A Brief Guide to Link Building

In recent years, link-building has become one of the most important factors when it comes to ranking on Google. Search rankings are a vital part of your digital marketing strategy because they determine where your business appears in Google searches; for example, if someone searches ‘skin clinics near me’, you want to appear within the top 5 results on Google, otherwise they are never going to find you!

Think about it. Have you ever trusted an article that comes up on the second page on Google? Probably not.

Link building is inherently linked to SEO and how well your website is optimised for target keywords. The target keywords and phrases for your business might be ‘teeth whitening treatments’ or ‘micro-needling near me’; in this case, you want to make sure that your clinic is displayed at the top of the search list when people search these keywords on Google. By improving your SEO and search ranking, you will divert more traffic to your site, ultimately leading to more conversions.

69% of marketers are convinced that buying high quality links can greatly improve search rankings; at the end of the day, link building is one of the best ways to get your business noticed.

Every time a site links to your webpage, search engines view this as a vote of confidence. Backlinks help to establish your site as a reputable and trustworthy resource that is worthy of ranking highly on SERPs. However, search engines also look at the quality of your backlinks; if you receive a backlink from a site that barely generates any traffic, it won’t be as valuable as having backlinks from webpages with thousands of monthly page views or from a reliable source such as a .gov website.

Think of backlinks as qualifications; if you receive a certificate from a highly respected aesthetics training facility, it will look much better to employers than a diploma from a backstreet skin clinic that no one has heard of before. It’s all about the quality.

Only 2.2% of online content receives more than one backlink and over 66% of webpages don’t have any backlinks at all! It has become apparent that SEO depends on link-building, and so businesses have had to think of new ways to form links.

To find high quality links, you need to find authoritative sites; this means that they need to generate traffic and have a multitude of backlinks themselves. As we have already said, the quality of your backlinks is one of the most important factors. Getting a backlink from ‘dentistry.co.uk', for example, could have a major impact on your rankings because it gets loads of traffic and appears high on SERPs.

Here are a few of our favourite tools to determine site authority:

• Ahrefs
• SEMrush
• Moz’s Domain SEO Analysis Tool

These online tools allow you to see the authority of each site by showing you the domain rating, the amount of backlinks, and how much traffic is generated by that site.

In addition to using these tools, you must also look for sites and blogs that are relevant to your niche. If you run a dental aesthetics business and you receive a backlink from a well-respected hairdressing blogger, it probably isn’t going to be very helpful. Search engines consider the relevance of your backlinks as well as the quality. The ideal backlink comes from an authoritative site that is directly related to your industry.

One of the main things that you should do to build high quality links is to create content for your Linkreators. Linkreators are websites and pages that write about topics within your niche. It is not so much your competitors that you want to target, but more content creators who produce content that is relevant to your industry.

For example, an authoritative blogger who writes about the current trends in dental aesthetics would be a great person to link to if you run a dental aesthetics business. Aim to write blogs and guides that discuss topics that your Linkreators are talking about because this means they will be more likely to link to you. If these Linkreators write an article about dentists who work in the facial aesthetics sector, they might link to a blog you have written regarding the current trends in dental aesthetics.

Creating content that is valuable for your Linkreators means that they will be more likely to link to your site. Ensure that your content is well-written, informative, and aesthetically pleasing. In the same way that you don’t want to link to sites that are poorly designed and contain worthless content, other sites won’t be willing to link to your page if your content is substandard. 

Here are a few top tips to create content that stands out:

• Include visuals and graphics; this will make your page stand out, making it appear professional and inviting.
• Check every article you publish; you need to confirm that your content is a resource chock full of interesting and useful information, whilst also ensuring it is relevant to the interests of your Linkreators. 
• Keep it clear and concise; Don’t overcomplicate everything, your content needs to highlight the most important subjects and get straight to the point.
• Use headings and subheadings; Users don’t want to sift through pages of writing to get to the part that answers their question. Break your content into digestible chunks, outlining the main topics which you want to address.
• Give examples; Users want to know what something is, how it works, and how it can be applied in practice. If you are creating content for your aesthetics business, give real life examples of how your topic can be applied to the aesthetics industry.