Link building is Arguably
the most challenging part of SEO.
It's a part that requires technical prowess, a
creative approach, and just straight up grit and grind. Now, if you're a
beginner to link building or you've tried building links without much success, then today's link building tutorial is going to help you get backlinks efficiently so you
can rank your pages higher on Google.Stay tuned. Link building has built all
sorts of reputations. But there are generally two dominant views. There's one
party of SEOs that live and die by it. And then there's the opposition, that
considers it to be a spammy tactic. Now, in order to come to a conclusion, we
need to define what link building is. By definition, link building is the
process of getting other websites to link to a page on your website. And these hyperlinks are called backlinks. Now, while the end result might make sense
conceptually and seem simple, the part that
people don't understand and can't seem to get
right is this part: The Process. And
this ultimately boils down to execution. Now, the reason why execution is tough
is because people just focus on the end result:
getting backlinks to their pages. But the
process is actually very relational. And relationships are built by humans, not
"borrowed" templates from videos and blog posts. So let's redefine link
building and set the tone for the rest of this tutorial. Link building is the
process of building relationships with other relevant site owners who want and
will link to your content because it
enhances theirs. So this definition isn't just about you getting something. It
includes relationships, relevance, and a value exchange. All things we'll touch
on later Now, since effective link
building is tough, you need to understand why it's worth the effort.
In short, backlinks are used by search engines
like Google to help rank web pages. And it's been this way since 1998 when
Google created PageRank. PageRank is a mathematical formula that judges the
"value of a page" by looking at the quantity and quality of other
pages that link to it.
And Google confirms the importance of backlinks
on their "How search works" page. Under their "Ranking useful
pages" heading, they state:
"If other prominent websites on the subject
link to the page, that's a good sign that the information is of high quality."
We also found a clear correlation between organic traffic and backlinks from
unique
websites in our study of over one billion web
pages.
So while getting backlinks may be harder than
let's say, creating a blog post, they're absolutely critical if you want to
rank for competitive phrases.
Now, you might be thinking...well, so and so
said not to focus on link building because high-quality content always attracts
links.
Well, how do you get that content in front of
people in the first place?
Unfortunately, the concept of "if you build
it and they will come" is just pure fantasy. Or you might have heard other
people say
"I get tons of traffic without building
backlinks, so no need to go through the struggle." Yes, it's possible to rank pages without
backlinks, but let me say this one more time. Backlinks are absolutely
critical, if you want to rank for competitive phrases. And competitive phrases
are usually the ones that'll drive the most traffic and revenue for your
business.
For example, queries related to SEO are
extremely competitive, but they're also very lucrative. And if you take a look
at our blog's backlink growth in Ahrefs' (ahrefs backlink checker) Site Explorer, you'll see
that
the growth curve almost mirrors that of our
organic traffic. They're rising together. So how do you get backlinks?
Well, there are three ways to get them. You can
create them, buy them, or earn them. Let's go through each method. Creating
backlinks means to manually add links to your site. This can be done by adding
your website to directories, leaving comments on blogs, or adding a website to
your social media profile.
Anyone can do this with minimal effort, so
they're not that effective from an SEO and ranking perspective. Buying
backlinks is exactly as it sounds.
You pay webmasters or authors a fee and in
return, they'll link back to a page on your site.
Now, this is against Google's Webmaster
Guidelines and can potentially result in a penalty. That could be anything from
losing ranking positions or even worse, getting your pages removed from
Google's search index.
Also, buying links isn't exactly cheap. We
contacted 250 websites to ask if they sell links. And we found that the average
cost of buying one was nearly $353.
And no, we didn't buy any. The final way to get
backlinks is to earn them.
And this is usually done by emailing other
website owners and editors and asking them to link to you. This is the hardest method of the three, but
generally speaking, the harder it is to obtain a link, the more valuable it'll
be. And for that reason, we'll be focusing on earning backlinks through email
outreach. And I'll touch on a few tactics later. Now, not all links are created
equal. Some will help propel your pages to the top of Google, while others can
actually hurt your site. So what makes a link actually good? To simplify it as
much as possible, there are two main categories you should look at. First is
relevance. Ideally, you want to get backlinks from relevant websites and pages.
