5 SEO Strategies to Attract Leads to Your Website
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31/07/2024With just under 2 billion websites in the world, how can one stand out and increase their visibility? While there are several techniques, one of the most effective is to establish a good link-building strategy with organic SEO. This involves setting up and acquiring links to improve the indexing of our pages and increase their authority with search engines.
What is link-building?
Link-building is a term often associated with external linking or link building. All these encompass a set of methods aimed at multiplying the links pointing to a website. We then talk about backlinks. These are key elements considered by search engines to evaluate the relevance and notoriety of a website. Indeed, to achieve a position in the top search results (SERP), this criterion is crucial.
Link-building and SEO
Beneficial for organic SEO, link-building holds an important position for search engines. With an effective link-building strategy, it is possible to develop a website so that it is more visible to internet users and gains popularity. However, to do this, there are principles that must be respected, and this is what we will see below. It is also a good way to help Google’s robots (crawlers) discover your pages more quickly. Indeed, external links allow them to more easily navigate your website.
Fundamentals of Link-Building
A successful link-building strategy requires a deep understanding of certain concepts and backlinks. It takes into account the creation of high-potential content and the use of various other techniques, as we will see here.
How do backlinks boost SEO?
A link-building strategy primarily relies on backlinking. Here, it is necessary to work on the incoming links pointing to your site. It is essential to increase both their quantity and, more importantly, their quality. As a reminder, a backlink means a returning link from external websites pointing to yours. For search engines, these are votes of confidence. In other words, each backlink validates the quality of your work and your content.
What needs to be understood is that no site will “mention” content that is poor. The more you are cited, the more you will be deemed relevant by Google. The search engine will then be more inclined to place you at the top of the SERP. Furthermore, link-building represents 50% of Google’s ranking criteria.
Properly utilizing it thus increases the chances of being positioned at the top of the first page of search results. But it is still necessary to know how to go about it. Here are some of the fundamentals that one needs to know to succeed in their link-building strategy.
Choosing Backlinks Wisely for Efficiency
The first thing to know is that not all backlinks are of good quality. The second: it is pointless to stuff content with backlinks to try to convince Google. The best approach is to strategically use quality backlinks. To identify these, one can refer to the reputation of the domain to which they relate. There are specialized SEO tools for this task, such as Ahrefs. They will facilitate this step.
The third element to keep in mind is that one should always diversify their backlinks as much as possible. Simply put, 5 backlinks from different sources are worth more than 5 from a single domain name. Among other things, to correctly assess the quality of content, Google will favor sites with backlinks coming from other sites operating in the same domain or niche. The search engine will place less weight on those coming from sites unrelated to your activity. It’s a matter of common sense…
The Importance of Quality Content
Which is more important: quality content or quality backlinks? Well, it is the content that prevails. Indeed, having quality backlinks from reputable sites is useless if, once on your site, the user finds deficient content. This will only increase the bounce rate, which will be a penalty factor for Google. And in the worst-case scenario, your site will be devalued by search engines.
Conversely, quality content will retain the reader, establish trust, and encourage them to take action if their search intent is transactional in nature. Quality content will be even more relevant for informational, navigational, or local search intents. It provides useful and relevant data that should meet the readers’ expectations.
Well-researched and properly written, this type of content is more credible. If that is the case, other sites will be more likely to create a link to this content to add value to their own site and help their audience. These, in turn, will share your content on social networks, which will lead to natural backlinks.
A Balanced Backlink Profile for SEO
The anchor text of the links (clickable part) should be optimized naturally and relevantly. Instead of having generic anchors like “click here”, why not opt for phrases that summarize the content of the page and the target keywords? For example, “correctly optimizing your website”. In this approach, care must be taken to avoid over-optimization with too many keywords in the anchors. This could be regarded as spam by Google. The key is to strike a balance between optimization and natural links in your anchor texts.
Let us not forget to mention that a good link-building strategy relies on natural backlinks. They indicate that other sites appreciate your content and are more valued by Google. Moreover, since only dofollow links are taken into account by search engines for SEO purposes, it is necessary to favor them over “nofollow” links.
Different Strategies to Optimize SEO with Link-Building
• Guest Blogging
Guest blogging, or sharing guest articles, is a technique frequently used in SEO to obtain backlinks. It can be done through partnerships with influential bloggers on topics complementary to yours. It involves creating content that will be published on the partner’s site and vice versa.
• Content Marketing
This technique is based on creating quality content (articles, videos, etc.) to obtain natural links to your website. You can thus build relationships with influential journalists and bloggers and offer them your best publications. If these professionals find them interesting, they will talk about them and link to your site.
• Linkbaiting
Linkbaiting also relies on creating original, engaging, and timely content. The idea is to design captivating and easy-to-read content that can easily be shared. One can then promote it themselves on social media or directly propose it to popular sites for them to share. If this happens, the content will become viral and bring in a maximum of natural links quickly.
• Manual Link Creation for a Balanced Link Profile
A balanced link profile from various sources can enhance the organic SEO of your website. To achieve this, it is necessary to diversify the sources of links (blogs, forums, directories, news sites, social networks, etc.). It is also possible to use different types of links (dofollow, nofollow, sponsored). Here, it is better to target quality websites that have a relevant audience for your website. Nevertheless, everything relies on the quality of the content. It must be sufficiently useful for readers to want to share it.
• Purchase of Sponsored Articles
While effective, this technique can quickly become costly. Nevertheless, it allows for the quick presentation and promotion of your brand. If the goal is to appear on a site with high authority, this unfortunately comes with a significant budget. Here, one can turn to specialized platforms like Linkuma.
• Blog Network with Expired Domain Names
The implementation of a PBN or Private Blog Network, or a private blog network, is a practice aimed at those with sufficient funds to set it up. We are talking about a network that can range from 20 to 300 blogs created from expired domain names that have been purchased.
By choosing strategic domain names, one can fully benefit from their authority and SEO juice. While it can be costly, this is a technique that allows one to strengthen their link-building and have complete control over their links, anchors, and the words and phrases surrounding them. This allows one to stabilize the frequency of acquiring new backlinks.
If done correctly, this strategy allows for redirecting a whole set of links to the main site or Money Site. The latter can then benefit from better visibility. However, it is a double-edged strategy, as if done poorly, it can have the opposite effect. That is why it is essential to be accompanied by an SEO specialist to properly exploit a PBN in accordance with the rules of the art.
Conclusion
Once understood, a good link-building strategy is an important part of organic SEO. It is an approach that allows one to increase their visibility with search engines. And it is through quality backlinks from authoritative sites that a website gains credibility in the eyes of Google. Moreover, succeeding in a link-building strategy does not boil down to obtaining links artificially.
As mentioned throughout this article, quality content is essential for effective link-building. Good content can naturally attract incoming links. Readers and other sites will be more predisposed to mention and share it. Nevertheless, it remains equally important to conduct various SEO efforts in parallel. Beyond backlinks, it is also necessary to work on other aspects of SEO to improve your website’s SEO.