Link Building

TL;DR

Link building is the process of acquiring backlinks from other websites across the web, in order to increase domain authority and get additional referral traffic for a webpage. 

What is Link Building?

Link building is one of the most important parts of the SEO process. It can be defined as the organized process through which a website attempts to build a reputation on the Internet. It is based on achieving backlinks from other websites, in order to increase domain authority and get additional referral traffic. These backlinks can be achieved in a number of ways:

• Reaching out to other webmasters where you would like to place your links
• Submitting listings to web directories like the Yellow Pages
• Guest posting on other platforms (provided that the editorial policies of that platform allow backlinking)
• Creating content that other websites will want to quote
• Posting on forums and social media (again, provided backlinking is allowed. Also, this should not be overdone, in order to not be labeled as a spammer.)

The list is open-ended and you can add any method to it, as long as the result is an increased number of backlinks. 

What is the best way of link building?

When link building, website owners should consider the balance between the quality, relevance and quantity of the links.

A large number of backlinks from websites with low quality and relevance will most likely not help in any way. For example, if you own a private pediatric clinic in the USA, a backlink from a carpet store in Europe would be useless. Also in this category, using link schemes, link farms and buying backlinks is not a recommended link building strategy. It may even lead to penalties from search engines. Yet, a link from a high authority such as Forbes or the New York Times may be extremely valuable, regardless of the relevance.

The placement of the link and the surrounding content should also be taken into account. A link from the footer of a webpage is far less valuable than an editorial link, where a website editor manually ads a reference to your website, in a relevant context. 

Taking all of this into account, the highest quality links are the editorial links from websites with high domain authorities and that are closely related to your domain. For example, if you owned an adventure travel company, a link from an article about the best travel adventure tours, published on Lonely Planet would be far more valuable than hundreds of links from irrelevant web directories.