Linkbuilding Guide 2023 - What you should know

First of all, it's good to understand the purpose behind link building so that you then know how to give Google what they want. Links are the main indicator of popularity and Relevance of a page in relation to a specific topic. The simple idea is that the more websites that link to a page, the more popular that page is. So if all these websites deal with a certain topic and link to your website, then search engines assume that your page is popular and relevant to this topic.

Each page has its own "weight" when it comes to link power. This is divided into general link power and topic-specific link power. Therefore, a website can be an authority for a specific topic in the eyes of the search engines, but be comparatively weak in the general consensus.

Of course, these two and many other factors play a role in the impact that any link pointing to your website will have.

Let's assume your website is already networked all over social media, and you are exceptionally well known in your niche. You then post a groundbreaking piece Content about a revolutionary idea that adds value to the niche like nothing before. Everyone will be talking about it on social media, in niche-related forums, news sites will pick it up, authorities within the niche will link to it and give their opinion on it, and that's exactly what you want to replicate when building links.

This is how Google imagines the ideal case, from which Backlinks should arise for your site.

White-hat and black-hat link building

For SEO as a whole, I would say that White-Hat really the process outlined above. That means creating great content and distributing it via social media, offline marketing and other legitimate channels and then waiting for the links to (hopefully) just come. Black Hat, on the other hand, includes all methods that are intended to replicate this artificially.

In link building specifically, it's a little different. I would say that white-hat is just trying to maintain ultra-high quality and replicate the techniques described above as closely as possible to keep your website and overall backlink profile alive for as long as possible. Whereas black-hat is more about using automation to replicate something close to the above, but as quickly as possible and as effectively as possible to get a better short and medium term Ranking to reach.

A good example of a White-Hat Link building technique would be to make contact with other site operators in your industry, regarding Guest articles. A good example of a Black Hat Link building technique would be to use a tool like GSA, around thousands of Multi-level links to your website can build.

The most important factors in link building

There are a few things that are really important when building links to your website and you really need to understand these points in detail before you start link building, otherwise you will probably ruin your website and/or waste your time and money. They are all crucial to your success and creating a link building strategy along with the right choice of Backlinks should be treated like a science.

1. metrics - as a basis for assessment

Metrics are used in the Link building an important initial orientation. The most common key figures to look out for now are DA (Domain Authority), PA (Page Authority), TF (Trust Flow) and CF (Citation flow).

In general: The higher the number, the better and you want to keep these metrics in mind when you are considering placing a backlink on a website.

For link building you can use a paid service like Moz.com for the inspection of PA/DA use or a free service like this - https://www.seoreviewtools.com/bulk-seomoz-authority-checker/

For TF and CF it is metrics from the Majestic SEO Tool - You can Basic checks on this page without paying for it, but if you want to regular access and more details, you can also log in. For these metrics you want avoid that the CF is too much higher than TFbecause this means that your link profile starts to look like spam.

The reason: At CF is about Authority and with TF at Link Power. So a low CF value and a high TF value means that you get a lot of effect from your Backlinks but none of them come from any kind of well-known or authoritative website - in other words, it looks quite possible that you are trying to get your Link-Juice to increase

2. context - because topic relevance is becoming increasingly important

Context has always been important in link building and is becoming even more important now that Google is looking for advanced methods to determine the Relevance through automation.

The Link textThe surrounding text and also the overall topic of the article or page that makes up your link is very important and this is why contextual links are very effective. This is also why you really want to have links from pages with lots of quality content and images that relate to your niche. Not only are these links less likely to be removed / blacklisted, but they will also have more impact.

3. neighborhood - because you don't want to have anything to do with spam

The environment from which you get links is also very important in link building. You want links from the places that are relevant in your niche.

Majestic is a great tool that you can use to determine the topics that a website is "known for". At best, you only want links from websites that are authoritative for relevant topics within your niche, and as few as possible from non-topic related websites.

You should also vary your link building techniques so that all your links do not come from one place. You should also make sure that your link sources are linked to each other as little as possible. Otherwise, this is a signal to Google that you are trying to manipulate the algorithms.

4. diversity - because Google also pays attention to diversity in the algorithm

Diversity is very important. And when I say diversity, I mean in every aspect of your link building - vhe different types of links, different anchor texts, DoFollow, NoFollow, image links, text links etc. The more diverse your link building techniques are, the more natural they will look.

5. anchor text - because it can establish a direct link to the content

Anchor text is very important. An anchor text is the text that you actually use to link to your website. In very simple terms, the search engines use this Anchor textto determine what the target of the link is about. For example, if page A links to page B and uses the anchor text "car cleaning tips", then it would be reasonable to assume that page B is about car washing and specifically how to do it.

