Link Building Basics
Familiarize yourself with the concepts of link building, which is the primary focus of off-page SEO, and see how it brings value to your overall SEO strategy.
Off-page SEO and link building
Different from on-page and technical SEO, off-page SEO involves activities carried out outside the scope of our website to rank higher in search engines. Many people consider link building synonymous with off-page SEO. However, link building is not what off-page SEO is all about. Off-page SEO goes beyond link building and encompasses strategies such as content marketing, social media shares, local SEO, and more.
Nonetheless, building links is the most important element of any off-page SEO strategy.
What is link building?
Link building is the process of getting backlinks—hyperlinks pointing to our website. In simpler words, it is the set of efforts we make to have other websites link to pages on our website.
The goal of link building is to boost the value of our web pages in the eyes of search engines and rank higher in search results. The quality and quantity of links pointing to a web page is a measure of authority for the page, and consequently very important in driving organic traffic.
Why are backlinks so important?
Links are one of the top three ranking signals for Google, according to Google itself [47]. We can put in all the effort to create unique, fresh, engaging, and valuable content on our web pages, but if there are no links pointing to it, Google will not know its worth.
Consider a link as a vote of confidence for our website from another source. The higher the quantity and quality of these ‘votes’, the higher are our chances of ranking in search engines. If a website has many high-authority sites linking to it, Google and other search engines will push it higher up in SERPs, provided the other ranking factors are achieved too.
Besides being a strong ranking factor, links also bring referral traffic to our website. Referral traffic is the audience that comes to our website from another site, without clicking our link in search results. A part of visitors to the website that has linked to our page will click the link and visit our domain.
In short, links increase traffic, both direct and referral, to our website.
Test your knowledge
Choose the correct answer for each of the following questions.
What is the primary focus of off-page SEO?
Content creation
Link building
Website design
Keyword optimization
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