The realm of link building in SEO is indeed a fascinating one. Throughout the years, it has hardly ever presented itself as straightforward or clear-cut. Instead, it has typically dwelled within a nebulous grey zone. Many agencies have found themselves in heated discussions about the most effective link-building strategies, in contrast to those that could potentially harm your organic rankings.

Even though discussions around link building continue, there’s a growing consensus in its understanding among most SEO agencies. They are largely adopting similar strategies to enhance their online presence and, ultimately, achieve organic success on Google.

Therefore, we’ve examined the best practices and pitfalls of link-building to help deepen your understanding of this process. Given that link building remains a critical factor in SEO, it’s crucial to master it correctly.

The Best Practices

Incorporating a variety of the following strategies can ensure that your link-building activities are organic and guide your website towards becoming an authoritative figure in the near future.

Assess the Link’s Worth

Before securing a link, it’s crucial to take time to understand its potential benefits and the purpose it serves. If the link is intended to enhance authority and SEO, identify the page where your link might appear and evaluate that URL using the various online tools available, such as Moz, Ahrefs, and SEM Rush. If the page has a substantial online authority score (preferably 20 or more), it’s worthwhile to acquire the link.

On the other hand, if the link is primarily for referral traffic, you can estimate the number of visitors the website attracts and the potential value it could bring to your site.

Procure Links from Brand Mentions

One of the most straightforward strategies to secure high-quality backlinks is to use various online SEO tools to identify websites that mention your company or website but don’t link back to it. You’re entirely justified in reaching out to the webmasters of these sites to request a backlink to your site.

Reach Out to Pertinent Websites

Interested in getting a backlink from a highly-regarded information site that aligns with your industry? If so, you can simply contact them, express your appreciation for their site, and inquire if they’d be willing to link back to your website.

However, it’s worth noting that this approach often yields a relatively low response rate – approximately 4%-7%. Therefore, it’s essential to have a strategy in place and only engage with sites that are relevant to your field.

Ultimately, there’s no harm in asking, and you might just hit the jackpot.

Sponsorships

While it’s seldom a cheap option, sponsoring charities and events is an excellent method to obtain new, high-quality backlinks for your website regardless of their size. This not only offers a chance for a quality backlink but also provides additional promotion, which is a valuable bonus.

Craft High-Quality Content

Though it demands time and patience to reap its rewards, nothing surpasses the power of generating fresh, high-quality content that others will repurpose on their sites. Publicise your unique content across various social media platforms and observe as other webmasters incorporate it. Link building at its finest.

The Practices to Avoid

Now let’s move on to link-building practices that are currently best to steer clear of.

Avoid Site-Wide Links

These tend to appear spammy as they usually result in hundreds, if not thousands, of backlinks to your site. Regardless of where your link is placed on the site, it’s advisable to steer clear of site-wide links. They can profoundly impact your authority score negatively.

Beware of Link Farms/Schemes/Private Blog Networks

Seeking to gain a large number of links instantaneously? This approach is highly discouraged and could lead to Google entirely banning your site. You’re not only suddenly amassing a high volume of backlinks, but they’re likely to appear on low-quality sites in remote parts of the world. It’s best to avoid this.

Don’t Demand Specific Anchor Text

This was a common practice years ago, but these days, asking for specific anchor text on your backlinks can lead to penalties. This is due to the spam-like nature of the links. Most sites linking back to your website are likely to use your company name or website URL as the anchor text, which appears more natural, rather than, for instance, ‘SEO Agency’.

Hence, if you’ve secured a backlink on a website, allow the webmaster to determine the anchor text. Ultimately, it’s likely to appear more natural than the anchor text you’d prefer to use.

Avoid Hidden Links

This involves acquiring links on a background that matches the font colour on the page. To put it simply, never engage in this practice.

Steer Clear of Automated Tools – While they may save you time in finding links, using automated tools to create links on websites isn’t advisable. The links you gain are typically low-quality and, frankly, tend to appear spammy.

So, there you have it, our guide to the best and worst practices for link building. We understand that everyone might have their own views on the most effective link-building practices to adopt or avoid, especially considering the fast-paced nature of the SEO landscape. Yet, that’s what makes this industry fascinating – everyone’s entitled to their opinion, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Let us know your thoughts, or get in touch to talk through how SEO Link Building can work for your business.