Create more link juice. A simple guide to link building

What is link building?

We've all heard of hyperlinks. These are simply links to your website that 'link' from one web page to another. Hyperlinks can link to web pages within a website's own domain (internal), or to other websites (external). Search engine web crawlers crawl and index all links on the Internet and use them to:

• Find new web pages, which are then used for organic search results 

• Determine how well a page should rank in an organic search 

How does link building work?

Your website is the best online authority of what your business represents. Its content must be Effective, Authoritative and Trustworthy.

High quality linking generates 'link juice'. That's great for SEO! It helps users easily navigate around your website. Linking maintains the integrity of your service offerings and thought leadership. It generates higher rankings.

Build links with:

1. Internal linking

2. External linking (backlinks)

1. Internal linking

Internal links are links that point to another page or resource on the same website or domain. The most common internal link building approaches for referral traffic are:

• Linkable assets: Creating assets like images and infographics with links to your domain builds awareness and creates attention, especially when used with social media

• Strong internal linking: Linking to relevant web pages within your website is great for improving your organic ranking. Why not try creating topic clusters?

2. External linking (backlinks)

Building backlinks isn't easy. For the most part backlink building involves a lot of leg work like researching best fit websites and reaching out to website owners. You can also get backlinks organically by creating content that people want to refer to, including social channels like LinkedIn.

That being said, backlinks are a great way to give your website's domain authority a shot in the arm. If you backlink from credible, relevant and high quality websites, over time your website too will become more credible, authoritative and trustworthy. This will do your SEO no harm.

If you have this capacity then you could also consider the following link building techniques, but make sure you have a reciprocal offer in place:

• Manual outreach: Look for companies you want to be affiliated with and drop them an email asking whether they could add a hyperlink to their website. You can even go 'old school' and pick up the phone to speak to somebody.

• Pursuing competitors’ backlinks:  Look at your competitors. If they're backlinking to companies you're not then you should be pursuing these, or similar companies

• Guest blogging: Yes, guest blogging still exists. If you find the right website a guest post can be a great backlink resource. Contact blogging websites to see whether they'll be interested in featuring an article

Working with Codehouse

If you’re looking to climb the organic search rankings and would like some guidance on building links, our experienced team can help with all your SEO needs. Get in touch to talk to us about your next project.