Read any SEO blog and you’ll likely discover that as undeniably important as keyword research and compelling content truly are for your website, SEO linkbuilding has a major influence on how search engines see your site. In fact, Moz estimates that what the Internet says about your web pages accounts for roughly 2/3 of the search engine algorithms.
Let’s put it another way. What people do in response to your site, in the form of linking and bookmarking, is statistically more important than what you actually do on your site. When search engines see links on other sites pointing to your site, it’s an indication of likeability and trust. As a result, the search engines will see you as a credible site.
There are three primary factors among many that search engines look at when determining the credibility and relevance of your web pages:
- Anchor Text: The keywords and phrases other sites use as they link to your site communicate your expertise to the search engines.
- Link Popularity: Expert and authority sites that link to your site speak to credibility of your site. If other established and credible sites point to you, that’s a very good thing.
- Link Diversity: It’s not enough to just win a bunch of links. Search engines want to see links from a variety of domains. Two thousand links from 10 domains is significantly less valuable than 200 links from 100 domains.
Clearly, effective SEO link building matters when trying to build authority. But it must also be pointed out that certain links are more beneficial than others. When looking at your overall link building strategy, it is important to consider both the relevance and the authority of the sites that will be linking to your website pages.
Relevance
The relevancy of any link is based on whether the linking site is on the same topic as the site it’s linking to. So an Internet marketing company that wins a link from a cooking or photography blog wouldn’t benefit nearly as much as it would if such links were from an SEO blog or forum.
Authority
Some web sites are naturally more important than others and search engines tend to reflect that in their results. One of the keys to successful basic SEO link building is winning links from these important sites. And the more links you can win from these expert and authority sites, the more authority your site will maintain.
There is a lot to consider when it comes to building an effective link building campaign. Truthfully, the information here barely scratches the surface. But make no mistake: effective and strategic link building is crucial to establishing the authority of a website.
If other sites aren’t talking about your web pages, search engines won’t either. Get everyone talking about your website by starting an Content Marketing Campaign!