What is Link Building?
Before delving deeper into the concept of Link Building, let’s first understand what it stands for and why is it important. So, link building, practically, is the process of creating a channel whereby links from external websites can be incorporated into an individual website to increase the practice of referral by direct referrals i.e. people directly clicking on the links and indirect referrals which denote a greater search engine ranking.
E-commerce entrepreneurs and in fact, every business owner understand the vitality of link building and focus on this idea in order to increase the visibility of their website as much as possible. Since it’s a tough world out there, one can comprehend the level of competition amongst business enterprises. Hence the endeavor to put in extra efforts to stand out from the crowd!
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Why is it important?
Google’s algorithms work in different ways and they change rapidly with more advancement in technology and intelligence. You wouldn’t want your website to miss out appearing on the first page of the Google search engine list just because you didn’t pay much attention to building links! Backlinks play a crucial factor in understanding how search engines analyze the quality of a website to pose as a search result by going through the presence of keywords. That is why building links are one of the essential tactics being used to maximize Search Engine Optimization (SEO) because these links act a signal to Google which induces the algorithms to allow your website to feature in the search results.
Also Read: The Mechanism of Google Search Engine
How about we understand this with the help of an example? Imagine you are a textile manufacturer and you wish to promote your website in order to improve your sales. You are also aware of the fact that you are in competition with another textile manufacturer who is also looking to develop the popularity of his website. The availability of the number of external links on your website should be more than your competitor’s so that Google ranks your website as the first search result depending on your link popularity. That’s how it works!
Link Building is Complicated in practice
The practice of link building has long been misunderstood and been taken a casual approach as the steps involved are sufficiently clear what with locating a website, contacting the website, finding the associated link and securing that link to add it in your website. Understandably, this is not rocket science but what matters is driving the quality of your links with respect to the SEO techniques as well as beyond the scope of the number of links that one has secured.
Link building has always been the rage and has also been encouraged by prominent Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) such as Google, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. But with the intervention of Google Penguin Update, people clearly have forgone the ability to understand the resource-worthiness of the links being uploaded on their websites. Entrepreneurs and business personnel should convene on incorporating important links and not links which are simply easy to get. That does not add value to your website let alone being ranked on the search pages.
Problems encountered in the process of link building
- Organic Links
Buying links is basically taking the shortest route to enhance your website and it does not add value to the entire design of your website. On the other hand, natural link building is the system of acquiring links by means of earning them and although it is not exactly time-effective or simple, this ensures the viability and sustainability of your website in the long-run. Engaging in devious ways to achieve links, called black-hat SEO, is also another tainted method of link building, one which should be avoided by all.
- Technical Optimization
No matter how many links you have incorporated into your website, it would not be of any worth if the technicalities of the website are not sound enough to manage the traffic. The basic technical shortcomings include:
- Issues with network speed
- Plagiarism in content
- Blurred pictorials and images
- Internet optimization
- Smooth retrieval of pages.
Unless your website and your links are structured to optimize the primary requirements from the viewer’s point of view, it would not qualify as a resourceful search engine result.
- Focus on adding internal links
Although external link structures are prioritized over internal link structures, it is imperative to embody a number of internal links to your website as well so as to increase the level of intricacy in your link building process. In fact, most people are unaware of the notion that by developing a host of internal link systems to your website, you enable the process of distributing external links in tandem with the entire structure of the website.
Random combination of external as well as internal links will not generate the worth of the website thereby nullifying your purpose. Moreover, strategic optimization of internal links is also pivotal to ensuring better search engine result ranking.
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- On-page Augmentation
By quoting the issue of on-page development, it simply means the ingenuity provided by your website to the algorithms present in Google. Keywords are not the only method of improving the viewership of your website in the search engine results page. Google’s algorithms also verify the relevance of the context of your website.
If you have noticed before, in case of a question-related query, your website should be optimized in such a way that the content is relevant enough to enable Google to feature certain snippets of answer from your website to answer the query. A brief and direct description not only helps maximize the website’s viewership and ranking but also serves the purpose of benefitting the viewers.
- Relevant anchor text inclusion
With the dawn of the era of SEO maximization, usage of anchor text has been a continuous rage all over the SEO industry. The point of the matter is to use relevant and minimal anchor text in the backlinks of the website profile. Search engines definitely make use of the concept of anchor text and in fact, match the search query with the availability of the anchor text in your website URL. However, in situations where a single profile has been infused with a volume of links which all signal to an anchor text, it clearly signifies duplicity and manipulation of content.
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- Article Directories
Article directories were once a common tool to optimize and enhance website visibility. However, with the Penguin update, article directories were discouraged from being used for websites and it would be wise to forego using them anymore.
In case some of the links of your website do possess article directories, then strive to remove them and in case you cannot get them removed, then take help from the Google disavow tool to instruct that they are ignored by Google during search engine result page ranking.
Hence, we can rightfully conclude that although link building is not such a difficult task per se, improving the quality of your links and coordinating them to the content prevalent on your website with maximum visibility and authority over search engine page ranking is a complicated task, one which requires sufficient research and knowledge.
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