Sustainable Link Building Strategies for More High-Quality Backlinks

1. Why is link building important?
2. What types of backlinks are there?
3. From the backlink to the link profile
4. Why is a link building strategy important?
5. What should you pay attention to nowadays when building links?
6. Caution is advised: What does Google say?
7. What link building strategies are sustainable?
8. What are the best link building tools?
9. Conclusion

Link building is like an eternal construction site with an agile character. As a key feature of offpage optimization, link building is not done through one-time actions, but is a time-intensive measure with high quality requirements. To successfully master link building, you therefore need a well thought-out strategy and that's exactly what you'll find here.

Why is link building important?

Link building as offpage optimization describes the generation of backlinks, also known as referrals. These are links that refer from other pages to your website. Similar to the principle of the h-index in scientific circles - i.e., the more publications a scientist is cited, the higher his h-index and the more significant the publication - Google also wants to classify the value of your content.

Links are therefore important because they help determine which page has the highest relevance to a search query among thousands or more.

With active link building you can achieve the following goals:

• More traffic from organic search
• More traffic through referrals
• Increase in brand awareness

In principle, the more external sites link to your content, the more important it becomes. If done correctly, link building is a White-Hat SEO tactic and one of the best ways to strengthen your online presence.

What types of backlinks are there?

• Textlink: Clickable text - the link is linked in the anchor text and checked by Google for relevance
• Imagelink: Clickable image - A photo or graphic, linked to a link
• Blogroll-Link: Practical link for bloggers who link to other blogs and websites via this link
• Social Signal: Backlink that comes from a social network and also has ranking influence
• DoFollow-Link: Links that the Google Crawler follows in principle and is analyzed accordingly
• NoFollow-Link: Links with NoFollow attribute tell the search engine not to follow or evaluate this link
• Clearlink: The link is shown in written form - as in the search bar of the browser
• Surfacelink: A link as a direct link to the homepage
• Deeplink: Links that do not lead to the homepage of a website, but specifically target a sub-page

From the backlink to the link profile

Each website has a certain link profile, which reveals important information about the character of a website. Both the quantity, but even more the quality of referrals determine the link profile and are tracked and evaluated by Google. The following factors play an important role:

Domain popularity

The popularity of a domain indicates how many different domains link to a website. The more different domains, the higher the domain popularity.

Domain Authority

The Domain Authority is given as a value in a scale from 1 to 100. The value indicates how important a domain is that links to a website and how good its placement on Google is.

Link Popularity

Link popularity counts the number of pages that link to a website. In addition to quantity, quality is especially crucial. If a large number of highly relevant and thematically related links point to a website, its link popularity increases.

Page Authority

The Page Authority also has a strong influence on the link profile. The quality of the content is particularly important here. If it offers uniqueness and added value, e.g. due to guest contributions from top experts, the influence of this website increases.

Topical Relevance

Topical Relevance describes the importance of a website for a specific topic, which is reflected in the form of content, keywords and backlinks. This is about the evaluation of a topic in a comprehensive view, which ideally provides in-depth information and additional content.

Why is a link building strategy important?

Link building is not a job of a few hours, but an ever-present approach to redirect other websites to your own. Therefore, it is important to stick to a concrete concept in order to achieve the goal: More high-quality links, more authority and visibility for your own website.

The knowledge that links are a key ranking factor is not new, but rather a faithful constant in the Google algorithm. Therefore, pursuing the factor strategically pays off and should be implemented in every economically operated online presence.

What should you pay attention to nowadays when building links?

In the past, link building was a fairly simple business: links were included against money on link farms and as soon as websites had a sufficiently large number of backlinks, this had a positive influence on the placement in the SERPs.

Then came Google's Penguin Update, which took major steps against web spam. Link networks were phased out and rankings built on them collapsed like a house of cards. Since then, even more has happened, qualitative SEO has become increasingly prominent and even Google is increasingly focusing and mechanizing on content that clearly reveals the added value for users.

The days when so-called DoFollow links were sold off at bazaars are therefore over. And if we stick with pictorial equivalents, then link building is most comparable to the career of a sushi master:

• Observing
• Getting familiar with the tools
• Constantly pursuing passion
• Never stop learning

By the way, Google also naturally wants to maintain its position as the most popular search engine. This makes it a bit clearer why the Californian search technology is making a lot of effort to only boost stellar content.

