Why Link Building is still important for SEO and how we approach it.

Over the last few years, Search Engine Optimisation has changed from being largely based on your focus keywords to a hugely intricate and detailed system of ranking signals that requires monitoring and regular management. One part of your optimisation strategy should be based around Link Building.

If done correctly link building can easily improve your search rankings and help you maintain a consistent ranking for multiple search terms. Here are our top tips on how to improve your link building.

Quality over quantity

Don’t buy dodgy links. Lots of businesses online offer a link building service where you’ll pay say £100 and they will build you 1000 links. This may sound tempting but you run the risk of Google penalisation if the link quality is poor. We use the latest Search Engine management software and curate links slowly, that have a high domain authority and trust score. This will help build your rankings gradually and consistently. It is better to have 100 quality links, over 1000 bad ones!

Top tip: If you’re reading a relevant article on a website, write a quick comment with a link back to your own website, this will help your score!

Do follow vs no follow

What the hell does that mean I hear you ask. Long story short, the ways Google crawls your website is based on where the link is placed. Some websites allow Google to follow (Do Follow) and some don’t (No Follow). When you post your website link to a Do Follow website/page, search engines like Google and Bing will count it towards your score/page authority. Going back to point 1 though, it’s important to work with web pages with a high trust score. Quality over quantity always wins.

Google recently published an article that also suggests that having a mixture of Do and No follow links can be healthy for your page authority, so don’t automatically discount your No Follow links.

Anchor text

Your anchor text is the text label on the button or link you’re posting. Whenever you’re adding a link on your website or a backlink on someone else article, you should always make the link relevant and keyword rich. This text is what Google uses to understand your website content.

For example if you’re a company that sells mens wallets, don’t just have the link label as ‘visit my website’, try and form it into a sentence like ‘Leading Suppliers of Unique Men’s Wallets’. This link Is keyword rich and relevant.

How should an SEO company approach link building?

The way your SEO agency approaches your link building should be based around a regular and consistent strategy. We start off by outlining your goals and objectives, detailing your key search terms and criteria.

Like us, they should invest in link building software to help manage your terms and build a quality link building schedule. You should receive a monthly or quarterly report to explain the progress and ongoing approach.

Link building is just part of your Google rankings puzzle and this needs to be a consideration as part of a wider Technical SEO strategy. If you would like an audit, or to chat with us, please do get in touch and we’ll be more than happy to help.