Link building is vital for SEO, but how exactly does it work?
If you’ve learned anything about search engine optimization (SEO), you’ve likely heard that link building is an essential component of your strategy. But how exactly does this tactic work, and what are the best ways to execute it?
Links and Domain Authority
Google and other search engines prioritize ranking content that is considered to be trustworthy. This trustworthiness is measured with a qualitative score we call “authority.” The higher your domain authority, the higher all your pages will rank. The higher your page-level authority, the higher that specific page will rank.
Authority is heavily determined by the number and quality of links pointing to your domain (and individual pages). The more links you have pointing to you, and the better those links are, the higher your authority will grow, and the higher you’ll rank.
Link building, then, is the process of establishing those links so your ranks can keep climbing.
Quality Links
The thing is, you can’t just build links everywhere you want; if you’re caught spamming links, buying links, or otherwise engaging in link schemes, Google will penalize you. Instead, you need to build quality links—links that users are happy to encounter.
These days, the prevailing strategy is to use offsite content; the basic idea is to write a post for an offsite publisher, include a link back to your site citing a statistic or a resource to learn more, and publish it. Do this enough times, with high-authority publishers, and your domain authority will grow.
Of course, there are several challenges with this approach. How do you write content good enough to get published externally? How do you get access to the top-quality publishers? How can you make sure you’re building links in a way that doesn’t get you penalized?
There’s a lot to learn, and a lot that can go wrong, which is why most brands turn to a SEO service provider to help them grow. If you’re interested in learning more, or starting a link building strategy of your own, contact Quez Media today!
