In the past, link building was often seen as a trick to get higher in the search results. However, search engines today are increasingly able to tell the difference between links earned (because people want to link to you) and links obtained through link building. This article is about the danger of old link building tricks and the art of new link building.
What is link building again?
Link building includes all methods of getting links to your website. For search engines, backlinks, the links that other websites make to your website, are important for the position in the search results. The amount of backlinks to a page is seen as a measure of the relevance of the page. Investing in link building is therefore important to get higher in the search results.
Google’s updates
The effective methods of link building often change. This is because Google wants websites to rank high in the search results because they offer visitors relevant content. Google believes that pages with good content do not need a link building campaign. If your content is good enough, people will link to it voluntarily.
With updates, Google regularly changes the way the results are ordered. These updates listen to names such as ‘ Penguin ‘ and ‘ Panda ‘. The way Google assesses backlinks has changed a lot in the past year.
Link building: old versus new
The old methods of link building do not or hardly work anymore. Backlinks from article directories or start pages are ‘artificially’ obtained links. After all, webmasters can submit their own website to numerous directories. If you only have these kinds of artificial backlinks, Google can even lower your page rank. That is why it is important to thoroughly screen your link building campaign.
The idea is to no longer obtain backlinks but to ‘earn’ them. The basic idea is that your website has content that is so interesting that other websites would like to link to it. As you buy backlinks you need to understand the followings now.
The shape needs to be adjusted
Taking the time to create and distribute fun content is important now. But this doesn’t mean that the old link building methods can be completely forgotten. The shape just needs to be adjusted. SEOmoz , a giant in the search engine optimization industry, has interesting suggestions on what new style link building should look like. The six tips below show the most important changes within link building.
Cross promotion
Exchanging links between websites was a popular way to get more links quickly. Google hardly cares about backlinks like this anymore. Collaboration with websites and blogs relevant to your company is therefore much more valuable.