Golden Tricks for SEO Link Building

How to generate links for SEO?

The authority of a web depends directly on the number of pages that link it, the authority of these pages, the level of thematic similarity between your website and the one that links you and other factors related to the content that surrounds the link, as its anchor text (link text), the words that surround it and even the position that the link occupies within the content.

That is why much of the SEO work, in addition to optimizing the web and its content, is the generation of links with the purpose of increasing the authority of the web and improving its positioning. This practice is known as link building.

In this chapter we will focus on what Google values ​​of the links, why people link to other websites and the main ways to get a link, including the main link building tactics. 

How Google interprets a link

 When the Google robot crawls a website, it pays special attention to the links it finds and "follows" them by going to the page they link and analyzing it as well. Links work as votes in an election, roughly if you have more links, you have more chances to go first.

It is necessary to know that there are many factors that determine the value of a link, many hypotheses about points that could influence and some discrepancies between professionals. The most important points are: 

Relevance

 A link of a page that speaks of a theme similar to yours gives you more value than another that speaks of a totally different topic. For example, if the most reputable chocolate cookie page in the world links to your dessert website, it will be much more valuable than a generalist newspaper link, even if it has more authority. 

Authority

 If we consider that the quality of each link is the same, a website that is linked by 100 other sites will have more value than another one that has 10.  

Trust

 Google chooses some websites of the highest confidence (institutions, universities, government, etc.) for their robots to start a search. These pages have a maximum trust value. Google follows the links on these pages and discovers new websites. The more intermediate websites there are between the initials and you, the less confidence Google will give you.

All in all, it is more important to generate links to pages with great authority, relevance and trust than to build links without any type of filter. 

How has the link building changed?

 “Google only wants you after everyone else loves you.”

Wendy Piersall

A few years ago the link building was done automatically by signatures with links in forums, bots that commented on publications in a random way inserting links, exchange of links, and a series of easily scalable techniques that nowadays do not give results. The latest updates of the search engine (especially the Google Penguin versions) have focused on better identifying these unnatural patterns and not only do not transmit value, but penalize the SEO of a website.

The speed with which Google changes forces us to consider not only what Google values ​​now, but what points work now but can be penalized in the coming months. In general it will help us to put ourselves in the shoes of Google: Your business is to offer its users the best possible result for a question, the links are just a way to identify it, so we have to start by creating a content that really is the best answer to that question before looking for shortcuts.

If you really get it, that content will receive links without effort, and if the page is optimized you will start uploading positions in Google. 

Why do we link?

 First of all, it is important to understand the psychology behind a link. The links do not usually come from the desperate attempts to get it, rather, the large pages that have the most huge links profiles do not usually get them actively: people simply link them.

The generation of passive links is when your page receives links without an external effort to obtain them. But why would they link you?

·         You are relevant: This happens to brands like Coca Cola, Sony, or those that are very relevant in some niches.

·         You are an authority: If you are a reference within your industry, you will get links from people who link you to complement content.

·         You add value: People put links in articles, news or portals to offer additional value or complementary information. If with what you do you offer a value that complements the content of others or generates new / interesting information such as news, they will link you.

·         They appreciate you: It may be your friend or someone your content falls in love with. In any case, this relationship can lead to a link.

·         Partners: When two people collaborate and therefore the improvement of one is good for the other, it is normal that they link with each other, since this can improve the SEO of both domains. WATCH OUT! Do not force this technique. The exchange of links is punishable by Google. Many pages have a specific section for partners and commercial agreements. Pay attention to possible alliances. 

·       Others: It can happen that people link you because they hate you, because they want to launch a criticism against you or because you are relevant for a negative reason. This is not a type of link that will benefit you in the long term, because it damages your brand and because in the medium term Google could detect that it contains a negative feeling.

In short, it generates relationships with those who see your content, it adds value, it becomes an authority and, finally, it becomes relevant. This is the path to a page with a great link profile that generates SEO traffic. 

Link building tactics

 There are specific link building tactics that can help us to systematize our task and generate a greater benefit for a web, but always starting from a main idea: think of the user, generate good content with the key words in mind and share it. 

Through content

This technique condenses what we call passive linkage obtaining in the previous point. It consists of improving your content in a way that provides value and is a source that everyone wants to link. A variant, the link baiting, involves generating specific content with the purpose of generating attention and more links. Within the link baiting we include the creation of infographics, controversial websites, reports and studies, etc. 

Through contacts

A person or organization has a series of relationships that they have built over time. The more connected you are, the more relationships you have established. And these relationships can be transferred to the online world in the form of links.

