While many SEO experts understand the importance of link building, it is often seen as a high-input, low-reward exercise. So much so that Search Engine Land conducted a survey with SEO experts that revealed link building as the majority of participants 'least favourite part of SEO'. Well, it sounds like they need to get creative!
Link building is a hugely rewarding element of SEO and Digital PR that can hold amazing results for both publicity and your rank on Google. In this blog post, we'll discuss why people hate doing link building so much and how to make the process more successful.
Understand What Link Building Achieves
One of the primary reasons people hate link building is because it seems like a lot of extra work for what they feel has little reward. However, link building plays a major role in SEO success. When done correctly, link building can improve website rankings and increase traffic to your site. By knowing what specific goals you want to achieve through link building, it can make the process easier and more effective.
Challenges Associated With Link Building
Finding good quality links that are relevant to the niche of your website can be a difficult and challenging process. As search engine algorithms become more advanced, it’s becoming even harder to get links that will help boost rankings.
Not just this, but many website owners don’t understand link building strategies, and are hesitant to provide other websites with a link. The impact of this is that website owners often request payment for links; something we highly discourage and always avoid.
Needless to say, this can make it difficult to build a large number of high-quality links quickly. But don't forget; Rome wasn't built in a day. Link building strategies should be realistic, targeted and creative. Not quick, irrelevant and thinly-veiled free advertorial for your brand.
Identifying Opportunities for Link Building
Link building can be a tedious, time intensive process. That’s why it’s important to identify potential opportunities as quickly as possible. Search engine algorithms are constantly evolving which means that link building methods will have to adapt and change over time.
To stay up-to-date with the best practices and find new opportunities, it helps to conduct regular keyword and competitor research. This way you can get ahead of your competitors and find high-quality link opportunities for your website.
Build Relationships to Secure High Quality Links
Building relationships is a key part of link building. Establishing relationships with journalists, bloggers and industry leaders in your niche will help you to secure high-quality links for your website with more ease.
Connecting with these people on social media, commenting on their blogs and newsletters can help open the doors for collaboration. Who knows - once you make a friend, they might invite you to contribute a guest blog. Great relationships are absolutely paramount to being a great link builder.
Don't forget that it does no harm giving relevant outbound links, too. That means if there's an opportunity to support someone, then go for it! It's a great way to get a positive working relationship moving.
Evaluating the Data & Metrics for Link Building Strategies
Link building is more than just trying to obtain as many links as possible. Data and metric analysis play a key role in measuring the success of link building campaigns.
At Modern Classic, we take into account many factors from every link we achieve including the domain authority, site traffic, AVE, and much more.
Closely examine your results and outcomes in order to identify patterns that show which tactics are the most effective so that you can gain insight into the campaigns that perform well for different industries and niches. Utilising these metrics can help you determine which link building strategies will produce the best results for your website.