What you need to know about SEO link building

Is SEO and Link Building the same thing?

Search engine optimization and link building is not the same thing, no. You see, even thought they're somewhat related, you might say, building backlinks is only a small part of a much bigger SEO strategy. A bigger picture, if you will. This is where most "newbie SEOs" make a very big mistake, thinking that building links is SUPER important. 

Of course it's important, but contrary to the popular belief, they only play a very small part of "SEO" as a whole. There are so many factors Google takes into consideration when it comes to ranking websites/articles/videos, that purely focusing on link building and ignoring user experience (UX), on-page SEO and others would be foolish.

The same could be said for the others, having a solid SEO strategy in place without a link building strategy is not much of an SEO strategy at all, now is it? Good, relevant backlinks from good sources are always going to help you rank better if done right, so it for sure needs to be part of any SEO link building strategy.

While we're on the subject about getting more backlinks pointing to your business or personal site, know that there are about a billion sources for you to get backlinks from (guest posts, social media, etc.), but there are mainly TWO types when it comes to link building.

Whitehat vs Blackhat SEO

Oh the old "Blackhat vs Whitehat" debacle... If you're unfamiliar with either of these terms, don't fret, we're about to look at the differences between white-hat and black-hat link building as it's called in greater detail.

PS. I didn't include "Greyhat SEO" because let's face it, if it's not white then what is it? It's black. Greyhat link building is a myth, you're either doing whitehat link building, or blackhat SEO. That's all there is to it, there's no greyhat link building.

Now that we've got that out of the way, here are the...

Main differences between BlackHat and WhiteHat link building

There are a few differences between the two, but the main differences are costs involved, time involved and quality of the backlinks generated by both. Let's look at the main pros and cons of both white-hat and black-hat link building.

Whitehat Pros and Cons

Whitehat SEO link building is best for: Serious online businesses looking to improve their digital footprint in their respective markets. If you're in it for the long run, you'd best stay far away from blackhat (and so-called "greyhat") SEO.

If you're looking to build a solid foundation and grow your business' profits online, click here for a whitehat SEO solution.

Blackhat Pros and Cons

Blackhat SEO link building is best for: Small-medium sized companies and entrepreneurs looking for a quick way to boost their Google rankings at a fraction of the cost. If you don't mind bending Google's rules a bit, then this is for you. 

If you don't have a large marketing budget and looking for a much cheaper alternative to white hat SEO, click the button below:

SEO Link Building Best Practices

Let me just give you a quick run-down of a solid SEO link building strategy, or at least, the most important bits to a successful backlink campaign. Of course, it should all start with keyword research. Knowing whether there's an audience for what you want to promote is key to any success you will have. Dig for those gold-nuggets or ASK US to help you find those real money keywords you're looking for.

Content

Once you know which keywords you're looking to improve your search engine rankings for, it's time to go about setting a content marketing strategy. Where are you going to post? Article directories? Guest posts? Social media? Youtube?

You need to find what works best in your niche, as each one can be different and might require some adjustments to your link building strategy. But with regards to the content itself, again, every niche has its general "tone". Make sure your content is entertaining, helpful or both. Test those headlines well if you can.

Authority Sites

The next step is knowing where to post your backlinks to for maximum effect. Now that Google removed the public pagerank (PR) tool, which allowed all to see the "authority" of a site, SEOs like me need to make use of other tools and services to determine page worth. Or rather, link worth, to see whether it's worth the effort to chase that backlink.

Authority site simply means an established, trusted or popular website/blog where you can post content to in exchange for a link back to your site. There's of course authority social media sites you can post to, like Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, etc. But these links hold little-to-no value from a search engines algorithm's perspective.

Relevance

Once you've identified potential targets for your link building campaign, ensure that your content, as well as the site you're looking to get a backlink from is relevant to your niche market. It doesn't help trying to sell golf clubs on a blog about puppies. The more relevant your content, and more importantly, the page you're linking from, the better the "link juice" will ultimately be.

In Conclusion, if you follow these link building methods, there's only the monitoring/testing part that's left for you to truly succeed. Remember to have patience, as SEO (and building backlinks) is a waiting, but boy is it worth it if you do it right.

Take care, thanks for reading and please share this post below if you found this at all useful.

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