There are two parts of a search engine optimization campaign. The first involves keyword research and optimizing the actual website by incorporating selected keywords naturally into the content and meta tags of each page of the website. Once a site has been optimized properly, the next part is link building. Relevant, inbound links pointing to a website establish search engine trust. In order to find SEO success long term, it’s important to build these links in a variety of ways.
Every link-building tactic is significant and it’s important to build a diverse link portfolio. Relying too heavily on one or two link-building tactics means that you are not spreading out your online real estate and there are fewer opportunities to attract target audience members. It also leaves you more vulnerable to search engine algorithm updates. The search engines are constantly tweaking the algorithm, changing how they value particular links. A diverse approach protects you from losing all of your link authority at once, which would have a severe impact on your search engine ranking.
While it’s important to build links from relevant sources on an ongoing basis, there is really only so much that you can do. In order to really kick your link building into high gear, you need others to help you out. Links that occur naturally and are shared by others on their Web properties and through social media can really give your website that link boost that it needs to compete in the search engines.
The links that others are most likely to notice and pass along to their audience are the links to content that provides them with some kind of benefit. For this reason, content marketing is the foundation of a link-building campaign. Without a strong content marketing component, a link-building strategy is stifled. There are only so many quality directories and local business profiles to submit your website information to. In order to build your brand and your links online, it’s necessary to produce content that can include blog posts, articles, videos, white papers, E-books, and guides. These resources have the best chance of being linked to by others over time.
While content is an extremely important part of link building, it’s important do more than merely pump out content to try to build links. Content is what helps to build your brand and establishes you and your company as a trusted thought leader in your industry. If the content that you produce and share isn’t of good quality, people will notice and your brand reputation will suffer. Spend time creating content that is actually valuable. It’s better to produce one great blog post that has unique insights and is well thought out and researched than ten that don’t really provide anything new. Focus on quality and focus on the end user and natural links will grow over time.
