Backlinks (external links or inbound links) are authority votes that boost rankings and traffic. This article will explain their significance to SEO and digital success.
Whether business or personal brand, moving your business online is a must-do in this digital era. But with over 200M active websites in 2024. How can you stand out?
How can you achieve digital success?
This is where link building (and SEO) can be instrumental.
What is link building? Just how crucial is building links to digital success?
Let’s find out…
What Is Link Building?
Link building means building backlinks to a website from other websites.
The method or strategy might vary. But whatever you do, as long as you get upvotesfrom an external web page to yours, that is link building.
Alternatively, you can think of link building as the basis of a referral system.
For example, we have featured services here on Legiit. They are trusted services that we occasionally use and get results with.
Now, we recommend those services to businesses and registered emails on our platform.
In other words, we send backlinks to boost the visibility and sales of the services. That is how link building works.
But let's see a streamlined process: how link building relates to digital success (i.e., search engine optimization).
Link Building for SEO: How Do Links Work in Search Engines?
In this video, “How Search Works,” Matt Cutts [former Head of Webspam Team, Google] said:
“...spiders fetch web pages then follow the links on them to crawl & index billions of pages during a search…”
Deductively, links are fundamental to how search engines work. They are not just upvotesbut navigation paths to discover and index web pages.
FYI: the importance of link building in seo does not stop at information discovery and storage. The spiders extract the information on the crawled pages. They use that to decide 3 signals:
1. The quality of the content on the page
2. The number of external websites linking to the page (link quality)
3. The quality (or authority) of the external websites
Together, the signals aid how search engines perceive your pages/websites.
Why Does Link Building Matter to SEO & Digital Success?
Backlinks as a Ranking Factor
Backlinks have been established as a ranking factor as far back as 2016. Andretti Lipattsev [Partner Development Manager, Google] revealed they are the top 2 major ranking factors.
In this hangout video, "Google Q&A," Andrey, in his reply [skip to 30:30 in the video] to Ammon John's question, said:
"...content and links pointing to your site, in no particular order, are the top 2 ranking factors."
But looking at backlinks' importance to SEO in 2024, why is link building important for seo — given that 2016 is such a long time ago?
Plus, there have been several algorithm updates since 2016. So, it all begs the question: are backlinks still a ranking factor? Are incoming links still relevant?
Short answer: yes!
Despite the several updates to how Google and other search engines work, external links still matter. In fact, they are still "top 3" ranking factors.
In light of new factors such as "content freshness" and "trustworthiness," backlinks dropped from the "top 2" to "top 3" — FirstPageSage.
If you ask me, top 3 is a big deal.
Fun fact: backlinks are the cornerstone of Google's dominance in the search engine industry. Using PageRank, a system built on links, Google answers queries with relevant results — more than other search engines.
First Page Results Have More Backlinks
Before I explain how backlinks contribute to page 1 results, let’s discuss why being on page 1 is crucial to digital success.
- For starters, 53.3% of all traffic comes from organic search
- 71.33% of searches result in page 1 organic click
- The no. 1 result alone carts away 27.6% of clicks
Digital success revolves around visibility and then sales. Clicks are crucial for both cases. Hence, being on page 1 is essential.
Now, let’s see how does link building help SEO.
Using data from Ahrefs, Backlinko analyzed 11.8M search results. In the top 5 findings, backlink-related info appeared thrice.
Let's start with points 1 & 5 — Domain Rating (DR). What does it mean?
DR is one of Ahrefs’ SEO metrics. According to Ahrefs, it is a score of a website's backlink profile or link popularity. The higher the score, the better the chances of ranking high on search engines.
Also, the diversity of the links is just as crucial as the popularity. The former is even more so. Otherwise, SEOs will only get thousands of backlinks pointing to their pages from a single authoritative site.
So, can you see how links matter yet?
Moving on to the REAL gist: point 2…
No. 1 results on the SERPs (search result pages) have more backlinks than other results on page 1.
Another study by Semrush analyzed 28K new websites. They found that 55.1% of sites will never get to page 1 without a backlink.
Bottom line: backlinks are crucial to higher rankings, traffic, and clicks.
Exposure and Relationship
Undoubtedly, the primary benefit of link building is SEO and rankings. But beyond that, it also helps with exposure.
Imagine getting a high quality link from Business Insider, for example.
Your services or brand name will get to BI’s vast readers. I might not know the exact figure of that. But look at BI's organic traffic in the last 30 days. 16.9M!
Imagine getting seen by 16.9 million people.
Say the same person visited the site 5 times. We’ll still be looking at a 3.38M unique audience.
Some of them will become hooked on your brand or promote your business.
A reasonable share of the 3.38M audience might buy whatever you sell. Either way, you can't lose from the exposure.
And here's the beauty of it all: the more links you build, the better your relationship with most site owners and journalists. Over time, you'll earn brand mentions without actively buying links.
In a nutshell, link building matters to search engines and digital success. If you're not convinced, check these proofs.
Link Building Result at a Glance
We Jumped From Spot 8-9 to #1 for a Competitive SEO Term
We used one of the link builders on our own website: Legiit. We jumped from spot 8-9 to #1 for the term "buy PBN links." This feat is even more exciting since our competitors include heavyweights of backlinks like Outreach Monks and SirLinksalot. Also, the seller didn't use any of the spammy link building techniques.
Interestingly, we started seeing an increase in rankings in less than a month.
Ahrefs Removed Backlinks; Rankings & Traffic Dropped
In contrast to what we did at Legiit, Ahrefs tested the importance of link building by removing them. In total, they removed 3,476 links across 3 blog posts.
Immediately, rankings dropped.
The disavow file was uploaded on August 17, 2021. And the sharp decline can be seen on this graph.
