Linkbuilding

Linkbuilding is a term that should be familiar to anyone who wants to improve the position of their website in organic search. What exactly does linkbuilding mean, how to proceed and what to avoid? The answers to the basic and most important questions can be found in this article.

The meaning of the word linkbuiling

The English term linkbulding has a very important meaning in the context of SEO (search engine optimization). It is the most important "off-page" technique in promoting a website in natural search results.

The English translation of the word linkbuilding is "creating backlinks" or "building backlinks". For search engines (Google, Seznam), linking is one of the strongest ranking signals they use to rank search results (SERPs). At the same time, however, the "strength" of backlinks is not constant. Some backlinks carry more weight for search engines than others. In certain circumstances, they can even damage a page.

The importance of linkbuilding in terms of internet marketing

Why is backlink building important? A key method of internet marketing, link building leads to an improvement in the position of the linked page in search results and can also bring in new visitors (users who reach the site by clicking through the link).

Who is a linkbuilder and what is a link profile?

Linkbuilder is the name of a profession that deals with getting backlinks. A good linkbuilder has excellent market insight and masters the so-called soft skills - they can negotiate the placement of backlinks on favorable terms, even from sites that do not normally offer linkbuilding opportunities.

A link profile refers to the set of all backlinks that lead to a given page. To rank well in search results, it is important that the search engine algorithm perceives the link profile of a site as healthy and natural (i.e. it does not suspect that the linkbuilder is accumulating backlinks through impure practices).

How does linkbuiling work?

Under certain circumstances, linkbuilding happens quite naturally, i.e. without the involvement of the linkbuilder or any other person who is in charge of the off-page SEO of the website. Usually, it's high-quality content that users themselves link to from their own sites and on social media. A similar situation often exists with so-called viral content.

However, the vast majority of websites cannot rely on natural linking.

As mentioned above, search engines look at backlinks as signals that they place a lot of importance on when compiling organic search results. The exact ranking criteria are unknown and linkbuilders therefore use third-party metrics. In particular, they are guided by data coming from the ahrefs.com database (URL rating, DR - domain rating and AR - ahrefs rank). These metrics express the "authority" of a website, with higher "ranks" being more valuable for linkbuilding. Other well-known tools include MOZ.com and Majestic.com.

However, the authority of linking sites should not be the only evaluation criteria for link building. Thematic relevance and (relevant) traffic are equally important.

Why is keyword analysis important for linkbuilding?

Linkbuilding without a clearly defined strategy is not as effective as building backlinks based on keyword analysis. Its essence is to find the "keywords" that users enter when searching for content.

Keyword analysis reveals what phrases users are already using to visit a website, but also opportunities - new keywords that could bring new visitors to the website. A linkbuilder should always evaluate the difficulty of ranking in the top positions for each individual keyword. Sometimes it is much more effective to improve positions for phrases with lower search rankings and negligible competition.

Linkbuilding in practice - how to get backlinks?

Linkbuilding should be systematic and long-term. Search engines perceive such backlink acquisition as natural. On the other hand, try to avoid a sudden increase of a large number of links.

There are many ways to get backlinks. Here are the most commonly used methods.

High-value content

If you have high-quality content on your site, it's very likely that some users will be willing to share it on social media (and elsewhere). Put your know-how into your content, give out valuable advice and present yourself as a true expert - as a reward, you'll get backlinks without any extra effort.

Guestposting

Guestposting, or publishing articles on topical, authoritative and established sites, is one of the most common methods of linkbuilding. Basically, it's a barter form of cooperation, where the owner of the site gets high-quality content - and you get a backlink in return.

Link exchange

Reciprocal backlink exchange consists of actively searching for sites that are thematically related or target a similar group of visitors. The aim is to persuade the owner of such a site to place a backlink on their site - and offer to place a backlink on their own site in return. In addition to 2-way link exchange (2-way), multi-way exchange (usually 3-way or 3-way) is also possible, where sites link to each other sequentially (A → B → C → A).

Comments under articles

A once widely used but nowadays rather underestimated method. Comments under thematically relevant articles can be beneficial for the link profile and can also bring new visitors in the long term.

Linkbaiting

The essence of linkbaiting is creating content that will spread itself and people will voluntarily link to it. This is usually viral to controversial content, or humorous or valuable content. It can also be video, infographics, etc. Free tools (e.g. various calculators), contract templates, etc. also work well.

PR articles

Professionally called advertorial. This very popular advertising format can take the form of a first-rate advertising message, but also a purely generic text. An integral part of PR articles is a backlink (or several backlinks). PR articles can be purchased individually (i.e. addressing individual website owners), but also in bulk via platforms such as PR Yard. Such linkbuilding is not only convenient, but above all fast, and ultimately affordable.