Link building is the exercise of accumulating links to your web pages from other relevant sites.
Links to your web pages hold an obvious value: they bring new people to your website. That reason alone makes a case for building as many links to your web pages from relevant and high trafficked websites as possible. More links mean more people can find your site.
Less obvious, is that search engines, especially powerhouse Google, use the quantity and quality of links to your website as a strong factor in determining how you appear in search engine results.
Consider links from a website a vote of confidence. When a reputable third-party website links to you in a way that suggests you have content related to “sports psychology” the search engines place stock in that link. That’s the quality part. Additionally, the search engines consider numerous factors when determining quality, including the age of the domain, number of links to that referring site and even the extension of the domain (.gov and .edu domains cannot be purchased commercially, therefore they are harder to exploit).
It’s important to point out that the search engines only hint at how they determine search rankings—there is no black and white formula available, and these algorithms are being tweaked constantly. However, link building is one of the universally accepted efforts in search engine optimization.
It’s also important to build a high volume of links to your site, even if some of those are not considered high quality. Back to the original benefit of links: they bring in direct traffic as surfers stumble upon your site. Additionally, if the search engines see a consistent history of numerous links being generated pointing to your site each and every month, you’re sure to move up the rankings.
Lastly, today’s new site can become tomorrow’s high quality link. Get in on the ground floor, when the cost is the lowest.
In summary, link building is a fundamental exercise in traffic building, both directly and indirectly. If you’ve ever wondered why search engine optimization is an ongoing process that takes time and persistent effort, you should now understand that link building is a crucial ingredient, that should be done persistently over time.
Tags: Content Strategy, internet marketing, link building, SEO