Backlinks are one of the most important factors that rank a website in a search engine result. It is an influential factor of search engine algorithms. If many resources link to one particular page, the search engine considers that page as trustworthy, valuable and of some importance. This is the reason why search engines rank the web pages linked with authoritative websites higher! If you are not able to spare some time for SEO, you can opt for these services by the various agencies that offer perfect link building services in the UK. Doing this would help your brand rank higher and establish authority in the niche market.
Page Ranking
This is an algorithm created by search engines to identify the quality and quantity of backlinks acquired in a website and the ranking system to determine how important a webpage can be in the search results.
Factors that Influence Page Ranking
- Number of Backlinks: The more high-quality and authoritative backlinks a website has, the higher are the chances for a website’s ranking to be on top.
- Number of Links on Linking Page: A website gains value when search engines identify the number of links linking to the website or on a particular webpage.
- Page Rank of the Linking Page: A backlink acquired from a page with a higher page rank would also make the linking page rank higher!
Types of Links
- Internal and External Links: An internal link comes from one page to another within the same website, whereas an external link comes from an external website.
- Nofollow Links: This type of links needs to be avoided, as it can harm a website. Such links tell search engines to not pass the link equity to the linked page. Nofollow links can be used only to fight spam in comments, affiliate and sponsored links and links to websites that your brand is not interested to endorse. Such links do not pass authority. Nofollow links can, however, assist search engines to get a better understanding of links when analyzed. They also help in bringing relevant traffic and diversify the link profile.
Attributes of a Valuable Backlink
- Relevant: Valuable backlinks should be relevant. This means, the linking page should have either the same or a similar topic with that of the linked page.
- An authoritative Website: If the linking page is authoritative, the backlink can provide increased value to a webpage.
- Exclusiveness: A backlink from a website which has not yet linked to your brand’s website can be more valuable than the link from a website that has been linked to your website before. If there are two links from the same page, the first link will be considered more valuable and unique than the second link and the page rank can be equally distributed across the linked pages.
- Well-placed Link: A high-quality link that can bring website traffic should be well-placed, preferably somewhere in the body of the text. A backlink from the top of an article is better than from the bottom of an article. Likewise, the backlink from the bottom of an article is better than the backlink provided in the footer or even sidebar.
- Relevancy of Anchor Text: Anchor text is significant when it comes to link building. A backlink with anchor text which is linked to a relevant webpage is more valuable when compared to irrelevant or generic anchor text. The same applies to the text surrounding the link, as it may provide the context in which the anchor text is mentioned.
Link Building Strategies
- Linkable Assets: It is one of the most natural link building techniques that creates a unique and valuable piece of content. This is known as a linkable asset. Linkable assets can attract backlinks. It can be any piece of content. However, there are various types of content that would work perfectly for this purpose. It includes research with unique data, big lists, ultimate guides, free tools and resource directories. The next step would be to identify authoritative websites and reach out to these, to link a website. Once your brand gains a backlink to the linkable asset, redirecting it to the other pages with the help of internal links can help in sales and conversions.
- Guest Posting: Guest blogging or guest posting is one of the most popular and widely used link building techniques. It is quite a simple and scalable action. It involves making use of specific keywords that can be relevant to your brand and the reaching out to famous and authoritative blogs. Prior to sharing an article, the guest post guidelines need to be read. This is followed by requesting to link the article (backlink) to a website.
- Competitor’s Backlinks: Going through the link profiles of competitors is a great way to find websites that may link. Various tools can help in identifying the backlinks of competitors. However, the relevance and strength of the link should be considered. Email outreach is one of the best ways to contact website owners to replace a backlink of a competitor with the backlink you provide.
- The Skyscraper Technique: This technique requires your brand to find the best article on a particular topic. Your brand should then write fresh, engaging and more informative content and contact all the websites that link to the competitors’ websites. The authoritative website owners who had linked to the competitors’ content can then be requested to link to your content. As the content will be better, the authoritative websites will not reject the request.
- Broken Link Building: This involves finding websites that may contain inactive or dead links, reaching out to the webmaster and suggesting the content on your website as a replacement.
- Brand Mentions: Identify unlinked mentions of your brand, reach out to the webmasters and ask them to link the mention.
- Testimonials: Come up with a testimonial for a particular product or a service and get the website linked next to the brand name.
- Expert Insights and Roundups: If your brand is authoritative in the niche market, chances to get featured in niche roundups or articles are high.
- Social Backlinks: Share the content available on your website on social media and promote it on various social media platforms. Join the discussions and comments, or reply back to relevant posts to keep the audience engaged with the content of your brand.
- Online Forums and Q & A Sites: A well placed link on online forums can add value to a website. It can also help in driving traffic as time goes by. However, spamming the links should be avoided at all cost.
While building high quality backlinks, brands can identify customer or partner links and link to them. You can start a blog and keep updating the blog regularly to stay active so that the visitors check back for new and engaging content every day.
It’s also advisable to create unique resources like a visually appealing image or infographics, a new way of writing articles or explaining the details of a topic and so on. Building resource pages can be a great way for link building as well.
Getting involved in the local community to gain valuable and influential links is also worth a try. An agency that deals in link building aims for customer satisfaction and profit making which can help your brand rank higher and establish authority in the niche market.