{"id":1065,"date":"2014-10-09T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-09T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lcn.com\/blog\/?p=1065"},"modified":"2021-07-22T09:12:45","modified_gmt":"2021-07-22T08:12:45","slug":"6-top-tips-successful-link-building-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lcn.com\/blog\/6-top-tips-successful-link-building-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"6 Top Link Building Strategies that Really Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

Link building has always been an integral part of any SEO strategy,<\/a> but as Google’s algorithms<\/a> change in order to deliver more relevant and higher quality results, so does the need to adapt your link-building strategy.<\/p>\n

Building links in the correct way means sticking rigidly to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines<\/a> and understanding the fact that what’s good for your human visitors is also good for the search engines and vice versa.<\/p>\n[Tweet “Links are still one of the strongest search engine ranking factors today”]\n

Adapting to a link-building strategy that really works should be done with care, lest you end up damaging your website’s ranking in the search engines rather than giving it the boost that you’re hoping for. In this article, we’ll take a look at six useful tips for building links to your website in a safe, responsible and effective way.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1 – Keep the Emphasis on Quality<\/h2>\n

There was a time before the search engines were as smart as they are today, that the sheer number of backlinks was the most important factor when it came to getting increased exposure in the SERPs.<\/p>\n

It didn’t much matter where your links appeared, even if they were on fairly irrelevant and\/or low-quality websites. However, everything has changed now, and the emphasis should be far more on the quality and relevancy of a link.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The main quality factors of a link include…<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/h3>\n

Anchor Text<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The anchor text link in the text on the page is used to link to a website. For example, a relevant anchor text link to the LCN.com blog may look like this: LCN Blog<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In the past, in order to help identify the topic of a page, Google relied on descriptive anchor links a lot more than they do today. As such, anchor links were abused.<\/p>\n

To illustrate, let’s say your company is called “Awesome Marketing”. A natural anchor link to your web page would be the branded term “Awesome marketing<\/strong>“. However, Google found people were abusing anchor text links with highly targeted and descriptive keywords, such as “cheap marketing services<\/strong>“.<\/p>\n

If “cheap marketing services” make up 90% of all your anchor link profiles, it’s pretty obvious to Google you are trying to unfairly influence the search results page.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Domain and Page Authority<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Domain authority is the authority of the domain name that is linking back to your website. Domain authority is defined by factors such as the number of backlinks the site has, the age of the domain, and the overall content on the domain.<\/p>\n

Page Authority is similar, but instead represents the authority of a single web page, as opposed to an entire website under one domain name.<\/p>\n

It’s hard to exactly measure authority, however, the guys over at Moz.com have a great way of defining both page authority<\/a> and domain authority<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"openMoz Open Site Explorer<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Relevance<\/strong><\/h3>\n

A fairly obvious one is this, but the relevance of the page linking to your website is all-important.<\/p>\n

It would make logical sense that a website such as (the made-up) “www.amazingseotips.co.uk<\/em>” might link to Moz.com<\/em>, because they are within the same industry, and share similar information with their readers.<\/p>\n

However, a website such as “www.simplerecipes.com<\/em>” linking to en masse to “www.amazingseotips.co.uk<\/em>” might grab Google’s attention for the wrong reasons, as it’s likely those links may be part of a black hat<\/a> link building campaign.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today, backlinks need to be earned, while links that require very little effort to obtain, such as those on low-quality article directories and content mills, do little or nothing to benefit your link-building campaign. In fact, such links can even harm your website’s reputation.<\/p>\n

On a final note, never<\/strong> buy links, lest you risk having your website being de-indexed altogether.<\/p>\n

Related: What makes a great backlink?<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2 – Forge Connections<\/h2>\n

As we’ve already mentioned, quality links are not all that easy to obtain, and instead, they need to be earned by forging connections with others in your niche.<\/p>\n

Your goal should be to have links to your website appear on relevant, high quality and original pages such as those on blogs or other websites which also publish content on your niche.<\/p>\n

Building up long-lasting relationships with owners of other successful websites in your industry will provide you with some invaluable resources for your link-building campaign, and if you have been involved in SEO for some time already, then you probably already have a list of people who you can contact.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"what'sTwitter is a great way to find and engage with people in your industry<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Don’t be afraid to approach other webmasters and online marketers either, for you may well be able to forge a mutually beneficial agreement. And it’s worth noting here that the content doesn’t actually need to be written words, it just needs to be something that is worthy of a link, like a product, a business, a service, or a brand. You might already have something that others would find useful to link to.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Related: Finding industry influencers on social media<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3 – Write Guest Blog Posts<\/h2>\n

Perhaps a contentious tip in 2014, but one of the best ways to forge lasting connections with other webmasters is to offer to write guest blog posts.<\/p>\n

As Matt Cutts (head of Google’s Webspam team)\u00a0states<\/a>, guest blogging as a means\u00a0to link to your own website with the sole intention of gaming the searching engine results page is wrong! <\/strong>Not to mention that it could seriously damage your website by incurring a Google penalty.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n