The ultimate aim of search engine optimization is to make your website visible by getting it on the top of search ranking. There are several techniques and tactics that it recommends for achieving this objective. Link building is one of the foundational strategies of SEO. This is because a healthy backlink profile increases your probability of ranking on the top. When Google allocates search rankings, it thoroughly checks the number and quality of backlinks you have built. If you have more of the relevant and high-quality ones, you will definitely reach higher.
Seeing this, it would be apt to say that effective link building is critical for your website’s health. So what are the essential elements that make an effective link building campaign? Knowing them thoroughly will take you one step ahead, whether you want to start from the scratch or plan to revisit your existing link building strategy. Here are the elements that you must invest in to win the link building game.
A solid plan
First things first, you need a solid, well-defined plan before you initiate the link building campaign. While you draw it up, consider where you are at present and identify your objective. Also, ideate how you would want to reach it and have an optimal timeline as well. A plan enables you to have clarity about the type of links you would want to build for your website’s profile. Assess the ones that you already have and review the types your competitors have. Look for the authority sites in your niche, the ones you would want to link with. Once you have a plan in writing, you are all set to kick-off!
A great offering
The true purpose of building an online presence is to sell your brand and offering. Link building, therefore, is all about the offering you want to showcase to the potential buyers. After all, you need to have a product or service that is worthy of endorsement through authority links. Unless you have one that you want to promote, what would be the worth of putting your efforts into getting backlinks from authorities? So the next element of a result-oriented link building strategy is a website that highlights your products or services and its benefits to the audience.
High-quality content
The next and perhaps the most important element of link building is high-quality content. In fact, content is the lifeline of link building because links direct the users to content. However, mediocre content will not do the trick and you need to serve something extraordinary for a successful and sustainable campaign. So what is quality content all about? Content that is in-depth, unique and serves true value to the readers is quality content. Beyond just being informative, it should also match the user intent and give them what they are actually looking for. Ideally, case studies, research data, reviews, how-to guides, videos, and visual content are the types that get you quality backlinks.
Content promotion
High-quality content is just a part of the puzzle and it will not make your campaign a success alone. You need to make sure that it reaches the right audience through active promotion on the relevant channels. Good knowledge of SEO fundamentals get you there. You can go through https://seojet.net/blog/backlink-strategy-that-works/ to understand how a backlink strategy really works and what you need to do to create the right kind of backlinks. Remember that not all links are equal. The best ones come from sources that are high-authority and relevant to your niche. So you should aim to promote your content on the sites that are considered authoritative in your industry.
Integration
Don’t expect link building to get results on its own because is a part of a wider marketing campaign. Therefore, proper integration with the rest of your marketing strategies is mandatory to get results. It should be a part of a consolidated effort that includes other initiatives such as content marketing, search engine marketing, email marketing, and social media marketing. Imagine how social media could benefit the health of your backlinks by boosting social shares. The internet marketing landscape is a wide one and you cannot isolate any strategy. All of them have to work in tandem to get you effective and sustainable results.
Relationships
Essentially, link building is all about relationships with the websites that you link with. The more relationships you build in your niche, the better your strategy gets. Reaching out to authoritative sites and top influencers in the industry is the best way to gain quality links. For instance, if an influencer likes your content and publishes it on their website once, they will be more approachable in the future as well. Additionally, being endorsed by someone who is revered definitely makes your brand more trustworthy. Beyond just building relationships with the influencers, you also need to engage with your audience. You can do this by leveraging brand mentions by a real audience and converting them into links.
Tracking
Finally, tracking is another element that you cannot ignore when it comes to having an effective link building strategy. The idea is to track prospects that can yield quality links for your website. It could be a niche influencer or blogger you could engage with to get a quality link from a high-authority website. Alternatively, you can keep a watch on online brand mentions and reviews which can easily be turned into juicy backlinks. While being vigilant help, you can also use some tools to track such prospects consistently.
Building a sustainable and result-oriented link building strategy is not rocket science, provided that you take the right approach. Whenever you link to other sites, ensure that providing value to the audience should be your main intention. Similarly, keep the users in mind while creating content for getting backlinks. Therefore, it would be right to say that users should be the mainstay of your strategy because this is the way that Google wants it to be. Unless you are genuinely interested in serving value to the audience, you will never be able to strengthen your online presence.
