The Big Picture
You can scour the internet looking for a SEO link building service and come up with a lot of junk. Link building should be a part of any good internet marketing strategy, but it has to be done right. In this blog I’m going to run through a list of techniques that can help your website’s domain authority and presence on the internet increase in an organic way, while keeping you BFF with Google. Because in the end, we’re all just trying to do what Google likes, right?
What’s The Goal?
Let’s start by answering this question: What are you really trying to accomplish with link building? Your main goal of link building is to drive relevant traffic to your website through valuable links from credible websites. It’s all about earning links instead of gathering links. To put this in simple terms, it’s the difference between submitting your URL to a link farm and gaining 1,000 links to your site, versus building relationships with other bloggers and businesses in your industry and landing a guest blog or an anchor text in a relevant part of another company’s website. Your best bet is to try to land a link on a website that has a domain authority over 40/100 or higher. Here is a tool that will help you find the domain authority of a website. It’s called Open Site Explorer.
The “Do Not’s”
Now that you have a good idea of what link building is, let’s go through a comparison of old “Link Building” compared to the new technique, “Link Earning.” These are two very different ways to acquire links to your site. The old school model (link building) is fading away as the Google algorithm is putting more weight on quality links then quantity of links. In this video Rand Fishkin walks us trough the difference of link building vs. link earning. Pay close attention to the comparison between both methods and jot down the techniques you are using right now. When the video is done, go back and see how much of your link building work is landing you in the link building section rather than the link earning section.
Here is a list that compares the two methods. On the left you’ll see the old techniques of link building vs. the new techniques of link earning.
Link exchanges/Reciprocal links vs. Cross Promotion + Partnership
Email blasts for links vs. Social sharing that lead to links
Buying links directly vs. Earning links directly with content
Submitting to directories vs. Requesting inclusion on curated lists
Article directories vs. Getting a guest post on “picky” sites/blogs
Leaving links on forums and guest blogs vs. Participating in active forum communities (being authentic)
Mining competitor’s backlinks vs. Mining competitive content
Building a network of sites for links vs. Building a social network of influencers
Do have an SEO link building service doing any of the link building techniques for your company listed on the left? These old techniques can damage your site and in some cases completely drop your site off the map of Google search and lose valuable SERP ranking. Google wants quality over quantity. It’s about building relationships with others and gaining valuable links through guest blogging or anchor text.
It Comes Down To What Google Wants
Remember, acquiring links from guest posts, blogs, and anchor text is the best way to go and part of a good internet marketing strategy. You may have hired an SEO link building service that is using techniques that just aren’t going to work anymore. With the new Google algorithm, having links that are earned instead of gathered will benefit your website now and in the future, so find a trustworthy company that has your best interests in mind – while considering Google’s too. Alright, it’s your turn. Go out there and earn some quality links! Don’t cheat the system, Google will find you.