Caution is advised: What does Google say?

Although link networks no longer function as ranking boosters, there are still many ways to engage in link spamming and use other gray areas for better placement. Although the Google algorithm can't immediately recognize every technique, the regulation is not asleep.

Therefore, we stay thematically a bit longer with our search friend Google and take a look at the Google spam guidelines.

The rule available in the Google Search Central clearly illustrates which link tricks are not in the interest of the users and are being actively dismantled. Lower ranking or complete exclusion from search results can be the consequence.

Google's attitude on the subject is as follows:

Link spam

Links play an important role in determining the relevance of web pages. Trying to manipulate the ranking in Google search results via links can be classified as link spam. This includes all measures to manipulate links to your site or outgoing links from your site.

Google categorises as link spam, among others, links that are exchanged against money, goods, services or reviews, excessive link exchange, the use of automated link systems and hidden links in signature, footer and keywords.

Google also doesn’t particularly like links of poorer quality. If, for example, a paragraph of text merely serves to accumulate linked keywords, which in turn redirect to different websites, this can lead to devaluations. The rulebook provides the following example:

The short text is linked in five places. Although everything here revolves around the same main topic, offering qualitative information and equally qualitative links to wedding rings, flowers and wedding dresses in just two lines is unbelievable for Google and confuses users.

What link building strategies are sustainable?

As always, there is no universal recipe for successful link building. Much more there is a bouquet of quality features, systemic top shots and quantitative factors that can help you to the pole position. For this, we would like to inform you about the foundation of link building and mention targeted activities, which you can include in your strategy.

Content is still king

The foundation for link building and the actual challenge lies in the regular production of content, the quality of which is unique in your niche. These contents bear a telling designation:

Linkable Assets

Linkable Assets are contents of any kind that are of particular relevance to your target group, uniquely stand out from the mass and are therefore naturally more often linked and clicked. However, to create such killer content, you need to know exactly what your users need, what problems they are dealing with or how you provide grandiose entertainment.

But what exactly triggers people to link an asset? If you are just building up your website, your brand, and your blog, you should take extra time to find out.

Usually some clues indicate why other webmasters voluntarily link with your contents:

• The content provides a solution to a specific problem
• The asset provides a special perspective on a specific topic
• You offer a special tool, gadget or goodie
• You can entertain your audience in a very special way
• You inspire your target audience
• The content is informative and has brilliant hacks at hand

Linkable Assets are thus not quickly cobbled together short texts, but very extensive guides, elaborate graphics, mini-apps or video tutorials. The creation of such content is therefore very time-intensive and hardly possible without technical expertise.

But in your business, you are the professionals, so out with it. Make use of your expertise and give official character to your expert status.

Content that meets these criteria is also called Hero-, Pillar-, or Pillar content. As a rule, it is sufficient for the start, if you produce a handful of Hero-Content and then benefit from the success over a longer period. The marketing runs, as already mentioned, according to the Cash Cow principle, without great influence. Of course, even more so through standardized and permanent Content Marketing.

In reference to the listed clues, the principle works especially for the following assets:

Infographics

Infographics are marvels in information design with a great entertainment effect. Even complex data and correlations can be visualized appealingly. For this reason, they are the perfect means to get your expertise on the screen, build links and increase your awareness. They can also be shared wonderfully, used for social media and can be offered to potential link givers.

Online Tools & Calculators

Small tools and calculators are other assets whose natural link does not stand in the way. Again, the effort is very high, or you need a corresponding budget for the development of such an interactive tool.

This some examples:

• https://www.bequiet.com/de/psucalculator
• http://www.fastprint.co.uk/adobe-shortcut-mapper/
• https://coolors.co/340068-ff6978-fffcf9-b1ede8-6d435a

Rankings

Rankings and Top 10 Reports have a magnetic effect when it comes to networking your content. Entrepreneurs who are just dealing with the construction of a corporate blog and come across the following headline: The 38 best Corporate Blogs, will surely click on the article to get inspired and return when more in-depth information is needed, or a paid service is unavoidable.

Studies & Whitepapers

Tangible numbers or new insights in the form of studies are also excellent ways to be gladly linked. However, the creation of these link magnets usually requires a high budget and already established authority in certain industries.

