What is Link Building?
If it sounds like something you do when making paper chains with your little ones or crafting beautiful necklaces, then you’ll need a little introduction to one of Google’s most important site ranking factors. Link building in SEO terms is the process of acquiring links that lead people to your site; this not only increases your visibility but has a positive effect on ranking and how high up you appear in a Google search. Let me explain where these links come from.
Let's say you make baby headbands and other accessories for children, and your local paper writes a piece on your business on their online news site, which includes a link to your site. That’s a good one. Beyond the publicity received from the article and social media likes and shares, this link counts as a vote of confidence (or a point) with Google. The more votes you get, the higher your ranking will be.
Why Do I Need to Build Links?
Here’s where we get into the why of link building: It’s one of Google’s top ranking factors in its infamous algorithm. Moz.com calls links the streets between pages. When search engines crawl the web and figure out how to position sites, links provide vital clues as to what your company is all about and how many other sites give you a vote of confidence.
Through analyzing links, search engines can see the popularity of websites and their individual pages based on the number of votes and the popularity of the pages linking back to them. Metrics like trust and authority are vital. You don’t want to be associated with just anybody, which is why you don’t want a black hat SEO company promising to build you multiple links in a short space of time, as you’re likely to incur a Google penalty. If the sites linking to you are classified as spam (over 60% of the Internet is estimated to be spam), then your site will be tarnished with the same brush.
Trustworthy sites link to other trustworthy sites. So you don’t want to be (metaphorically) getting into bed with just anyone here. It’s like who you hung out with at school. Do you want to be associated with the cheap and tacky girls who got bad grades and frequently played hooky? Or do you want to be in the same class as the studious, respectable kids?