"If 10,000 pages are linked to page B and 50% of them have the same Anchor text then you could say that side B is certainly acting on this issue AND is also very authoritarian."

Of course, it's not as simple as just described and if you build links like these, your website would be punished in the blink of an eye. It's really about making things look legitimate. If you check some backlink profiles of big sites in your niche, you'll notice that there are big differences in the Anchor text who is responsible for Backlinks to this website is used. When building links in link building, you want to maintain the same level of variation.

6. velocity and timing - because Google keeps an eye on you

To make everything look natural, this is very important. Think about it. Logically, it looks unnatural to get hundreds of links at once with a completely new page without rankings. This is especially true if these are built up in a short time and then nothing follows!

You need to build the links continuously and over the long term to avoid obvious "flags".

All anchor texts help your website to get a better Ranking to achieve. This is something I didn't understand in the past. I used to think that these "hard" anchor texts, the exact keywords, were really the important ones.

Nowadays I would use simple Backlinks build with generic anchor texts for "diversity" and then I would use some high quality links for using the important exact match keywords. In my experience, this really didn't work well.

And I learned a valuable lesson from this practice - focus on good links and not "good" anchor texts when link building. Now I am constantly building strong Backlinks and don't worry too much about anchor text. In fact, you can easily place many keywords without using direct anchor texts. However, I recommend the majority of your links with "naked URL" , longtails and branding anchor texts to distribute.

Instead of setting links with anchor ratios in mind, build all links as described above. Then, if necessary, simply maintain some direct "hard" links. Anchor links based on how the page performs in your rankings.

7. internal backlinks - because everything should be in proportion

This type of link distribution is also very important in link building to keep things natural. You don't want to build all your links to one page on your site, but rather build them to pages throughout your site to keep everything looking natural.

Also remember that your website is part of the Internet and a link from your Homepage to a subpage is not so different from a link from an external website to your subpage.

In addition, if you have many high quality links to your Homepage these links will still have a great influence on the Ranking of your subpages have. So don't make it obvious and don't build every powerful link directly to your Homepagedistribute links and forward the "link power" to the relevant pages through internal links.

Linkbuilding: Backlink sources

Now you know what kind of links you need and what to look for when creating links, but where can you get these links from?

1. keep an eye on your competition.

This is one of the best strategies to achieve great Backlinks and build them up. You can use a backlink checking tool like ahrefs.com, which you can use to download all Backlinks of your competitors into a table.

You can then go through this list and find out, what kind of Backlinks Build your competitors with link buildingwhere they get their links from and so on.

In this example, we mostly see some links from authorities like Wikipedia and also some Backlinks Of niche related blogs. So the steps here would be to contact some of these blogs and ask if they could write an article for you with a link back to your site.

2. link directories

Link directories can be good for small niches. You will often find them when searching for backlink profiles with Ahrefs find Link-Directories are good in small quantities, but you want to avoid those that have thousands of links on each page. If you have a directory with good metrics and a relevant category find that are not compatible with other Backlinks is saturated, then this is a good option. Paid Directories are usually good too, because the price means that not EVERYONE can put their link down.

3. guest article search

Guest posts are a great way to really good Backlinks build up. Once again you can Niche relevant pages using the Ahrefs method mentioned above, or you can also search Google with niche-relevant keywords to find these pages.

Write an email to the website and simply ask if you can write an article and publish it on their blog. Of course, you want the link to your website in return, but keep the focus on the article and its value to readers.

Sometimes you will be able to take advantage of your offer at no cost, sometimes you will have to pay for the privilege. Check all metrics of the websites again before you make a decision whether it is worth it or not.

4. forum posts

Forum posting is a very good option, relevant links to create, which will give you Linkjuice and also give you Traffic can give. They will often be good Niche Forums find, if you look at the Backlinks of your competitors in Ahrefs. However, you also have the option of finding these forums for your niche via Google.

Some forums allow you to post a link in your signature and others you can get away with simply posting relevant links in the text of your posts. With forum posting you need to do something Create trust, actually post some relevant and useful things in the forums, before you start linking to your website, otherwise your links will be quickly removed.

5. blog comments

Blog comments are another good and easy source for Backlinks. Here you can also use the Check website metricsbefore you comment on them, but also the most important thing when commenting is that the websites are relevant and of high quality. Also, do not publish posts on websites that already have thousands of comments or have many unrelated links in the comments.

