Benefits of Link Building

Link building is a marketing strategy in which a company seeks to increase the quality and quantity of inbound links from other websites to theirs to increase its search engine ranking and domain authority. 

A recent link-building study found that 67.5% of SEO strategists believe that backlinks significantly impact search engine rankings, and 85% believe they greatly impact brand authority. However, 95% of all pages online have no incoming links pointing to their site, meaning they are missing out on the incredible benefits of link building. 

Backlinks are essential to the success of a business. Relevant links will increase organic traffic, help to grow your brand, set you apart as an expert within your industry, increase your conversion rates and increase your revenue over time.
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What is link building? 

The final goal of link building is acquiring or building hyperlinks from other sites that link to your site in an effort to increase referral traffic. However, the process is much more complex than just requesting a link from another website. Today the focus has shifted from generating as many inbound links as possible to an updated goal of obtaining high-quality links from high authority sites with high domain authority scores. 

Links from spam sites may increase the number of links directing to your page, but they will actually hurt you in the long run as search engines recognize unreliable sites trying to cheat the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) system. 

A link building campaign will help with Search Engine Optimization by boosting your search results within google search and other search engines. They also help increase your domain rating and build trust among your target audience and potential customers. Better SEO increases the likelihood of converting your target audience to potential customers. 

According to a 2021 marketing report by Hubspot, 75% of internet users do not scroll past the first page of search engine results. To generate more traffic, it is essential to be on the first page of a search for all keywords pertinent to your company. However, getting to the first page is a challenging task and will require a solid link building strategy. 

There are many different link building strategies you can utilize. Some of the most popular and effectual link building strategies include: 
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• Digital PR is creating valuable content for journalists, then reaching out to them requesting they utilize your content and link it back to you as a source.
• HARO (or help a reporter out) is the process of helping reporters answer questions and obtaining links from the information you provide. 
• Social Media Backlinks are links to your company shared through social media platforms. These links may not necessarily increase traffic, but they increase brand recognition and trust, which can help to grow the business over time. 
• Skyscraper Linkable Assets is finding relevant content with the highest rank, finding its' weakness, creating something better, and requesting site owners link to your content instead. 
• Statistic Site Content is utilizing data and statistics to obtain links from relevant websites with high domain authority. 
• Guest Blogging/Guest Post is writing content for another company's web page or blog and signing your name and company information for recognition. 
• Broken Link Building is the process of finding internal and external broken links and taking steps to repair them. 
• Link Reclamation is finding unlinked mentions and requesting the site changes their mention of your content to a hyperlink to your content.  
• Resource Pages and Listicles are content that provides a large amount of valuable content within one page and serves as a great resource for readers. 
• Unlinked Mentions are mentions of your company on other web pages and the process of finding the mentions and building links by working to change them into links to your website and content. 
• Internal link building is creating links to pages and content within your website. 

The more link building strategies you utilize, the more benefits you will reap from the process. However, link building will not work on its own. Once users are directed to your page, you must deliver quality content that is relevant to your target audience and adds value to the information already available online. 

Some examples of content that attracts the most readers and drives traffic include; 
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• Data-Driven Content 
• HARO (Help a Reporter Out)
• Debunking Myths 
• Emotional Content
• Evergreen Content
• Reverse Image Search Opportunities
• Green Content 
• Expert Content
• Niche Content 
• Press Releases/PR Outreach 
• Product Reviews
• Trending Content 
• Seasonal Content
• Co-branded Content 
• Complete Guides 

11 Benefits of Link Building 

Link building is a complicated strategy that takes a lot of patience. However, many benefits will come from the process and make it worth it, especially if you are utilizing experts to help throughout the process. 

We will cover 11 significant benefits of link building that demonstrate how these strategies can make a difference for your business. 
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1. Increase Domain Authority/Rating and Search Rankings  

Increasing your search engine ranking and domain authority is one of the essential benefits of link building. Domain authority is a search engine score developed by Moz, that measures your website's relevance within your niche. A higher domain authority means you will rank higher within searches relevant to your industry. 

You can achieve higher domain authority by increasing the number of quality backlinks that lead to your page. However, you want to ensure that the backlinks you obtain are from relevant websites with high domain authority and are trusted. Some links can hurt your domain authority, so it is essential to monitor and ensure no spam sites are linking to your content. Spam links can hinder and negate your link building efforts. 

Also, ensure that your content is relevant to your niche and contains pertinent keywords to add to your SEO efforts. 
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2. Build Trust and a Better Reputation

There are two ways link building can increase your trust and improve your reputation. 

The first is building a better reputation among users. For example, if you are browsing a popular website you frequent, and they link to a similar page, you will likely trust that linked site and its content. 

The second is search engine trust. Depending on the search engine and platform, a trust score is referred to as MozTrust, Authority Score, etc. Much like how people will trust your site if a trusted site links to it, the same goes for search engines. In addition, if you are linked by sites that spam links, it can lower your search engine trust score and, therefore SERP (search engine results page) ranking.
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3. Increase Organic Traffic 

Link building increases organic traffic in two ways. The first is directly through the link itself. When you obtain links from a website that generates a lot of user traffic, chances are that link will also generate traffic to your site.

