SEO is evolving as time goes. Google is trying to bring new guidelines while ranking the website as a part of its quality improvement. Each year they are introducing a new algorithm that affects the SEO. Link building is a very important ranking factor that decides your website ranking. But there are rumors which say that link building is no more considered as an important ranking factor. Is that true? We can find out more about this statement in this article.
There are many other factors that decide website ranking. Google wants to improve the quality of content and avoid people who unnecessarily want to promote their website by taking the wrong methods. Google can penalize website which adopts black hat methods. So, they are tightening algorithm and started to penalize websites which follow paid link building. To avoid spamming websites it is very important to get natural and relevant links. Google now reduced the importance of link building because of this. The quality and relevancy of links are now what matters to Google.
What is link building?
Link building is the process of acquiring links from other websites to your website. These links are known as backlinks. If a website has quality and relevant backlinks Google will interpret that website as a quality one. This will give an extra weightage while considering ranking for your website. Link building is considered as one of the important ranking factors and content marketers still believe in it.
Good Backlinks and Bad Backlinks
There are two types of backlinks.
Good and bad ones.
How will you find out good backlinks and bad ones? It is not easy to get backlinks to your website. You need to create quality contents that are shareable. Quality is what matters than quantity when it comes to backlinks. Many numbers of backlinks to your website won’t promise you a good rank. Those links should be from a quality website and the content of those links should be reliable to your own website contents.
Bad links can be anything that is not relevant to your website. Some content marketers won’t check their website and accept all backlinks that come towards their site. You can audit the link quality and disavow bad backlinks from your website. Auditing can help you with that. This will help you to avoid further penalties from Google. When you disavow a link, it means that you are not at all interested to associate with that website.
What about paid links?
Many SEO analysts used to buy backlinks in order to improve their website ranking. But this is against Google guidelines. If you are buying links to improve ranking and if Google finds out that then you will get a penalty and heavy loss of site traffic. That’s why it is always better to get quality links from a quality source. Don’t try to be over-smart and go against Google’s policy.
Google’s rule about link building
Link building is still alive. A new algorithm from Google considers the number of quality backlinks to a website as one of the important ranking factors. But it always makes sure that the links to your website are relevant and of good quality. All links are not of good quality. When you adopt link-building strategies make sure to follow Google guidelines properly. Here is what Google’s quality team have to say about building backlinks
“Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site’s ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site”
Do’s and Don’t’s in link building
| Do’s | Don’ts |
| As long as you don’t overdo link exchange it won’t harm your ranking | Excessive link exchange is not recommended |
| Internal links are good if it comes in your article naturally. | Overstuffing keywords to link internally can be bad to your website |
| Link Building in niche directories that are relevant to your website is good for website reputation | Adding a website to any directory to get backlinks is not at all recommended and if Google finds it you will have to face a penalty |
| If you can actively participate in blog discussions and provide valuable inputs through links then it is very useful for ranking | Just participating in irrelevant blogs cannot bring any advantage to your website |
| Create quality content to get quality backlinks | No need to unnecessarily waste money on buying links. It won’t give your website any benefit |
Link Building Tips for you
Link building is not an easy thing to do. But there are some easy ways you can try out to build some quality links to your website. Don’t neglect link building as irrelevant when it comes t ranking. Try out these tips to build quality backlinks
-
Ask for Links
There is no need to be ashamed of asking for backlinks. Many marketers think of this method as an outdated method. But if you want to get quality backlinks it is always good to ask for it. But make sure when you ask others to check the content of that website. It should be a quality website with relevant content related to your website.
-
Build a Relationship
It is always best if you can build a relationship with other bloggers in your niche. Participate actively in discussions and online communities you can create a good relationship with other bloggers. This can be useful when it comes to link building. A mutual understanding among writers is always helpful when it comes to link building.
-
Create Blog
Creating an interesting blog is another way to get links to your website. Many businesses have an additional blog related to their industry to get links. The blog should be active and promote it well so that it becomes popular and many visitors will start to visit your website from the links you provide on that website.
-
Directories
List your website in popular web directories. But when you add your business it should be in a directory that deals with your niche. This will improve your chance to get indexed in search engines. In addition to you are helping others to find more information regarding your website.
-
Guest Posts
Guest post is another way to be popular among other writers and visitors. If you can get a chance to write articles on popular websites its followers will start to recognize you and will start to follow your website if they like the content. You can add links to your website on guest posting sites and this will increase the number of quality backlinks towards your website.
-
Watch your Competitor’s
It is always better to research your competitors and the links they get. You can also try to get backlinks from those websites by approaching them. It is better to do good research on competitors as it will help to improve your website quality.
Wrapping Up
Google cannot neglect the backlinks of your website. This is still considered an important ranking factor even after an algorithm update. You can work to improve your content quality and wait for quality links to come towards your website or else follow those tips to achieve links with better quality. SEO is not dead yet.
As part of improving the quality of results, Google is implementing some guidelines everyone can follow. In short, we can say that links will be one of the important ranking factors.
What do you think about link building? Let us know about your link-building techniques so that others can also try them to improve their link quality and ranking.