What Is Link Building & How To Do It | Complete SEO Link Building Guide For Beginners

Key Takeaways

if you've done any research into seo you'll have come across link building and as a beginner it's likely that you're feeling pretty overwhelmed but don't worry because in this video we'll tell you exactly what link building is and how it works we'll also go through the various link building strategies you can use to boost your seo and improve your ranking in the search results hey it's emily here from fat joe where we provide seo services designed for agencies and marketing teams we'll start by explaining what link building is link building is a type of off-site seo and is the conscious act of getting other websites to link back to yours so it's the act of building backlinks google sees each backlink as a vote of confidence by building backlinks from other relevant and authoritative websites you can build your own relevance and authority on any given subject in the eyes of google this is vital if you want to rank well in the search results google confirms this by stating if other prominent websites on the subject link to the page it's a good sign that the information is of high quality although very effective for increasing your ranking within the search results link building isn't known for its simplicity it involves much more than just simply reaching out to a blogger and asking them to link back to your website so let's explore why well firstly not all links are treated equally by google understandably the most valuable links are the hardest to secure say you've set up a recipe blog if you can get a backlink from your mates mom blog with the da of 10 google thinks okay someone's linking to it however if you can get a link from time magazine with a ga of 94 google's thinking yes this blog is clearly doing something right to get that kind of link it's relevant to a user searching for our keyword chocolate cake let's bump it up the search results we've simplified it a little here but you get the gist the more of these quality backlinks you can build the higher up the search results you'll appear okay so i'm sure you're thinking what if i link back to my site from the comments section of a times magazine article what if i set up a blog on blogger or tumblr two very popular blogging sites and link to my website from there or what if i scatter loads of links to my website from facebook well it doesn't really work that way google is smart and it can certainly tell the difference those kind of links just don't hold the same weight as natural in content links when it comes to boosting your ranking now let's discuss the difference between do follow and nofollow links when someone adds a link to their website it's do follow by default however they do have the option to add a nofollow tag which is also known as a nofollow attribute so why would they add this tag well it's an easy way to tell google i don't officially endorse this website in theory it's a way of avoiding passing any value to the website that they're linking to we'll discuss the ways in which a nofollow link may not be 100 worthless after all a little later on the easiest way to check if a link is labeled as nofollow is to use our free tool developed out of our own frustration as a link building company we deal with hundreds of links every day so this tool is a quick and easy way for us to tell whether this nofollow tag has been assigned to any of the links as a quick side note there's no such thing as a do follow tag or a do follow attribute when someone refers to a link as do follow all it means is that that particular link hasn't been manually labeled with a nofollow attribute so what do you do if your link has been labeled for the nofollow tag well you should contact the blog owner and politely ask them to remove the nofollow tag from the link but do nofollow links still matter well put yourself in google shoes it's your job to determine which website should rank at the top of the search results by deciding its authority on one hand you have one site with a few do follow links they're mostly links from a handful of sites nobody has ever heard about and on the other hand you have a site with just no follow links this person is a very talented ceo and has posted on entrepreneur.com and forbes but all the links he received from those sites are no follow in this simple example google may place more value on the second website this is because it knows that the owner of that second website has more authority when it comes to business despite having more no follow links google tends to judge the value that it puts on nofollow links based on its own intelligence rather than simply just putting down a blanket of let's ignore all no follow links now this is just one common theory if we look at statements that google has made in the past they've specifically said links marked with these nofollow attributes will generally not be followed remember that the linked pages may be found through other means such as sitemaps or links from other sites and thus may still be crawled i think that the key word here is generally generally nofollow links won't be followed but in what circumstances will they be could no follow links on large publications be a key time that they may so from this we know that both nofollow and do follow links are key to building a healthy link building profile now let's explore the three types of link building that will make a difference to your ranking natural editorial link building outreach link building and self-created or non-editorial link building first category of links we'll discuss are the natural links they're also known as editorial here you'll create a piece of interesting valuable or newsworthy content that other bloggers will naturally link back to you can build an entire strategy around attracting these kind of links the simplest way is to think of the long term or historical value of that piece of content so for what reason would someone want to link to it in the future these types of links can be really hard to build and take a really long time and this is why google values them so highly the outreach category refers to reaching out to blog owners and asking them to link back to your website this is possibly the most popular link building type for small or startup businesses you need to make sure that you're contacting relevant blog owners in your niche and giving them a reason to link back to you via a value exchange this is often fulfilled by providing them with free content in exchange for a backlink there are many kinds of links that you can build yourself having such a low barrier to entry means that these links are worth less in the eyes of google and need to be supported by other link building strategies there's a fine line with self-created links they can be frowned upon if you create