An SEO tech engaged in link building

What is Link Building: An Introductory Guide to Link Building

M.C. Escher created masterpieces of precise, geometric optical illusions during his noteworthy career as a graphic artist.  When it came to crafting such accomplished feats of visual wonder, Escher said, “My work is a game, a very serious game.”  This gives you a bit of insight as to how SEO link building services work.

While we don’t approach search engine optimization (SEO) as a game, we do recognize some similarities. For instance, effective SEO must follow certain rules, and it should also factor in key players. One of these key players is link building.  So, if you’re asking, “What is link building?” we’re here to tell you it is an essential part of winning the serious game of superior, successful SEO.      

What is Link Building?

Link building is part of a full-spectrum SEO plan. It’s also a powerful piece of the strategy to stimulate more organic traffic and achieve higher ranking in search engine results for your website. 

To explain, search engines such as Google crawl through outgoing and incoming links on websites in order to determine several factors such as: A) What the content (article) or website is about, B) Determine the value of the content, C) Discover new websites on the internet, and D) Assess the quality of your entire website.

There are two primary types of links, internal and external. Internal links go out to an already existing article on your website. They serve to help users and search engines navigate through your entire site. Internal links also inform search engines as to the purpose, objective, and subject of an article and its website.

External links are a bit more tricky, but they are SEO gold.  As the name implies, an external link refers to a link from a website other than your own that is linking to an article, post, or page on your site. External links (also known as backlinks) weigh heavily in a search engine’s determination to evaluate and rank websites in search results.  

For instance, a website with many high-quality links from authority websites is deemed far more reputable and valuable than a site with low-quality or no links at all coming into their site.  Therefore, the site that has meritorious external links going into it is more likely to be rewarded that highly coveted first-page on Google page rank results.

When asking, “What is link building?” – think of it like this. Let’s say you own a website about how to care for puppies. Now let’s imagine a mega source like PetSmart’s blog, or an authority site in your niche like the American Kennel Club (AKC) links to your puppy website. 

When this happens, it’s a mammoth coup for your site’s traffic and ranking. Why? Because those external links indicate some heavy hitters in your niche are trusting your information enough to reference it with a link. It also means that a portion of traffic tonnage on those super-websites is going to your site.  

In essence, earning quality external links like this is akin to getting a “high-five” from other websites. Link-building is also a traffic-magnet and as such, it’s a big ingredient in the secret sauce of SEO.

Why is Link Building Important?

The importance of link building in SEO boils down to ramping up focused, organic traffic to your website via search engine results.  And let’s face it. When it comes to online success, big traffic is the ultimate brass ring all website owners are striving to catch. 

Link building is important for more than just optimal page rank in search results and driving more traffic to your site. The benefits of link building in SEO also include increased sales. To explain, when your site is linked from authority websites, it breeds trust, which converts visitors to your site into paying customers. 

Furthermore, successful link building helps to promote your brand.  High-value links into your site lends credence to your product or service.  In essence, link building can set you apart from your competition by building trust, traffic, authority and boosting your brand.

How Does Link Building Help SEO?

In the dinosaur days of SEO before Google even existed, establishing high web ranking was all about using keywords. Incorporating keywords throughout website pages was the easiest way to get found on the internet.  

Over time, this practice was abused and keyword stuffing (inappropriate or overuse of keywords in content) became a shady hack to win high ranking. This is known as “black hat” SEO because it’s a dubious way of getting traffic or better search engine ranks.

As a result of black hat practices, it became clear that a new way had to be devised to determine how web pages are ranked.  Enter the era of Google.  In 1996, Google developed an algorithm called PageRank, named after Google’s co-founder, Larry Page.  This algorithm dove deeply into pages, and assessed far more than just keywords.

Today, Google has around 200 factors when it comes to ranking websites.  These factors can be broken up into three categories: 1) Technical factors, such as website speed, performance, navigation, etc., 2) On-page factors, which deals with keyword usage, optimized images, length and quality of content, and 3) Off-page factors – this is where the benefits of link building in SEO comes into play.

PageRank and subsequent versions of Google algorithms analyze a website’s incoming and outgoing links and place strong emphasis on this off-page criteria, which influences outcomes of a website’s page rank. Simply put, a link back to your site from another website is a vote of confidence and frames you as a trusted authority in the eyes of Google.

Essentially, well-strategized link building informs Google and other search engines that a website is legitimate and worthy of higher rank.  That’s where white hat SEO link building becomes crucial. The reason being is because it’s the virtuous practice of implementing solid, respectable links so your online presence and brand are optimally assessed and ranked. 

What is a Backlink Profile?

As mentioned, a backlink is when a website other than your own links to your website.  Using our previous example with puppies, a backlink would be when a high authority website like the American Humane Society links to your puppy website as a resource.  Therefore, a backlink profile is the collection of links that points and connects visitors from an outside website to your own site. 