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Product Samples & Goodies

A proven alternative to the much more elaborate creation of infographics, studies or mini-tools is to offer free goodies or smaller services, or to exchange them for links. There are no limits to your creativity here and even smaller freebies show their effect.

Like the other assets, goodies are not only a wonderful way to expand the backlink profile, but also serve as a lead magnet for your target group.

Glossaries

With the help of a glossary, you can not only explain your world, but also use it for the generation of links, by providing non-sales-neutral information that will gladly be linked. They are also a great way to improve your internal linking.

Here you can also accommodate everything that makes your market and has ranking quality: keywords, expertise and material for new content. It is also worth continuously updating a glossary and adding more long tail keywords and trends.

Blogging

Basically, the above-mentioned assets have a home: your blog. Regardless of whether you produce video tutorials or prepare important study results from other thought leaders and make them more accessible to your target group. In any case, you are feeding the authority of your website and providing crucial blogging material. This in turn supports the basic machinery for backlinks and internal link structures. In short: the blog is crucial for sustainable link building.

The blog is also a wonderful opportunity to invite experts, influencers and other bloggers to create great content together with you. If you are a neo-blogger, unfortunately it is often difficult to get a foot in the door with larger brands. Therefore, turn to smaller sites in the beginning and help each other in this way to earn a name.

It is even easier to create a blog post about external content or other bloggers, in which you list the best postings/websites/personalities on a decisive topic. Afterwards you only need to draw the attention of the mentioned webmasters or personalities.

Content Promotion

Since you still want to gain recognition and maybe still deal with a lot of new content that doesn't always spread automatically on the net, you can actively promote link building through content promotion.

In doing so, it still applies that the content has to be convincing, should overflow with quality and should not skimp on uniqueness. If this is the case, you can actively promote your assets and support social interaction.

Networks & Social Media

Content that is not only waiting to be consumed on your own website, but is available on various networks, naturally increases the chance of interaction. So help your target audience to find valuable content more easily and become active!

Your business profiles on social networks like Twitter, Instagram & Co are the base for this, as well as regular posting of posts, news, image and graphic material. Regular activities also help fundamentally to secure trust in your labels, which in turn supports your link building measures.

Outreach

Another possibility for content promotion in the service of link building is networking with potential link sources. Outreach stands for contacting external networks and organizations, specifically asking for backlinks. Again, for this there are numerous sub-strategies in the net, from writing guest articles, to the skyscraper or moving man technique.

Basically, they all have one thing in common: You have a post with a "Wow effect" and ask website operators to link to it, to replace less good ones with your content or to redirect false or outdated references to your page.

In order to convince other organizations of your professional sovereignty, it is indispensable to present the right evidence of expertise and seriousness at the right time.

In this sense, outreach inquiries usually take place through highly personalized e-mails. In them, you can show that you have dealt intensively with the link source and have significant benefits for the desired content consumers as a perfect link partner.

Accordingly, outreach does not only serve link building, but is also a good opportunity to do networking and promote your acquaintance.

Branding and positioning beyond the Internet

We have already mentioned that regular blogging and producing outstanding content is most effective when you really have something to say. For this, you don't have to be certified experts or scientists, but only prove yourself as heroes of your industry or niche. So it's about passion, which can be felt.

In order to let passion flow, you have to know what's inside of you. What is your brand saying? What vision do you want to spread and what do you have to offer?

Only when you have clearly positioned yourself, know your USP, benefits and target group, will you be able to market yourself cleverly. Then it will also be irrelevant where you give your advice, through a blog, in the form of webinars, expert talks or through classic PR measures. In any case, these measures are an investment in your brand and indirectly in natural backlinks.

Internal Linking

The quality of internal linking is also part of a full-fledged link building strategy. Here, too, it pays off if you are already good at blogging. Targeted internal links direct the attention of your visitors to the most important contents. Also, the Google Crawler uses the internal link structure to link your contents together, to determine the most relevant pages and to play them.

Especially new pages can show strength and quality through internal links. By regularly creating new content, you can promote this process specifically.

Internal links are also quickly set and cost nothing, they are very user-friendly, promote orientation and are absolutely risk-free.

When doing internal linking, be sure to use speaking anchor texts. Neutral or uninformative link texts such as: Here we go, more or to the product are not very helpful in link building. The link text to our article with the title: What is an SEO Redirect and how is the forwarding implemented correctly? Therefore, it does not read: Here we go to the article, but: SEO Redirect or perhaps SEO Redirect article .