For example, it is very possible that among your closest relatives or friends, several have blogs or other types of web. It is normal for employees of a company to have their own page. It is normal for distributors, customers and people who provide service to an organization to have an online presence.

Therefore, it is important that an SEO is well connected and always has a good number of contacts in the online sector. Do not see it as asking for a favor, but as a way to add value with your website to another page. 

For example, in the case of a restaurant, you could try to have your staff and your trusted clients with websites link to them from them. You could contact suppliers and associates to request that they put us in the sections of their websites dedicated to it. We could even go to bloggers' conventions to invite the most important ones to eat for free or with an offer to obtain mentions and links. 

Directories and social repositories

These are all the pages in which you can put a link to your page through a registration or a registration. This is one of the most dangerous points in SEO, since there are hundreds of free resources on the web, but they are potentially harmful to our page.

There are good and bad directories and repositories; the maximum to know if they are positive for us is: Will it bring traffic from people who click on the link?

In general, a link that generates this type of traffic will be positive. If what you want is SEO value, focus on the following points:

1.      Niche Directories: Niche directories are those that try to provide information on a very specific sector. For example, technology blog directories or technology company directories. Here you can even put lists or compilations that fulfill the same function in pages or blogs, for example: "The best marketing agencies in Spain". Here we could try to communicate with the author to justify why he should include ours or try to reach him by other means.

2.      Local directories: These are especially relevant for local businesses such as restaurants, bars, driving schools, etc. Google reviews many of these directories to verify information about your business, and the activity and comments that are generated in them have a great influence.

Some examples of local directories:

·         Google Plus Local

·         Yelp!

·         Yellow Pages

·         Tripadvisor

·         Social Networks

Most social networks allow you to generate a link to your website, and most are indexable to Google. This does not mean that you have to create a profile in every network that exists, but that you make sure that you take advantage of your social presence in this sense in the channels that make sense to use for your website. Google+ has a huge effect on the positioning of a website, showed as the latest studies.

However, do not forget that the main SEO benefit of social networks is indirect: The diffusion of your content makes it easier to receive links, so Social Networks are in a way a passive link building tool, and a complement to active.

3.      Content aggregators and social bookmarking: These are pages that are dedicated to trying to cure the contents of the web, either through user votes, popularity in social networks or other factors.

The really popular sites are interesting, not because of the SEO benefit they can bring, but because they can generate traffic spikes for thousands of visits from the public that you can build loyalty.

4.      Guest Blogging: Guest blogging is a technique by which a blogger writes in an external blog in exchange for popularity, and sometimes, to include links to other pages. If you have a blog or your page includes one this technique can be the most effective as long as you take it seriously. It is necessary that you contribute a real value to the blogs in which you write, only in this way you will get your post to be disseminated and get a greater reach for the story you want to tell. 

Tip: Reserve your best posts for blogs where you will get more visibility, not yours. If you are going to include links, try not to appear stuck with shoehorn, but links to some valuable resource or websites that complement the reading. The guest blogging can not be a form of link spam, and putting a link in the bio is not as effective and is susceptible to be detected by algorithms.

5.      Sponsorships: NGO sponsorships, popular initiatives, or holding events to take care of Corporate Social Responsibility can be a great way to generate links and contribute to the improvement of your environment. People love linking to charities or philanthropic events, so partnering with them is also positive at an SEO level. Make sure that if you are doing actions of this type you can give an SEO return, either creating your own page if it is something of the organization or web, or ensuring that the collaboration also materializes in a link. 

6.      Broken Link Building: The broken link building consists of identifying broken links on third-party websites and recommending a series of options to the web master that include pages from our own website. For this we look for links in pages, niches and themes similar to ours, identify possible links and get in touch with webmasters. It is worth noting that it is one of the most scalable and effective tactics currently, so we recommend that you read this spectacular broken link building guide from MOZ and become an expert. 

Conclusion

 In short, although link building is one of the legs of SEO, it is not something that can be done separately to the company: you need content, be relevant, and make contacts. If all this is done correctly, and also seen from an SEO perspective, you can achieve wonders. However, an SEO team can never correctly improve the positioning of a page without on-page changes and without fierce support from communication and marketing.

At Rebel Corp – a Miami SEO marketing agency – with the help of our professional ppc consultant we can help you find the potential websites for link building and more to stand out and target your potential readers.

Author Bio_JasonMayoral

Jason Mayoral has been actively involved in SEO and Internet marketing since 1999. Jason's knowledge and experience have made him one of the most respected and referenced SEO's in the industry and his passion for innovation and growth has led his company, rebelCorp.us , to become one of the world's leading online marketing firms.