A backlink profile shows other details such as anchor text (the words clicked on with the link), types of links, relevance of links and quality of the originating website.  Ideally, your backlink profile should include relevant links from reputable websites.  Obviously, the more upstanding and high-integrity your backlink profile is, the better your organic traffic will be from search engine results.

How Do I Build Links to My Site?

That’s the million dollar question.  There are several different tactics to garnering the all-important backlinks to your website.  Some practices are better than others, but all of them take time, effort and patience. For example, you could contact a highly popular, well-trafficked website that is dominating your niche and ask if they could link to your website. 

Sounds simple, but the odds of you getting that link (much less a response to your email request) are slim.  What’s more, many mega-sites don’t often link to other sites out of the kindness of their hearts.  They link to sites with extraordinary quality, high traffic and good reputations.  Even in that perfect storm, many authority websites ask a fee for inserting external links from their sites to other sites.

A better option might be to write a guest post for a website you want a link from.  If the article is well written, niche-specific, and clearly of value to the website owner, they may publish it on their website with a link to yours.  This is a win-win option because your guest article adds quality content to their website (without their staff having to write it), and you get your external link.  However, as with straightforward link-insertions, some websites charge to accept guest posts.  

Furthermore, writing a guest article takes time, and it’s got to pass muster from the website owners.  Then there’s the same pickle about even getting your article read by the webmasters in the first place.  In many cases, emails from guest contributors are ignored and guest-written articles are often denied.

In truth, getting those coveted links can be time-consuming and arduous, and all your efforts may come to naught at the end of the day.  Therefore, your best bet is to partner with qualified SEO link building services. Why? Because an expert in the industry has long-standing connections and contacts. That means their requests for guest posts with your links or link insertions go directly to the decision makers.  In essence, working with a link-building professional means your site gets the authority links it needs to get that enviable top spot in the search engines.

Conclusion

There are over 1.7 billion websites on the internet today, with over 170 new websites launched every minute.  That means that by the time you’ve read this article about “What is link building?”, anywhere from 1200-2500 new websites have gone live online. The point to these mind-boggling numbers is to emphasize the vast competition that exists online.  

The good news is, you can beat out this competition because many of these website owners don’t know how to play the serious game of SEO.  What’s more, they don’t have an SEO company in their corner to help them navigate the harrowing world of link building and optimizing a website for superior success.

Our professional team at The Agency Engine have a combined 30+ years experience working in this industry.  We’ve worked with Fortune 500 companies to mom and pop startups in all manner of niches – and we consistently get results.  We’ll do the same for you. Why? Because we have the knowledge, skills, passion and drive to deliver the desired outcomes you deserve.

Give us a shout-out today. Tell us about your vision and expectations for your website, and we’ll show you how our battle-tested, multi-step approach to SEO link building will revolutionize your online presence in ways that will reap rewards far into the future.

An SEO tech working on a computer

What is SEO: An Introductory Guide to Search Engine Optimization

When asked, “What is SEO?” Most of us feel we’ve got a pretty good idea about the answer, right?  After all, search engine optimization (SEO) is a way to improve your website. Sure.

But in truth, SEO is so much more than that.  It’s about building and growing websites in purposeful ways to jockey for better, higher positioning in search engine results.  This result is a chain-reaction that ultimately drives high quality, high volume traffic to your website.

While this is the primary motivation behind SEO, it’s extremely oversimplified. In truth, there are a lot of factors when it comes to creating successful SEO strategies. Increasingly, the bar for SEO is rising and the stakes are equally high if you don’t employ proper SEO practices. 

Today, SEO has become a holistic practice that looks at the big picture. To meet the ever-changing climate and behavior of search engines, businesses need pro SEO strategies in place that “make the grade” in the eyes of heavy-hitting search engines such as Google.

What is SEO?

In a nutshell, SEO is the practice of turning your website into a mega traffic magnet. It’s also about optimizing your site to its maximum potential in order to appease the search engines without compromising on value to your readers.

SEO unites creative artistry with technical skill. It also requires critical thinking as well as being current with the latest trends and demands from search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Bing to render optimal outcomes. 

When answering the “What is SEO” question, we’ve got to consider the answer from a search engine’s point of view.  To elaborate, search engines have specific criteria when determining if your website is worthy of high rank on search results. 

Search engines analyze a website’s speed, security, keyword usage, user behavior, backlink profile, and even take link building and meta descriptions into account.  They are constantly assessing these and other factors in order to determine if a site satisfies criteria that deserves higher search engine result rankings. 

When all these factors are considered, a well-executed SEO strategy can get your website on that coveted, top, first-page rank as well as drive loads of organic, focused traffic to your website.

Why is SEO important?

If you’re wondering why SEO is so important to business, consider this; according to current internet statistics, there are 1.8 billion websites on the internet today. That number skyrockets by the minute because over 547,000 new websites are launched on the internet every day.

With this staggering amount of competition online, how do you get ahead? How can your website possibly cut through all the noise and rise above almost 2 billion other competing websites? 