As another basic rule for link texts is good readability. Although you could theoretically accommodate many keywords in a text link, if it doesn't fit the context and sounds unnatural, the link reference is probably unused.

Competitor Analysis

The wheel does not need to be reinvented, but rather analyzed, replicated and improved. So: What does the competition do? By analyzing links from adequate pages that are already ranking well, you can find out which measures you can take yourself.

Before you take on this task, you should first know your competitors. While you can identify them manually via Google and check all the links is quite time-consuming. The competitive analysis with suitable SEO tools, which we present to you below, works much easier.

These tools usually find out with a few clicks who your competitors are, where their references come from, which terms and anchor texts are used and how much traffic the referring sites cause.

In addition to the number of incoming links, you can also retrieve the authority with which these sites are classified and which topics shine the most.

Once you know who your competition is and what backlinks they use, you can reproduce a mirror image. It is also important to uncover the structure and strategy of the competitor. Perhaps the link tactics of another person are based on a completely different profile, which doesn't make sense in your strategy. A gaming influencer might have paid placement from strong manufacturers, while newcomers in game design find it difficult to generate backlinks from large video game companies.

If you have identified useful sources, it is again up to you to contact these pages and simply offer more than already exists.

What are the best link building tools?

For systematic link building you should get a few tools that support you in link analysis and rank monitoring. Some provide a test subscription or offer at least a few free features that make your work considerably easier. Detailed descriptions of the mentioned software, along with ratings from real users, can be found in the OMR reviews.

Semrush

The cloud-based tool Semrush can be quickly used by you and offers a free trial period of seven days. During this time, you can quickly convince yourself of the many advantages of the uncomplicated software, which offers an SEO tool kit, functions for competitive analysis and support for your content marketing. Tricks and trainings from Semrush can be found on the Semrush YouTube channel.

For expanding your backlinks just use the link building kit, enter your domain and one of a competitor and let Semrush show you with one click how many domains and backlinks go to the respective sites:

Ahrefs

Support for link building, SERP rank tracking and competitive analysis can also be found at Ahrefs. In our Ahrefs Reviews the software is also referred to as the Swiss Army knife for SEO. Whether this also applies to your needs, you can find out best yourself and use the free webmaster tool for this. Even more power you can ascend through fee-based packages starting at $ 99 per month.

To learn all the features of Ahrefs, new tutorials are available weekly on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AhrefsCom. So there is more than just one video guide available for the topic of link building: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNUxzKZE6K8

Moz Pro

Higher ranking, traffic with quality and measurable success promises you Moz Pro. For this, the software provides a practical keyword explorer, link builder and shows you opportunities on how to improve the link profile.

In addition to the fee-based packages, there is also a free feature available. The Free SEO Competitive Analysis Tool quickly informs you about Domain Authority, Page Authority and Keyword Positions of any URL:

Majestic

With Majesticyou also have a SEO assistant at hand, who shows great tools for link building. Depending on the frequency of use, different packages are available to you, the smallest of them costing you € 46.99 per month. To immerse yourself in trends and techniques of Majestic, you have a comprehensive library available on YouTube.

For a first taste, you can try the free link search and display Trust Flow and Citation Flow of a website:

Other tools that support you in link building:

• Sitecheck
• SEO Spyglass

And a few more in our Offpage SEO Software category.

Conclusion

Link building is a very wide spectrum that offers many paths to success. However, this does not show from one day to the next and therefore requires a strategy that fits both the business and you over a longer period.

As part of the process, it may be to analyze competitors to determine which websites link there and what kind of content and links could also work for your business. The tools shown provide good support in this task. They help to retrieve the status quo of your own website and show chances for optimization.

An effective strategy to win qualitative backlinks and to enhance your link profile was and still is an active blog. Feeding it with high-quality content that is worth more than already available a hundred times on the net, is a valuable basis for the continuous generation of natural links with quality. Through the active distribution of your linkable assets in the sense of your link building strategy, you can even get better results.

Google is investigating at least 200 factors to rate the ranking of a page. We do not know them all, but the number of high-quality backlinks, backed by killer content, impresses not only the search engine, but also gives your audience what they are looking for.