Billions of people use search engines to find information about products and services daily. Of the leading search providers, Google holds an impressive worldwide market share of 88.6 percent. This is why businesses need to undertake search engine optimization (SEO) for Google Search. Link building is one of these SEO strategies.

What is Link Building?

Backlinks are links that point to your website from a third-party site. They can increase brand visibility, website traffic, and potential sales. Link building is the process of obtaining backlinks to your page or site by promoting it to other website owners. Link building is a powerful SEO strategy that offers an excellent return on investment (ROI).

Some SEO agencies specialize in link building. Link building agencies typically offer services that include keyword research, competitor analysis, website outreach, content writing, and campaign tracking. Because link building is a time-consuming and technical process that requires a certain level of expertise, many businesses outsource their link building efforts.

How Search Engines Use Links For Ranking

When a search user inputs certain keywords into Google Search, the search engine database responds with all the pages that are relevant to these keywords. Because there can be hundreds or thousands of search results, Google needs to determine which pages to display first.

Characteristics of a page such as structure, content length, keyword density, accessibility, and more, can help Google to determine the quality of a page. Search engines want to provide the most relevant and informative content to their users, so the highest quality pages typically rank closer to the top.

Another method used by search engines to establish page quality is backlinks. You may have heard the expression “you are only as good as the company you keep.” Backlinks work a similar way. Google decides how credible your page is by examining the quality of the pages that link to it.

Certain sites are high domain authority (DA) sites. This means that search engines consider these sites reputable and trustworthy. When your page receives several backlinks from high-DA sites, it will rank better in Google’s algorithm and display earlier in search engine result pages.

How To Find High Quality Links

Given that backlinks are so helpful for SEO, it is imperative to build a foundation of quality links that point to your site. However, this can be easier said than done. Most high-DA sites do not entertain link requests and there is rarely a reason for another site to link to yours.

While you can easily purchase backlinks from disreputable link-posting sites, many of these sites are blacklisted by Google for spam content and will adversely affect your search ranking. Therefore, your link building efforts must focus on gaining valid links on genuine pages.

The best way to earn high-quality backlinks is to create unique and appealing content. Certain content formulas such as unique research, statistics and infographics, and guides are known to generate a large amount of reader shares and backlinks.

Some high-DA publications like the New York Times or Buzzfeed will accept guest blogs and article submissions. If you send a compelling pitch to the editor of these publications, you may receive the chance to write for them and earn a backlink to your site in return.

Competitor research is another way to find opportunities to obtain high-quality backlinks. Using free or paid backlink checking tools, you can analyze your competitors’ link profiles and get a list of their backlinks. You can then contact the best of these sites and try to get a backlink.

You can sometimes also find high-quality link prospects on existing pages. These pages may have mentioned your brand and you can request that they add a link to your site. Other pages may have links to outdated content and you can recommend that they link to updated content on your site instead.

A large portion of link building rests on making connections with bloggers and publications. Outreach is a big part of the link building process. This is why many businesses turn to link building agencies that have the existing relationships to get content published quickly.

Other Benefits of Link Building

Aside from significantly improving search engine rankings, link building provides other benefits as well. Having your link on multiple sites on the web will expose your brand or products to a larger audience. The more visible your brand is, the more traffic you will receive, and the more leads you have to convert into paying customers.

All brands want to be considered leaders in their industry. Having a good supply of backlinks from established sites will establish your brand as a voice of authority. Bolstering your reputation will increase consumer trust and lead to a marked improvement in your sales and revenue.

Finally, a considerable benefit of link building is that it lasts for a long time. The ROI of link building is phenomenal. Unlike advertising, you only need to invest a small amount of time and effort to gain a backlink and the links will continue to work for you for years to come.

Google Search has allowed brands to connect with consumers on a massive scale. However, competition on search engine result pages is fierce. With link building SEO techniques, businesses can get ahead of the pack and rank at the top of search engine results.