For example, let's say you have a page on the best USB microphones. Getting a
link from a page on the topic of video conferencing would be much more relevant
than a link on a page about gardening tips. And this also plays out at the
website level.
Getting a link from a tech site like Cnet would
likely carry more weight than one from a recipe site like All Recipes. The
second category is authoritativeness. Now, if you're unfamiliar with
"authority" in the context of link building, it basically represents
the so-called "link power" a web page has. And this relates to how
PageRank works. As we discussed before, both the quantity and quality of links
matter. So the more quality links a page gets, the more PageRank it earns. Now,
PageRank doesn't appear out of thin air. It comes from other pages. This means
that pages with authority, can pass it to other pages through hyperlinks. So
the more PageRank a linking page has, the more it can pass to those outbound
links. For example, let's say page C has two links: one from page A and one
from page B. Page A is stronger than page B and also has fewer outgoing links. Feed
this information into the PageRank algorithm, and you get the PageRank of page
C. Now, this is obviously a simplified version of how PageRank works, but the
key point here is that you want to get links from high-authority pages because
they'll likely have the greatest impact on your rankings.Now, while Google
doesn't provide PageRank or website authority scores, we have two metrics
at Ahrefs that try to quantify it. Domain Rating
is our website authority metric and it represents the overall strength of a
website's backlink profile.
And URL rating is our page-level authority
metric, which represents the overall strength of a Page's backlink profile. We
have a full video on assessing high-quality backlinks, so I'll link that up for
you in the description.
Alright, so at this point, we've covered what
link building is, why it's important, three methods to get them, and some
attributes of good-quality links. What we haven't talked about yet, is the actual
link itself.
So let's break down the anatomy of a hyperlink
and the impact each part has on SEO.
Here's what a link looks like to your website
visitors. And if we look at the HTML code, then it would look like this. Now,
there are three basic parts to a link that matter in SEO. The destination URL,
anchor text, and the "rel" attribute or lack of one. The destination
URL is simply the URL the person will visit when the link is clicked. The
second part of a link is the anchor text. The anchor text is the clickable
word, phrase, or image attached to the link. So in our example, Site Explorer
is the anchor text, which is the name of our competitor analysis tool. Google
uses anchor texts to better understand what a page is about and what terms it
should
rank for.
But building lots of links with keyword-rich
anchors is classified as a link scheme, and may result in a Google penalty as
it looks unnatural.
For example, if you had a post on the best
wireless headphones and had a hundred links
pointing to it where the anchor texts were all
"best wireless headphones," then it would look quite unnatural. People
often use anchors such as the company's brand name, the title of the page, the
URL, or phrases like "click here."
And here's some proof. If we look at the anchors of backlinks pointing
to our data study on featured snippets, you'll see
varying anchor texts like "old
studies," "ahrefs," "research," and even specific
stats like "99.58%," "8.6% of all clicks," and so on.
In fact, there are only 14 websites that have
linked to us using the anchor text "featured snippet." With most
earned links, you have very little or no control over the anchor text, so
over-optimization isn't something you really need to worry about. And the last
part is the "rel" attribute.
Some links contain a "rel" attribute,
which is intended to tell crawlers the relationship between the linking page
and the linked page.
And the three "rel" values that you
should know about when it comes to link building are "nofollow," "UGC,"
and "sponsored."
Historically, nofollow links told Google that
the linking page would rather not associate themselves with the linked page. And
for that reason, Google didn't transfer "authority" through those
links. But then Google added a couple other "rel" values:
"UGC," which stands for "user-generated content," and
"sponsored," which signifies a paid link.
They also announced that going forward, they
would look at these link attributes as "hints," meaning, they may
pass value through them at their discretion. Now, if a link doesn't have any of
these "rel" values, then it would be called a "followed"
link. Meaning, the link can pass PageRank and help boost your rankings. Seeing
as this is still relatively new, I'd recommend focusing on building
"followed" links, although that's only partially within your control.
