Link Building
We write about SEO a lot at Ananova. That's because it's part of any hosting site, no matter what you goal or niche market is. It's also a wild and active beast that you'll have to try and tame if you want your site to be noticed by anyone. Wouldn't it be nice if you could just put up some really great content, know that thousands of people will see that content, and move on? It would, right? Sadly, that's not how it works.
SEO is alive, and that means that you have to move with it. A very large part of keep up with the flow is learning how to build links. Here's what you need to know about how link building works.
Link Building: What Is It?
How do people know about your website? Some people may land on your site through word of mouth. But, most people will use a search engine like Google to find your site. Only, your site can't be found unless there are some links that lead to your site, and those links tell search engines that your site exists.
In short: you have to make sure that other sites lead directly to your site.
How do you do that? By leaving links on other sites.
You can use any one of these tactics:
- Social Media
- Writing Guest Posts
- Writing Really Great Shareable Content That People Automatically Link To
For the sake of this article, I'm going to focus on how to write guest posts, and where you should be leaving links to your site.
Link Building: Be Careful Out There!
There are A LOT of really shammy sites that let website owners post anything with links. Those sites will link back to your site, but that may not be the kind of association you want. Think of it like this: the world judges you based on the human company that you keep, right? Well, the Internet judges you based on the site associations that you have.
If you leave a link on a spam-filled site, that link will then link you to spam. That's not where you want to go with this. Try a different route. What route? Try to write guest posts that are good, long, and filled with valuable information. You know, the kind of information that you'd like to read. Then, target really good sites and blogs and other places that you can write an original and creative post for. That's link building. But, there's one more method to consider.
Link Building: Leaving A Link
Some site owners hire people to “link build” by leaving links in article comments. This can work. If you leave a comment that's actually constructive. But, if you comment about handbags on an advertising blog that has nothing to do with handbags, you are asking for trouble. Not only will your comment not be considered as important or useful, but it probably won't be published at all. When that happens, you've wasted your time completely. So, be careful where you post your links.
Need some link building tips or help? Just ask!
