The Complete Guide to Link Building to Improve SEO

Link building is important in getting web authority, a website with lots of quality links has the potential to rank high in search engines. However, link building should not be random because there are many rules that must be considered.

In this SEO guideline, we will discuss the meaning, types, benefits, things to avoid in making link building, and link-building strategies that can be applied to your website.

What is Link Building in SEO?

Link building is an off-page SEO tactic to get links from other websites. In other words, it is a tactic to get backlinks.

Although the algorithms and ranking determinants of search engines are everchanging, now backlink is still one of the important things that affect website rankings. Websites with lots of high-quality backlinks tend to rank higher in Google search results.

More backlinks indicate that the website has good quality and is used as a reference by many users. However, it should be noted that the quality of backlinks is more important than quantity. One quality backlink is better than a hundred backlinks from fake websites.

Backlinks from suspicious websites that have a high spam value can cause your website to get penalized by Google. Therefore, you should not use any web as a source of backlinks. Strive for backlinks from sites that are relevant, credible, and the traffic is stable enough to be categorized as good quality backlinks.

Types of Link Building

In practice, there are several ways to get backlinks which then determine the type of link building. However, there are also types of backlinks that need to be avoided in link building. There are several types of links that can be applied to web pages, namely:

Natural Link Building

Natural link building is a backlink that is obtained naturally when someone else includes a link on your page as a reference source. In addition, this type of link can also be obtained when someone else uses your website as a provider of infographics, sources of statistical data, or mentions someone related to your website.

This type of link is more difficult to get. You need to create high-quality and useful content for users. This is why natural link building is a valuable asset for websites.

Outreach Link Building

Outreach link building is a way of getting backlinks by contacting other website owners. You can ask them to mention your website and attack its link. In obtaining these links, you need to choose a website that is relevant and credible.

Indeed, this strategy is not an easy thing to do. It would be best if you had a foundation of why other web owners need to list your site. In addition, you also need to convey what benefits they will receive in return. Action that can be done to get outreach type of link:

• Guest blogging activities by publishing articles on other websites and embedding your site's link in those articles.
• Publish press releases on other sites related to your website or brand.
• Sponsor or partner with other websites so that they mention your web page in their content.

Risky Link Building

Risky link building includes activities to get backlinks that aim to manipulate PageRank. This is one of the things that need to be avoided in link building. Site owners use every means possible to make Google believe the site is relevant and useful when in reality it is not. 

This method can have a harmful effect on your site. Based on Google's link building guidelines, there are several techniques that need to be avoided in building link building, namely:

• You should avoid spamming practices by excessively linking your web pages to the comments of other websites.
• Creating threads in online forums that contain lots of backlinks to your site is also something that needs to be avoided in building link building.
• Buying and selling backlinks excessively with a bad quality

Google will penalize each website that commits such violations. The worst consequence that may be given by Google is that the website will be removed from the search results.

The Importance of Link Building

From 1998 until the present, backlinks have been used by Google as one of the determining factors for ranking web pages in the PageRank algorithm. Therefore, having one is very important.

Besides evaluating web pages based on content, Google also looks at how many people refer to those pages. The more other websites make your website referrals, the more Google's trust. It has the potential to increase your web ranking and get more traffic.

Therefore, you need to choose the right method to get quality backlinks. The number of quality backlinks will boost your ranking on Google. That is the reason why backlink is important in SEO implementation.

Link Building Tips

After understanding the importance of quality backlinks for websites. Next, you need to know how to get one. Strategies that can be used to improve the quality of link building are as follow:

Find Quality Links

The first important thing in link building is to find quality links. In this case, you should not use the random web as a source of backlinks. Some factors that must be considered to get quality links, namely:

Domain Authority

Domain authority is a metric used to measure the trustworthiness of a domain or website. Several things determine domain authority, including:

• Domain Age - a domain that has been registered for a long time and remains active will have a high authority value. It shows the consistency of web owners in managing their domains.
• Domain Popularity shows how many quality backlinks are pointing to your site. It can increase the number of site visitors so that your domain is rated as a trusted site by search engines.
• Domain Size - determined by the amount of content contained in the domain. The more quality content published, the greater the size and value of the domain authority.
• Site Speed ​​- slow loading sites can worsen the user experience and increase the bounce rate. Also, it can hinder the crawling and indexing process. If the site speed is optimal, the value of the site in the eyes of users and search engines will be better.

Domain authority is also a determinant of the quality of backlinks. Although links from this type of domain are hard to get, the results are worth the effort. For example, backlinks from high-authority websites will have a greater impact than backlinks from beginner websites.

Page Authority

Page authority is a metric that measures how well each page is performing on the web. It is determined from several metrics that affect page quality in organic searches such as content quality and others. More or less the same as domain authority, but it only focuses on the content on a page.

The page authority also has a big impact on the quality of the backlink. The higher the authority of the page linking to your web page will give your site higher authority. It can help your site rank better in search results.

Page Relevance

In addition to domain and page authority, search engines will also look at the relevance of backlink sources to your site to determine the quality of backlinks. The relevance between web pages can be seen from the similarity of the business niche, the subject matter of the content, as well as the targeted keywords. High relevance will provide greater scoring points.

For example, you managed to get backlinks from two different sites but both have the same level of authority. In this case, backlinks from relevant pages will provide a stronger ranking signal. Therefore, you need to work on getting backlinks from relevant websites not just from high-authority websites.

Anchor Text

Including links in the form of anchor text is a great way to build your content. Anchor text is the text that contains a clickable link to go to another web page. Google uses this anchor text as a ranking signal.

Anchor text must be relevant to the intended link. For example, if you write anchor text “SEO case study”, then the linked web page must also contain information about the “SEO case study”.

Excessive use of anchor text is not good. It can make the user uncomfortable while reading the contents of the article. Even worse, your website can be considered spam by search engines if it contains anchor text with excessive keywords.

Backlinks From Content

You need to publish good quality and informative content to get backlinks. Produced content that is unique and interesting to encourage others to make you a reference. Types of content that can help you generate backlinks such as guidelines, infographics, statistical data, and so on.

Besides improving the quality of content, you can also implement content marketing practices to support your site, or contact relevant and credible websites to link your content on their sites. Both on old content, as well as new content that they will publish.

In addition, cmlabs also provides high-quality backlink services that can help optimize your backlink. The practice of this service is in accordance with Google's guidelines to prevent indications of violations.

Learn Competitors’ Links

The basic thing that needs to be done is to study competitor links. Observe where they get backlinks from. You can also analyze what tactics competitors are using that make their web pages at the top of search results.

Try to apply the same tactics and correct the competitor's mistakes. In that way, your website can get more backlinks than its competitors.

Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is an action to increase website traffic and credibility. Guest blogging is the activity of being a guest writer by publishing articles on other websites. The benefit that can be obtained is that you can include a link to your web page as a reference source.

The practice of guest blogging is currently closely monitored by Google since many web owners violate Google rules and create spam content through guest blogging. Therefore, in guest blogging, you have to consider the quality and benefits of the articles produced.

Recover Lost Backlinks

The last thing you can do in link building is to recover lost backlinks. After getting backlinks, you may need to recover or reclaim lost backlinks.

First, do a deep crawl on broken pages or pages with a lot of redirects. From this activity, you will find potential pages but not optimized. Optimizing content and updating old content will help you get back the lost backlinks.

That's a complete guideline related to what is link building in SEO and the tips you can apply. You also need to optimize other SEO elements to be a market leader. Follow the tips in the SEO checklist to improve the performance of your website.