In a word – superior SEO.  Done correctly, SEO is your business’s silver bullet in annihilating competition and getting seen by potential customers and clients during online searches.

Now, let’s ask another question. Are you stuck on the hamster wheel of pay per click or paid media advertising?  A masterful SEO plan is far more effective and powerful than paid ads because it magnetizes organic traffic to your site. What’s more, that organic traffic has a far longer lifespan on your site than paid ads, because once you stop feeding money into ad campaigns, that traffic stops too. 

In other words, smartly managed SEO content and practices generate natural, fresh, ongoing traffic to your site.  It’s an elegant solution for any type of website owner with a goal to grow their online presence for the long-haul.

What is On-Page SEO and Off-Page SEO?

On-page SEO entails making tweaks and improvements to your own personal website.  This includes writing SEO optimized page content and blog posts, adding targeted meta descriptions, tweaking H1’s and H2’s.  On-page SEO is the encompassing effort your site puts forth to say, “I am an authoritative source in X.” 

As you might expect, off-page SEO is about taking actions to boost your search engine results by methods not directly on your own website.  This includes getting quality external websites linking back to your website.  This is known as a backlink and it is how external websites say, “This website is an authority in X.” 

Starting to make sense?  A holistic strategy includes on-page and off-page SEO asserting your site as an authority in your respective category.  Combining both on-page and off-page SEO practices is an iron-clad way to establish your online brand and build your website’s gravitas online. A solid SEO plan of attack involves utilizing both on-page and off-page strategies to get optimum results. 

What is SEO Content?

Back in the 1990s, Microsoft founder Bill Gates coined the phrase, “Content is king.” Today, that statement is still as relevant and profound as it was back then.  SEO content refers to blog posts, landing pages, images, videos, etc. that are optimized in order to get you high scores with search engines.

There is an array of mind-numbing methods for transforming content into SEO royalty. One of the easiest and best ways to boost your standing in the search engines is by publishing incredibly valuable, high-quality content on your site’s blog. Consistent and regular blog posts that are keyword-focused and add value to your readers is Google gold. 

So, if you’re wondering, “Why is blogging important for SEO?” The answer is because it is your first and best weapon for slaying competition online. Why? Because Google is constantly striving to improve search results for its users. When it identifies your blog as crunching out superlative, consistent SEO content, you’re essentially spoon-feeding Google exactly what they want to provide for their online users.

Generate higher status and improved traffic by giving your readers killer SEO content that should: A) Solve a problem for your reader, B) Satisfy search engines in terms of user-friendliness, keyword use and optimization, C) Be a joy to read by your audience. 

Repeating this formula in your blog posts regularly with frequent publishing is an evergreen way to inform search engines that your blog is crushing it in terms of value.    

What is SEO Link Building?

Link building is the secret sauce to SEO that many website owners aren’t always privy to.  Ideally, link building should be organic, and it should be done because it can greatly improve your standing with search engines.  

A strong link building strategy means acquiring the highest quality ingoing and outgoing links for your site. Outgoing links, known as “authority links” should add value to your readers as well as underscore the topic of your post.

Acquiring quality ingoing links is just as important as the content on your website itself. Remember, ingoing links to your site is a vote of confidence and authority in the eyes of Google.  

The summation of your ingoing links is your backlink profile. This reflects how many and the quality of external websites that are linking to your website, and it’s a heavyweight in terms of informing Google how valuable your site is.

In a perfect world, your content is so stunning that other sites are constantly linking to your information. This, however, doesn’t always happen. Winning the hearts of quality websites that want to link to your site is difficult and time consuming.

You can reach out to site owners and request a link. But don’t be surprised if you don’t always get a response. More often than not, website owners are turning to  ethical SEO companies that have access to a trove of quality resources enabling them to conduct reliable, honest, superior backlink services for their clients.

Boosting the number of high-quality backlinks to your site is one of the biggest indications Google uses to deem your website worthy of top rank in search results. After all, if Google already holds a website in high esteem, and that site links to yours – it’s like an instant recommendation for your website.

Conclusion

If after reading this, you’re still wanting a definitive answer to the question, “What is SEO?” then conduct a little experiment.  The next time you do a search on Google, pay close attention to the sites that are top-ranked on the first page. Then consider the time, effort, strategy and knowledge that went into achieving that enviable position over the other billions of websites online.

With this in mind, you can see how a well-executed SEO strategy has the power to take a website from mediocrity to superstardom in terms of increased traffic, higher search engine ranking and overall online acclaim.  

So, if SEO is such a powerful tool, you might be wondering why everybody isn’t doing it.  In truth, the majority of business websites are implementing SEO.  However, they are either doing it incorrectly, or they aren’t approaching it with that “big picture” mentality that is so crucial to crushing the SEO game.Thankfully, you don’t have to trudge through endless research findings or scrutinize ever-changing Google criteria for top results. With the Agency Engine, you have an ally that can revolutionize your website’s performance through high-integrity, superior search engine optimization strategies.