Websites have been slaughtered lately with the algorithm updates by Google.
In particular, Google made it very clear in the March 2024 update that they were not tolerating AI content that was intended to manipulate search engines – human curated or not.
Along with the link spam update rolling out in a few months.
Now chances are – you probably already know what link building is.
It’s among the key drivers of organic traffic to any website. In fact – according to statistics by uSERP, 67.5% of website SEOs believe that link building has a huge impact on their search engine rankings.
But then thing is, you really need to do it right.
While link-building is really as simple as having other websites link back to your site, many people fall into the trap (whether out of ignorance or laziness) of spammy and low-quality link-building strategies. This could be detrimental to your online business as users continue to choose relevant, authentic, and quality content.
So if you’re doing anything less than building relevant, high-quality links, then know that the Google algorithm will come your way in June 2024. They are seriously cracking the whip and penalising sites for low-quality link-building techniques.
That’s why I’ll be breaking down the importance of link building and how you can start to building genuine links in 2024.
Let’s get started.
So, What is Link Building?
Link building is a strategy that involves acquiring high-quality links from other websites to your site.
To understand link building, we must first define a “link.” Also known as a backlink or hyperlink, a link connects two sites for easier navigation.
Links can be in the form of texts or images. The web page or site it directs you to is usually relevant to the text or image. The text that contains the link to another web page is referred to as the anchor text.
During the link-building process, you create and increase the number of inbound links to your site.
Why is Link Building important?
Search engines use backlinks to discover new web pages to recommend on their result pages. Your backlinks also determine where your website ranks on the search results.
Think of backlinks as votes of confidence for your online business. Search engine algorithms view backlinks as a measure of your site’s authority. The more recommendations your site has through backlinks, the more trustworthy your business is in the online space.
As I mentioned earlier, quality link building involves more than posting generic backlinks to your site everywhere online. Not all links are good links, and more does not always mean better (see here for how many backlinks you really need).
In addition to backlinks, Google and other search engines consider many other factors when crawling your website.
Some of these factors include the authority of the site, the relevance of the link and anchor text.
For example, let’s say your business is in the AI chatbot niche. A good link would be:
- From a high Domain Rating (DR) site in the chatbot space.
- The link would be placed in a relevant article like “2024 chatbot trends”, and
- The anchor text would semantically relate to the linked article itself.
Quality link building, also known as white-hat link building, involves placing backlinks to your website only when it’s relevant and helpful to the user.
As such, you need to ask yourself the following questions when you’re link-building for your site:
- How authoritative is the website you’re placing your link in? Is the site relevant to the niche?
- Does the article where you place your link cover the same topic as your site?
- Is the site itself a high-quality site you’d be proud to be featured in? I call this the common sense check since you definitely have sites hacking the authority game with really bad sites.
A note on DA/DR
An authoritative website is a trustworthy source that offers credible information to users. You’ll typically look at the Moz Domain Authority (DA) score of 0-100 or the Ahrefs Domain Rating (DR) score of 0-100. The higher the number, the more authoritative the site.
Link building remains one of the biggest strategies in search engine optimization. Quality backlinks could make a difference in helping your site rank ahead of your business competitors.
It’s also a key strategy now more than ever as Google tries to differentiate a “quality site” in a world full of spammy AI-generated content.
So, what are the main benefits of link building?
4 Benefits of Link Building
Now that you understand why link building is important, let’s look at some of its main benefits. Link building can:
- Boost your ranking on search engines
- Bring more organic traffic
- Build brand credibility
- Minimize bounce rates
1. Boost Your Ranking on Search engines
As I mentioned, backlinks are some of the essential factors that determine your rankings on search engine result pages. In fact, they’re among Google’s top 3 ranking factors.
You might have some of the most valuable web pages online, but your site won’t rank on search engines without high-quality backlinks.
Yes, it’s possible that if you have valuable and relevant information, then other site owners will eventually find your site and link back to your web pages.
But it’s 2024 and this simply won’t work unless people already know your website. Either way, you’ll still need to direct great eff