Link Building – Short Conceptual Explanation

Link building is a SEO technique. It involves using hyperlinks throughout the content. Those hyperlinks lead to other websites, like blog articles. It is an important SEO technique because it enables search engines, like Google, to comb through the web more effectively, which in turn can cause the website that is being linked to to show up earlier in search results.

How link building works

Link building is the practice of placing links that lead to other websites inside a piece of content. In some cases, that link may lead back to another page on the same website, although this technique is a little less effective. They are most often used in blog post writing.

Links are placed throughout the article using words or phrases that relate to the link. For the reader, links provide a way to gather more information. However, search engines also use links to learn more about the web.

Link Building – Short Conceptual Explanation
How search engines use links

How search engines use links

Search engines are always crawling the web, looking for new content to add to the search results page. They also continuously comb through catalogued pages to adjust where that content ends up on the search engine results page.

Links act like streets between pages, leading the search engine from one page to the next. Just like busy streets are more well-known and popular, so are web pages that have many links on many other websites. If a piece of content has numerous different links on the web, the search engine will rank that content higher, which means it is more likely to rank well in search results.

How link building can boost SEO

Link building can be a very difficult SEO strategy. It can be difficult for a site to do link building that will directly benefit their site. When creating content, the links should lead to other sites, so businesses have to find ways to get their links in other content that is not their own.

Some content producers offer this as a service. For example, they will create content for a business that will be posted somewhere else on the web so links can be utilized that point back to their website. Other businesses develop partnerships with the sole purpose of including links throughout each other’s content.

Adding links to content on a website that points somewhere else still has benefits for businesses that include:

  • Building authority in a specific niche
  • Sending referral traffic to the site
  • Helping a business network with other industry leaders
How link building can boost SEO

The quality of the links that are used throughout a piece of Internet content is important. When using links throughout content, it is important to choose links that are trusted, which means they rank high in domain authority.

It is also important to include links from diverse locations around the web. The link has to be relevant to the content, and there cannot be too many. If the page is bogged down with countless links, search engines will assume they are not valuable, and in turn, will not deem the content valuable.

Functionality is also important to consider while doing link building. URLs can change and some content can be pulled from the web. It is important that all the links within a piece of content are functional, which means regular reviews of link functionality in the content on a website is important.