How To Start Linkbuilding For Better Rankings And A Higher Business Profile

Linkbuilding and content are two of the most important elements of any search engine optimisation strategy. Of course, many people already know about dealing with these two in isolation, but there are still plenty of website owners who don’t necessarily understand how the two parts relate to each other. There’s a tendency to prioritise content over link building. But in fact, in some respects, it’s much better to actively work on your link building package before you publish your content.

Link building is one of the most important tactics of any good SEO strategy because high quality backlinks demonstrate to Google that yours is a site that is authoritative, respected by other website owners, and therefore worthy of showing to its searchers. A good quality link building strategy can rocket your pages up the search engine rankings. But the emphasis is on ‘good quality’. There’s little mileage in earning a load of links from newly established or small-time websites with limited audiences. What you want are several decent backlinks from sites that have a higher domain authority than your own.

And this is where creating content with link building at the forefront of your mind is important. Here’s a few ideas on how to combine content planning with link building to make your website more authoritative and high profile in the form of achieving higher rankings.

Keyword Research

The starting point for most SEO link building packages is to create a list of keywords that are relevant to your business. Identify baseline themes and keywords that you can work up into relevant blogs posts and web pages. Then, analyse each of your keywords in terms of different areas like search volume, searcher intent, and competition level. Doing this enables you to prioritise the right target keywords for your business to maximise the results.

Examine your competitors’ pages

Be mindful of the search engine results page (SERP) competition. Analyse the pages of your competitors that are ranking better than yours for your chosen keywords. You can also look at the actual search results as a guide to the right type of SEO content to create.

Start content creation

Now you know what keywords your business wants to rank highly for, and what your competitors have posted for the same or similar keywords and phrases, you can aim to create better content that’s both high-quality and optimised for user intent. Remember to ensure your content directly answers your searchers’ intent, and aim to fill the gaps in your audience’s knowledge with your insight and expertise in the field you’re working in. Doing this means you’ll be much better placed to attract more authoritative links.

Content Development

If you have already written certain pages with your target keywords, aim to make ongoing improvements to these pages, again in a similar way as you do when creating a content page from scratch. Freshen up the content from time to time in line with current trends in your business – don’t just post it and forget about it. And ensure that the structure of each page is optimised – more on this later.

Where To Find Good Quality Links

As any decent SEO company will tell you, acquiring hyperlinks is a common technique which contributes to the online exposure of companies’ websites. If done properly and in line with Google’s best practice guidelines, your SEO link building efforts will definitely pay off. On the downside, though, if you build or attract bad links, it’s possible Google will impose penalties. Once this happens, it’s a long road back to rebuild your reputation and authority in the search engine’s eyes.

So how do you ensure you’re building or attracting good quality links? There’s plenty to consider here, not least where you should be seeking to place links on external websites that will link back to your own. Regardless of whether you’re handling your SEO in-house or are taking advantage of SEO link building packages from an external agency, it’s important you know where it’s best to build your links. We next suggest a few of the best places for building links for SEO purposes:

1. Forums

Online forums of all kinds are increasingly popular today as the internet becomes more and more interactive. Your customers are now far more likely than ever to want to express opinions, ask questions and look for advice from others. So forums are a great place to start looking for the creation of links back to your own website.

Don’t just choose any forums, though. Look for ones that are related to the nature of your business operations and that appear to be reputable. If you run a garage, for instance, you could look for owners’ clubs for specific car makes. If you’re running a café or leisure facility, you could seek out tourist forums talking about your area. Perhaps you can find relevant threads on question-and-answer sites like Quora. When you find an active, busy forum that’s relevant to your business, don’t join in any discussion and immediately start placing your inbound links.

What you can do instead is begin answering questions, stating your opinions, sharing your insights, and generally adding answers and comments that can help other online users. Then in the signature, add your name and website URL.

If you find an online user has asked a direct question which needs a detailed and longer answer, you can use this as a starting point for an entry in your blog. If this user has this question, others might have too, so your blog can be dedicated to providing them with your expert knowledge and experience in that topic. Once you’ve done this, reply to the question on the forum and include the link back to your blog entry. This way, you are not only promoting your website and increasing traffic to it, but you’re also acquiring inbound links.

2. Video platforms

Video platforms like YouTube are good places for your SEO link building activities too. Whenever you upload a video to your own channel, it gives you the opportunity to include links back to your website. And if you’re fortunate enough for any of your videos to go viral, that will enormously improve the value of your links. Either way, online users will always view and share good quality videos, increasing your profile. If you don’t have the tech or the know-how to create videos in-house, look for a complete link building package that includes this as part of its service.

3. Blogs

There are two types of blog you should be looking for in order to promote your link building strategy. The first is a blog that focuses on topics related to your business operations. Read through what’s been posted and look for any gaps that you could fill. You can then ask the blog owner if you can be a guest or a regular contributor for them. By writing more substantial blog articles on others’ sites, you will enhance your link building process. Some affordable SEO packages offered by agencies may include this in the services they provide to you.

The second good type of blog you can source and use for link building is one focusing on topics you are personally passionate and knowledgeable about. Again, if you run a garage, this blog might be about a particular make and model of car you’re interested in, for example. Once you’ve found a blog like this, go straight to the discussion section. You can post your comments here and express your interest in contributing your own blog articles as well.

4. Social Media Sites

Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are great vehicles for SEO because Google sees these as authoritative too. However, many companies tend to overlook their potential when executing link building packages UK wide, because they’re busy focusing on other aspects of their SEO and link building. Engage with several social media sites when you’re looking for opportunities for SEO link building. Bear in mind that this will also enable you to reach out to more users who regularly use their social media accounts and keep them updated with what’s new in your industry or your business.

5. Website directories

Look for reliable and organised website directories. It’s best if these directories are specifically related to your niche or your local area, because these are ideal places to make online users aware of your existence as a business. Even though some website directories were indexed and received lower rankings by Google after it implemented its first Penguin update, they are still recommended places for raising your business profile.

The best link building packages will include some or all of these strategies, which are guaranteed to be both reliable and white-hat by nature. In other words, attracting and placing links in these sources won’t subject you to any penalties from Google. On the contrary, in time you’ll find you’re benefitting from higher rankings in the search results and also, more online users will learn about the existence of your company.

A Final Note

When you’re link building, never lose sight of your on-page optimisation. Whether you handle your SEO in-house or are using link building services packages from an SEO agency, make sure you or they are getting all the technical elements right on your own website. This will make the most of the backlinks you generate. You or your SEO expert should also be optimising headers, page speed, URL structures, and other technicalities while auditing your site or creating new pages.

Nowadays, many business owners and SEO experts alike are well aware of the value of successful link building, but there are still some who don’t fully understand what’s involved in achieving this. For proper guidance, choose a dedicated and reputable SEO agency like ours here at Position1SEO. We’ve been working on link acquisition as part of our overall SEO strategies for many years now. We can help raise your business profile and gain you better results in the search engines’ rankings.

For more information on our services and details on our link building packages prices, with or without wider search engine optimisation, contact us today on 0141 404 7515 or use the contact form on our website at https://position1seo.co.uk/contact/. We’re always happy to show you how we’ve helped other clients achieve success and give you a quote for what we could do for you.