In addition, links from high-traffic, high-authority pages will increase your SERP ranking, in turn generating more traffic for your website through that route as well. 
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4. Build Your Brand 

Building your brand does not directly influence traffic to your site. However, boosting your customer reach and gaining brand recognition and trust is essential. Links from complementary websites will help build relationships with potential customers before visiting your website. 

To successfully build your brand, you must ensure you pitch to websites relevant to your company and have a good reputation. It is essential to be consistent because the more you are linked, the more opportunity you have to gain trust and grow leads. 
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5. Increase Revenue Opportunities

It is simple math the more people who visit your website, the more opportunities you have for leads that can turn into sales and increase your revenue.

There are ways to track conversions and incoming traffic to pinpoint the most influential links and capitalize on them. However, when starting, you want to ensure you are targeting relevant traffic and attracting users to your webpage who will be genuinely interested in your product. 
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6. Grow Relationships Within Your Industry 

Link building outreach will help to build beneficial relationships. During the outreach process, when you are looking for companies to pitch your content to, chances are you will select ones that are successful in your industry. These companies can serve as a resource to help you grow your company outside of just content exchange. 

Utilize the advice and help given during the outreach process to help your company succeed in its' link building endeavor. 

Also, once you are established, return the favor and link back to those who helped you. A mutually beneficial arrangement will help you become a trusted resource in your industry. 

7. Increase Referral Traffic 

There are many ways to increase referral traffic, all of which are investments. However, one of the most significant benefits of link building is it will continue to bring referral traffic even after a campaign is complete. 

Unlike paid ads, you don't have to continue to renew and spend money. Once you have obtained a link, it will continue to live on that webpage indefinitely (unless of course, it breaks, but there is a link building strategy for that too). 

In addition, the more referral traffic you generate from other web pages, the better it will be for your domain authority. 

8. Lower Bounce Rates 

A bounce rate is the percentage of users that come to your page and leave without visiting any other page on your site. They are important because a search engine will view a high bounce rate as a sign the content is not relevant or valuable to their search. A high bounce rate can affect your search engine ranking. 

You want to link to relevant content within your website to lower your bounce rate. These links allow users to view additional information while staying within your website. There are other benefits to internal links as well. They include; 

- Allowing users to easily navigate your content efficiently and effectively, improving user experience, 
- They help your website build a hierarchy and allow for better content organization. 

It is essential to utilize relevant keywords and phrases for your anchor text to ensure it directs readers towards content that interests them. 
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9. Increase Content Value

Links are a great way to increase content value, especially for more complex and detailed content. You can create internal links that direct users to more detailed content about a specific word to help them learn the definition or more detailed content about a particular step within a process. 

For example, if you are reading content about link building and a website mentions a specific strategy, it could link to a page that gives a detailed description of that strategy and how to implement it. This action increases the value for the reader, while also helping you gain more traffic and lower bounce rates.  
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10. Gain More Social Media Followers 

Social media is an excellent tool for growing brand recognition and trust. There are many strategies to gain more social media followers, one of which is effective link building. 

A few key things to help you be successful with social media link building include; 
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• Including links within your web pages that direct users to your social media platforms. 
• Including links at the end of articles and blog posts that encourage readers to follow you on social media platforms and even subscribe to your email lists.  
• Posting on social media platforms and encouraging your followers to share. 

Remember that even though social media has a low conversion rate, it will help increase brand visibility and is essential to any marketing campaign. Having people in your industry know who you are and trust you is a great way to increase sales over time. 
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11. Increase Your Crawl Rate (Get Page Indexed Faster) 

Though crawl rate and indexing are slightly different, they are a great pair to focus on within a marketing strategy. Link building can help you increase your crawl rate (the discovery of your page) and get your pages indexed faster (sorted, analyzed, and cataloged). 

Crawling is the process search engines use to find and update pages. For example, Google uses a web crawler called Googlebot , which travels from links to capture the information contained in web pages. Crawling is prioritized by page popularity (how many pages link to you), the quality of your content, and how frequently your content is updated. 

Once the crawling process is complete, your page will be indexed, which is organizing and storing information found within your pages. The information is cataloged based on content, links, and metadata.  

Obtaining quality links from high authority websites helps your pages get indexed quickly because search engines will view your pages as valuable and containing quality content web users will want to view. 

A high crawl rate and fast indexing will get your pages higher on search engine results pages and increase your traffic. 
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Enjoy the benefits of link building today! 

The benefits of link building will continue to compound and grow over time, so it must become part of your online marketing strategy. However, the process can be time-consuming and difficult if not done properly. 

A great option to ensure successful link building that provides the most significant benefits is to outsource to professionals with a successful history of linking and knowledge of SEO strategy.