You’re probably familiar with the term “link building” if you’ve done any research on how to increase traffic to your business’s website. You know it can be an effective tactic in your search engine optimisation efforts, but it can be intimidating due to its technical nature.
I’ll let you in on a little secret that most search engine optimisation specialists won’t: creating links isn’t particularly technical. In reality, you can extrapolate your success in networking to link building.
Consider what goes into a typical conversation at a networking event: an engaging introduction, a discussion of mutual interests, a plan for how both parties’ businesses can profit from working together, and the inevitable exchange of business cards. When you network, you exchange business cards; when you establish links, you exchange backlinks.
Link building
connection building, in its simplest form, is the process of encouraging other websites to include a connection to your own. To elaborate, link building is the process of acquiring backlinks from reputable websites in an attempt to increase your site’s visibility in search engine results.
After defining it, let’s examine its significance. Your SEO strategy is not complete without link building. Links tell search engines that your site is an expert in its area. Google’s final goal is to return the most relevant and useful search results to users. There must be something worthwhile about your site if other sites are referring to it.
One example of natural link building is when another company stumbles across your illustration and includes a link to it in their blog post. While this may seem ideal since it requires no extra work on your part, it actually removes any say you may have had in the quality of the backlinks obtained. The objective is to increase your site’s credibility by gaining connections from authoritative sources.
Why is it so important to have backlinks?
The quality of a hyperlink varies greatly. It’s flattering when a company sees enough worth in your work to link back to your site, but you should prioritise links from authoritative sites.
A website’s domain authority is a numeric value between 0 and 100 that is dependent largely on the number of links pointing to it. Domain authority measures the quality of the websites that connect to a specific domain. Your domain reputation will likely rise if you obtain a one-of-a-kind backlink from one of these authoritative websites.
Domain authority measures the willingness of other websites to connect to yours and thus provides an indication of how credible your site is. With this in mind, how do you identify the best people to network with to maximise the returns from your link-building efforts?
How to Write a Powerful Email for Outreach?
Here’s where your people skills come in handy. You’ll get more out of your link-building efforts if you know exactly who to contact and how to pitch your message to them. How do you come up with a strategy that always works?
Choose your connections wisely. Don’t waste time networking with people who can’t help you get where you want to go. Seek out publications that regularly issue guest or roundup posts, in addition to aiming for high-value backlinks. The likelihood of them linking to your site increases if you discover they frequently feature guest posts.
• Make it your own: While email templates can save you time, if there is no personalization in the message, the recipient may realise they have gotten a generic email. Try to add a touch of individualization to each sales proposal you make, whether it’s by mentioning the prospect’s alma mater or praising a particular aspect of their website’s layout. At the very least, it should be crystal obvious that you’ve read through their material. A marketer just recently sent me a picture of himself perusing our blog, and we did end up providing a link back to his site.
• Show how valuable you are: Don’t just ask people to link to your material without explaining why doing so would benefit their own website. Ask if you can contribute material to fill a gap in their blog’s coverage if you’ve identified one. Include a note of your willingness to provide a backlink to their site from yours. Also, do everything in your power to ensure they can quickly and easily appreciate the worth you’re offering. For instance, if a blogger contacts us about contributing a guest post, we are much more likely to react if they include a list of potential post topics and links to published work.
There are more similarities between link building and networking than you might imagine. In order to establish your company as an expert in the eyes of your audience and search engines, you need to make the right connections, identify areas of opportunity, and offer a quid pro quo that benefits both parties.