them within unmoderated blog comments or guest post signatures for example but it can be really beneficial for some businesses to add their business details alongside a link to their website to relevant non-spammy business directories there are 10 link building strategies being used as of right now the first is blogger outreach which is the process of reaching out to other websites within your niche and asking if they would like to publish an editorial piece of content to drive link value and traffic the idea is that your backlink will sit naturally within the content in a way that adds value to the reader you're better to target a small number of highly researched niche websites and ask them to talk about you then you are to blanket email a load of websites hoping for some links in return guest posting is when you write content for a blog who will then publish your content and include a link back to your website within an author bio it's a good way to generate backlinks within your niche whilst expanding your brand awareness within these expert subjects here are our top tips for guest posting research and understand your niche reach out to bloggers within that niche and offer your industry experience make sure you're writing your content with seo in mind optimize your content with some choice keywords perfect your outreach pitch to include the benefits that your content can offer the target blogs readers if you have time to invest in creating fantastic evergreen content then it's a win-win for you and the other blog owner the other blog gets free content and you get a backlink or two next we have niche edits niche edits boils down to reaching out to website owners in your niche or industry and asking if they'd link to your post in a relevant article of theirs it's simple in theory and it's been around for quite a while but during your first attempt you'll realize that it has quite a low conversion rate there are a number of ways to improve your success could you strengthen your position by making it a win-win situation can you update outdated information can you add pro tips to enhance the article get creative with it skyscraper outreach has been made massively popular by the one and only brian dean just like niche edits this strategy revolves around asking other website owners to link back to your content where it differs is in the kind of sites that you reach out to you'll be looking for a competitor's article that has plenty of to follow links but is also one that you can write a better version of skyscraper outreach is essentially a variation of a niche edit that could potentially increase your link building conversion rate next we have infographic outreach which is a variation of guest posting here you need to create a well-designed and engaging infographic that is relevant to your niche or target audience you'll find a relevant website you'll reach out to the blog owner with your infographic and ask them whether they would like to include this on their website to make the offer even more enticing you should offer to write one or two paragraphs to sit alongside the infographic that's unique to that blog infographics are great for explaining complex subjects in an easy to digest visual manner broken link building is the process of finding backlinks to web pages that are no longer live and asking the owners to update the link to your own website you'll create a resource similar if not better than the original making it beneficial for the website to link back to you content syndication is the process of boosting the value of your original content have you ever read an article on a major publication and seen the text originally published on well this is content syndication the number one issue you're probably pondering here is plagiarism but the key to avoiding penalties is to publish only on reputable websites also it's ideal to have your syndicated content contain a canonical tag back to your page this verifies with google that the original content is on your website the benefit of syndication is not only for seo but also to get more eyeballs on your content by leveraging popular websites building local business citations is the process of getting your business details distributed across a variety of industry directories if you're a local business creating citations is the equivalent to pouring cement first to build a strong foundation citations offer a great way to build both broad and targeted links to a local business whilst increasing traffic best of all it doesn't involve too much time or effort to get started you can even outsource the process of building local business citations for a reasonable price press release distribution is the process of creating and circulating newsworthy announcements to journalists online news outlets and the press you'll create a press release which will be distributed to various media outlets they'll then pick up the story and craft their own articles which will include a link back to your website and finally of course we have natural link building natural link building is about creating resources that are just begging to be linked back to common types of natural link building content include free tools that have been made specifically for your target audience or really good infographics now let's talk about measuring the value of an individual link you can measure the value of a link in many ways using tools such as moz or ahrefs domain rating was developed by ahrefs and shows the strength of a website's backlink profile on a scale of one to one hundred on the other hand moz's domain authority acts as an indicator of how well websites will rank on search engines and by this i mean the higher the number the higher the authority whilst link building you'll want to ensure that you're targeting websites with a variety of da and dr scores with emphasis on the higher quality websites of course this means checking what a high score looks like for your niche you should look at the average for your industry and aim to have a score higher than your competitors building high quality backlinks from websites for the high da alongside improving your overall seo will result in a higher da for your own website but you shouldn't just rely on da or dr alone the depth and expertise of the existing content the volume of traffic arriving on the website the relevance to your niche will all make a big difference to the ranking impact of any backlink placement if you would like to know more about the link building strategies mentioned in this video head over to fatjo.com if you would like even more detail on how to do link building you can check out our detailed link building guide on our website i'll include a link in the description below don't forget to give this video a big thumbs up if you enjoyed it and subscribe to our channel for even more seo tips