SEO is a rapidly evolving field. In the past few years, marketing executives have been prioritizing search intent, featured snippets, quality content and link building. For many SEOs, link building is the most difficult aspect of their work. But is it really important? Does it still work? According to this comprehensive link building guide for casinos and betting websites published here, link building is important.
Put simply, link building is the process of convincing website owners to link back to your website. Link building is important because search engines like Google consider it as a mark of a website’s authoritativeness.
For Google to rank a website, it considers factors like relevance, content and domain authority. Google ranks the most authoritative websites in a specific field, especially if they publish quality content.
To determine if a website is authoritative, Google considers backlinks. Indeed, the top five ranked websites in any industry have a lot of backlinks.
Link building serves the following benefits to a business:Link building serves the following benefits to a business:
Ranking on Search Engines
There’s a direct connection between backlinks and ranking high on search engines like Google. Usually, websites with the highest number of links earn the top three ranks on Google’s first page. How many backlinks do you need to rank on Google? It depends on the keywords you’re ranking for. Some keywords are so competitive that you would need thousands of backlinks to rank. Many experts recommend you compete for long-tail medium-volume keywords. They may not attract a lot of searches. But they’re easier to rank for.
Growing Website Traffic
The top three websites attract up to half of Google’s traffic. The 10 websites on the first page of Google generate more than 80% of traffic on search engines. That’s because few people look for answers beyond Google’s first page. With that in mind, the amount of traffic you generate on your website also depends on search volume. If rank rank for a high-volume keyword, you stand to generate more traffic than if you rank for a low-volume keyword.
Also, strive to rank for multiple keywords in your niche. Let’s say you run a betting website. You can create content centered on 10-50 keywords with an average monthly search volume of 10,000. If each keyword helps you attract 3000 new website visitors per month, you could end up dominating your niche pretty fast.
Increasing Website Visibility
Ranking highly on Google is like getting an ad on the evening news. It’s visible to lots of people. Better yet, it’s visible to people who are likely to buy your products. Think about how it works. People visit Google for information. Maybe they want to learn how to edit photos. And you own a photo editing app. By ranking for keywords related to photo editing, you create visibility for your business to high-quality leads.
Building Trust and Credibility
Many people don’t look for information on Google’s second or third search result pages for a reason. They trust the highest-ranked websites. Ranking helps build a positive image for your website. People trust the website Google recommends to them. If Google keeps recommending your website, you can become an authority on the topic. In turn, you can generate lots of new customers and natural backlinks.
Yes. It’s possible to rank a website on Google without backlinks. Think of local business listings. You may need to do a little bit of promotion. But once businesses discover your website, you won’t have to worry about backlinks. Personal websites do not require a lot of backlinking as well. This is especially true for famous people. If you’re a public figure and want people to reach out to you easily, you can create a website and promote it on social media. However, you don’t have to chase backlinks to generate traffic.
Although you can rank a website without backlinks, it’s not always worth it. Consider search engines prioritizes websites with backlinks. As such, your website will take months or years to rank. That said, below is an outline of the best ways to generate backlinks for your website.
Link outreach is when you ask websites owners to link back to your content. You need to be persuasive to actually succeed in borrowing links. Consider people want to link back to quality content. As such, publish informative blog posts and videos before you ask people for links. Or, create a tool that is so useful that people will naturally want to blog about it and link back to your website.
Guest posting is arguably the most popular way of building links for new websites. It involves creating content for a website in your niche in exchange for a backlink. Here’s why this method works. Websites are always looking for quality content. They need fresh content for their fans. And they also want to rank for new keywords. By providing a guest post, you provide value to the website. In return, you get rewarded with a backlink.
Guest posting is arguably the most popular way of building links for new websites. It involves creating content for a website in your niche in exchange for a backlink. Here’s why this method works. Websites are always looking for quality content. They need fresh content for their fans. And they also want to rank for new keywords. By providing a guest post, you provide value to the website. In return, you get rewarded with a backlink.
This strategy involves creating a comprehensive guide on a topic, an infographic or video. But first, conduct some research. Visit your competitors’ websites to discover their most linked posts. Let’s say your competitors has an infographic that ranks first for a high-volume keyword. Create a more informative infographic. Or, create an infographic centered on a different keyword.
Then promote it on social media and to other website owners. If they like it, you will most likely earn a backlink. As a tip, use a premium SEO tool to list websites linking back to your competitor’s website. Then contact them to ask for backlinks.
Link building is still important in SEO. Many of the best-ranked websites on Google have backlinks. Sure, you may rank for a low-volume keyword with no SEO done. But if you want to compete for competitive keywords, consider looking for backlinks. It’s an easy job. But then again, you can hire an SEO consultant to find backlinks for you.