After a month (September 14, 2021), Ahrefs added the backlinks (removed the disavow file) to confirm the findings. Unsurprisingly, the rankings increased immediately.
Verdict
Both results/studies confirmed the significance of link building on SEO and digital success. Adding backlinks boosts rankings while removing them will result in drops.
But not all links work. Adding just any backlinks to your site and money pages from a random linking page won't help. You have to go at it the RIGHT way.
What is the right way to generate links?
Check this short guide to link building.
Website Link Building: 5 Top Link Building Strategies
Guest Posting & Content Marketing
Irrespective of the divisive opinion about guest posting, it remains one of the best link building tactics. And that’s not just my view.
According to AIRA’s State of Link Building, 2022, 47% of SEOs use guest blogging as their go-to backlink technique. You only have to do it right.
How?
- Guest post on relevant websites.
- Go to Google, type “niche + guest post” into the search bar
- Prioritize sites with high domain authority and referral traffic
- Take Buffer for an example
- Verify that your target is not a spammy site where SEOs dump links; use a sample linked page. Do they also have high quality inbound links?
- Most importantly, create value with your guest posts.
- Lastly, link your guest posts to similar helpful content on your website — best if that is non-gated.
For content marketing:
Before guest posting, ensure your blog is rich with helpful, link worthy content. Create a mix of TOFU (top of the funnel), MOFU (middle of the funnel), and BOFU (bottom of the funnel) articles.
In other words, create content to guide readers and prospects along your marketing funnel — from awareness to purchase. Also, ensure you adopt best internal linking practices.
Learn more about internal link building...
Furthermore, do more than just articles.
1. Repurpose your blog post into infographics.
2. Repurpose your articles into social media posts and videos.
3. Turn divisive ideas into surveys to build rapport and go viral.
Otherwise, you might run out of content ideas.
Related reading: How to Go Viral on TikTok
Overall, invest in inbound content as much as your guest posts. This way, you can attract links effortlessly from authority sites.
Broken Link Building (BLB)
Unlike guest posting, BLB is hardly about you. In contrast, you are helping other sites. How?
BLB involves finding broken links on someone else's site, pointing their attention to it, and then offering to fix the issue.
In a nutshell, broken link building is a win-win link building strategy. The target fixes what would have affected user experience without lifting a finger. On the other hand, you get a backlink.
So, how do you build links with BLB?
One of the common link building strategies here is targeting resource pages. Since they often contain several links, the chances are that some will be broken.
However, resource pages often have low domain authority. Use Ahrefs Content Explorer instead.
Follow these steps:
- Choose a broad topic or keyword — niche-related, of course. For this example, I'll pick "link building."
- Now, go to Ahrefs Content Explorer — note: you need a subscription
- Type the keyword into the search bar > change "everywhere" to "in title."
- Change the filter from “live & broken” to “only broken”
Note: you can add filters for referring domains and page traffic. For this example, I used 50 and 100, respectively.
- Here is the result:
- Confirm if the page is truly broken before outreach
- Lastly, create a replacement page. Then, pitch it to the site owner (or contact details). Duplicate the process for future link building campaigns.
While fixing other websites links, check that your internal links are not broken.
HARO Link Building
HARO (Help A Reporter Out) is a platform that connects journalists, bloggers, and writers to news sources. It is a form of PR link building.
The beauty of HARO is its ease.
All you have to do is register as a source and reply to the query that interests you.
How does that help you get a backlink?
Journalists will link to your page or website in their article for your valuable answer.
Unfortunately, HARO link building take time. You can never tell if a journalist will pick your answer, when their article will be ready, or if the backlink will be placed on a relevant site.
Alternatively, you can follow journalists of desired media houses on LinkedIn and pitch your story to them. Also, monitor hashtags like #journorequest on X (formerly Twitter).
Build Linkable Assets
Linkable assets include online tools, statistics pages, and reports. They are resources that will naturally earn links.
Take Ahrefs Backlink Checker as an example. It is a free tool for checking backlink profiles. Currently, it has 54K (76% of 72K) do-follow, high quality links [i.e., the ranking juice from the links will be unhindered] from 4.9K sites.
Imagine such figures for your money sites. Your rankings will skyrocket in the shortest time possible.
However, linkable assets can be time-consuming to build. How so?
For starters, you can’t create just any asset. You must check what is trending in your niche.
What are your competitors linking to?
Can you create something similar or better?
FYI: linkable assets are not necessarily complex tools. They can be long-form guides.
Analyze Competitors’ Backlinks
If your business revolves around real estate and betting (or other competitive niches), mastering this method and outreach is enough to build links. Leverage the gaps other websites link and watch your rankings and traffic soar.
So, how do you go about competitor backlink analysis?
- Identify your domain-level and page-level competitors
- Go to Ahrefs Site Explorer > Organic Competitors (for domain-level)
It is funny that SuperStar SEO is a competitor since we own it. LOL.
- Go to Ahrefs Keyword Explorer > input your keyword (pick the best after doing keyword research) > SERP Overview (for page-level)
We are already number one for the keyword. But if you are not for yours, do this:
- Find the source of the high quality backlinks to your domain-level and page-level competitors. How?
- Check the link attributes with the "backlink profile" tab on the left.
- If possible, focus only on long-form blog sources. Then, create similar content and launch a link building campaign.
Wrapping Up
Link building is crucial for SEO and digital success as a whole. We have used it for our pages here on Legiit and gotten results.
So, yes, it works.
But remember, only the RIGHT link building techniques will get results. That is when you will get high quality links and see an increase in your rankings on search results. With that, traffic, clicks, and attain digital success.
Otherwise, you’ll violate Google’s spam policies. And that might lead to penalties.
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