One other thing I want to touch on is link placement.Prominent links are more
likely to be clicked, and it's believed that Google takes this into account
when determining how much authority a link transfers. For instance, an
editorial link is more likely to be clicked than a link in the footer. So, all
else being equal, the former would be better than the latter. Alright, so by
now, you should have a general overview of the more technical things that are
involved in link building.
But as I mentioned, there's also a creative part
that's required.
And by creative, I'm talking about the content
creative as well as getting creative with your email pitch. Now, with enough
willpower and determination, it's possible to build links to any kind of page.
But life is a lot easier when you have something
that people actually want to link to. So let's talk about the content side of
things first.
There are a couple of key attributes that
linkable content has.
First, it's usually non-commercial. Commercial
content, like product pages from an ecommerce store or sales pages, are tougher
to get links to.
Why? Because no one wants to contribute to your
bank account without some kind of compensation or at the very least, having
first-hand experience with your products or services.
So by creating non-commercial content, with high
utility, you're creating something that's more deserving of a link. That leads
us into the second attribute. Linkable content is helpful. People want to link
to helpful content because it directs their audience to resources that complement
their own.
And helpful content can be in all different
forms.
For instance, well-written blog posts with
factual information can get lots of links. Healthline is a great example of
this. Their blog posts are usually concise and as far as I understand, many of
their articles are vetted by medical professionals. As a result, all of their
top linked-to pages are informational blog posts, which individually have
thousands of referring domains pointing at them. Calculators and tools can also
act as link magnets. In fact, our free backlink checker has gotten over 2,000
links from unique websites. Nerdwallet's retirement calculator has gotten over
800 links from unique websites. And Bank Rate's mortgage calculator has over
3,500 links from unique websites. Data-studies and case studies are also a
great type of content that attracts links.For example, our study on featured
snippets has earned over 1,200 referring domains. And it doesn't even need to
be your own data. This page has gotten 570 referring domains and it's just a
curated list of stats on coffee. Bottomline, if your content is a helpful resource
for their audience or it supports arguments
they're making like a stat or fact, then your
chances of earning backlinks increases. Now, the second part to link building
where creativity is required is the pitch. Building links means you need to reach
out to authors and editors and ask them to link to you. Just like in sales,
these people are called "prospects." Now, it's called a
"pitch" for a reason.
You can't just ask people to link to you without
a good reason.
Let me put this into perspective. Imagine
someone showed up at your door and they asked you for money. That's it. You'd
probably be speechless and just shut the door. Now, if they told you that they
were raising money for a good cause in your community, you might consider
listening to them. And that brings us to the first part of the pitch.
You need to have a good reason to contact
people. Generally speaking, the better the reason, the higher your chance of
achieving your goal.
So in that door knocker scenario, they might say
something like…
my name is Bashir Khan
and I'm a part of the Graphics Designing
The reason I'm here Explain in Article all my
exparience.
But remember, things like exchanging links for
money or doing excessive link exchanges
is against Google's Webmaster Guidelines.
The same goes for sending products to a person
in exchange for a backlink. So you'd need to get creative here to stay in line
with the rules.
And I won't expand on this because it's just so
highly situational based on the page you're trying to build links to.
But we have a full video on using negotiation
and persuasion for link building, so I'll link that video up in the
description.
Now, as you can see, link building is both an
art and a science.
Pitches are also highly situational and will
vary from person to person.
But there are quite a few link building
strategies that are streamlined and have been proven to work time and time
again.
So let's go through some of these strategies and
I'll explain what it is, why it works, and how you can do them. The first link
building strategy is guest blogging.Guest blogging is when you create content
for another website.
And the reason why this strategy works is
because there's a clear value exchange.
They get great content for free, and almost
always, you should be able to get a link back to your site; whether that be
within the content or in the author bio.
So the way guest blogging works is to find other
blogs in your industry, pitch and agree on a relevant topic,
Thanks Friends
Graphics Designing Digital Marketing
https://myaccount.google.com/profile/links?type=0
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCx9rJtaKvn5Qgk75rn72ATg
https://bashir0007.blogspot.com
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