity of the backlinks in the website. More concentration in social media backlinks might lead to Google classifying it as web spam and it would de-value the website.
It is wiser to choose older domains than brand new domains as the older ones will have a better experience in having relevant and valuable content than new ones.
Being one of the original Google algorithm factors, anchor texts still provide accurate page descriptions.

Backlinks are essential to any website for better visibility, however, it is essential to keep a count on them One must note the number of backlinks that would help the website in better ranking.

This includes:

  • The key ranking factor is the number of linking root domains.

It helps in establishing that your content is unique and the website is trustworthy.
Even when the linking pages originate from the same domain, they make a good ranking aspect.

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If there is a number of links from the C-Class IPs, it clearly shows that the backlink is natural and obtained from various sources instead of being manipulated.
Inbound links that are "no follow" and "do follow" must be equally distributed to show that the profile is natural. The speed of link building or the link velocity is always under the scrutiny of Google.

The sudden rapid increase might lead to a suspicion and very few over a period of time will not be of any help. A rise in the speed is a sign that the website is getting more users and a dip indicates a drop in the popularity of the website. These will directly affect the ranking of the website in the SERP

Keep Quality As Top Priority

For any SEO tactic to work out, quality is essential. The following will help you keep a check quality-wise

When you have good quality backlinks from relevant sites that have backlinks to your competitor sites is a good sign. It would boost your PageRank or the authority that links domains and pages. Target specific keywords to win over this
The word count and the quality of the linking content makes a huge difference in the value of the linking. A backlink from a well-versed article of more than 2000 words would value better than a backlink from a simple blog post or comment.

Links that are from high-quality resource websites or hubs increase SERP ranking.
Contextual links are considered more valid than those links that are present in other places like the sidebars or footer
Linking keywords to the titles of the articles is essential in terms of demonstrating expertise in the field.

Beware of poisonous anchor texts that are directed towards your websites. It would be considered as a spam or even that your website is hacked. This will lead to poor ranking
"Disavow" tool will help in eliminating low-quality backlinks automatically. More low-quality links might lead to classifying the website as unnatural linking. Webmaster tools usually keep a check and issue warnings beforehand.

Beware Of Bad Backlinking

While backlinking is good, it is essential to be aware of good tactics and building trust in building links

The dependability of links that are linked to your website is passed by TrustRank. It is important to have the backlinks from trusted sources
If you intend to either buy or sell backlinks, it might affect the website as a whole.

These include:

  • Selling or buying links that are valued by Google's algorithm PageRank Excessive or partner page linking. This is also called as cross-linking
    Using bots to create backlinks
  • Article marketing or guest posting campaigns that might raise suspicions One easy way to get good backlinks is guest posting. However, it should not be done excessively and filled with a lot of contextual backlinks. It might be considered as a manipulation method. Good guest posts can derive good ranking in SERPs
  • Another way is by Sponsored Links. It must be made sure that good reviews are linking to your page from these sponsored reviews. If one has descriptions like "sponsored link" or a "paid link", that would also affect the backlinks.
  • Never have identical backlinks on every page of your website. Google would consider them all as a single entity as it considers a site-wide link.

Small Details Are Important For Efficient Backlinks

It is easy to lose focus on finer details, but finer details will help in a better ranking with Google. When you target these finer details, more visibility and better back link creation can be focused.

  • Country specific backlinks will greatly boost the search ranks within the country. The top level domains (TLDs) help in better ranking.
  • Consider having backlinks from Wikipedia. The links from Wikipedia brings in a sign of trust from Google. It gives more value to your content.
  • DMOZ-Listed websites are considered as much reliable and it somewhat reflects your "online character" of your website
  • When a website has too many redirects, it would devalue the user experience from the website. However, if reasonable redirects are used, they would serve as a good option and work just like valid backlinks.

No one is sure that Google values or favours those pages that use microformats. Many websites have ranked better with the usage of microformats. It is worth giving it a try.
Google can make out if the content is generated by the user or the website owner. This is very helpful when larger blogging communities like WordPress or Blogger are considered. This will shortlist the user generated links on the website.

The Bottom Line

When one considers about backlinks, there must be three purposes behind the backlinks.

These include:

  • Non-Search traffic can be generated by backlinking
  • Validating a website is done with the backlinks of the website

Search engines use the backlinks to index a site in their result page
Only with high-quality backlinks, any website can reach the top listing in any SERP. Link building is going to be immortal as the deciding factor of search engine optimization in future. There is no world wide web without links!

Felix Rose-Collins

Felix Rose-Collins

Ranktracker's CEO/CMO & Co-founder

Felix Rose-Collins is the Co-founder and CEO/CMO of Ranktracker. With over 15 years of SEO experience, he has single-handedly scaled the Ranktracker site to over 500,000 monthly visits, with 390,000 of these stemming from organic searches each month.

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