6. private blog networks

I tend to find when looking at the competition that the most common types of links are from other niche sites, blogs and places that are hard to replicate. High quality sites tend to get linked to a lot because they are authoritative on the topic of their niche, and the sites that have those links in them tend not to respond to adding links or posting content at the request of you as a link builder.

If you do not wish to make any contributions in these ways from websites through Outreach building your own private blog network can be a great way to replicate these types of links.

Here is my opinion about PBNs

The principle is the same as everything else I've mentioned so far. You want Backlinks of websites with great metrics that are in good neighborhoods in relation to your niche and are surrounded by relevant content.

You can replicate this by creating your own websites that meet all these criteria.

You can create these pages from scratch and then build the metrics by creating links to the PBN pages yourself, and/or you can get a head start by buying an expired domain that already has great metrics.

PBNs are very powerful.

Don't worry that you have to build 5000 PBN sites to give your website a boost just because your competitors have 5000 links in Ahrefs. PBN sites are very powerful links, because you can use every part of the Backlinks can design themselves. Due to this fact, it is much more cost-effective to build low quantities, but with extreme quality in mind.

Make your websites look real.

Like I said, you can literally control every aspect of your PBN, so you can give yourself the optimal Backlinks can give. The worst thing that can happen is that your PBN will be discovered, so you need to make your sites look like real sites. You should put as much effort into your PBN sites as you do into your main site. Make them real, really research your posts.

Outsourcing your link building

All of those things I mentioned can be outsourced to providers, from forum links, to guest article posts, to setting up your own private blog networks.

There are three main aspects to consider when outsourcing:

1. Look for references before you buy.

The first reviews from those who have approved the service are usually very revealing in terms of their quality. Look for reviews from buyers of these services too - when it comes to the Link building you are also looking for services where people can regularly SERP-graphics that show actual improvements in the Ranking show

2. Understand that you get what you pay for.

Everyone uses some marketing tactics when selling their services - if you see a service ad to promote your website for around £5, you need to understand that it often won't be as effective a service as one that costs £300, because working link building will always come at a cost of money or time.

3. You must take responsibility for everything except the links.

Just because you pay someone to build links for you doesn't mean that your site will show the same improvements that some of their other pages have.

When you're building links, you still need to think about everything I've mentioned in this article. You need to manage your overall link building efforts, you need diversity in your link sources, you need a consistent rate of link building, and you need to pay close attention to anchor text diversity.

All these things are your responsibility and not the sellers.

Quality features of backlinks

The following list serves as a guide when you are Backlinks to build up. The weighting of individual points would be very complex, for example the Pagerank is now obsolete, but is still used algorithmically by Google. This list therefore provides more of a general overview:

• Number of Backlinks, the target page
  The more often linked from relevant pages, the stronger the link)

• Trust rank (quality) of the linking pages
  The higher the quality of the link profile and the Content the linking side, the better

• Thematic relationship with your own page
  The more relevant the topic, the better. The overriding theme applies here.
  e.g. SEO falls under marketing, weight loss falls under health, shares fall under finance

• Link text (anchor text) of the Backlinks
  The ratio is very important here, keyword-optimized anchor texts have the strongest effect. However, these should not make up more than 15% of the link profile.

• Placement of the Backlinks, also in comparison with other Backlinks From this side
  The higher up the page a link is placed, the better. Links at the end of the post or in the footer are less effective than Backlinks from the first paragraph.

• Age of the backlink page (to be determined via Archive.org = first time of indexing)
  The older the page, the more trustworthy it is for Google.

There are certainly more features, for example, in the case of the Agencyalways give preference to those who have different IP addresses.

Linkfarmcloaks are generally to be rejected, however elegantly they may be designed. In the mid-1990s, a few industrious web promoters started "cloaking", setting up masses of websites simply in order to be able to link to them. Backlinks to other pages. Already at the beginning of the 2000s, the search engines recognized these attempts and punished them massively, sometimes by ejecting them from the Index.

At present, many blogs are used for regular content production as a sideline business by awarding Backlinks in guest posts. This is fine if the content of the blogs is factually correct and worth reading.

Regular monitoring and evaluation of all processes

As you undertake your link building efforts, keep an eye on your own website. Just as you monitor the metrics for the Backlinksthat you create, you can do the same for your own website. Keep an eye on your DA/PA/TF/CF, topics listed in Majestics, Backlinkswhich are listed in Ahrefs, your Serp-Movements.

Keep an eye on everything and make sure that everything is going in the right direction while you are planning your Backlinks Build up.