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Since people are spending more and more time online, companies are transitioning their marketing approaches from more traditional forms of advertising to digital marketing. One of the most profitable approaches is known as Search Engine Marketing. It has become more prevalent because this strategy enables companies to more easily target their ideal customers. With just a click, the marketer can reach a wide-yet-defined demographic for his or her products or services.
The secret lies in the process called link building, which is a major part of the internet marketing tactic called Search Engine Optimization or SEO. Link building is an effective way to make a website rank higher in search results. By using link building services, you can generate links to point toward your site. This enables your site to gain high ranking in popular search engines, thus attracting a larger audience to generate sales and revenue.
Link building is the process of naturally creating content that webmasters want to link to. These are commonly called “inbound links” or “back links”. The number and quality of back links is a major factor that search engines evaluate in order to determine the rank of your site and identify it as trustworthy and reliable.
There are several methods available to use in order to stay above the competition. One thing to be mindful of is “less is more.” Search engines value quality over quantity, so building out thousands of low-quality links in a short amount of time could be harmful. Search engines might view these backlinks as spam and lower a site’s ranking.
Before delving into the link building process, it’s good to first know the difference between building high-quality links and low-quality links. Low-quality links are characterized as numerous irrelevant links, built only to achieve and maintain high search engine ranking. It is disapproved by the search engine community and can hurt rankings. Some techniques include:
Link Farms. This refers to the practice of referencing and exchanging low-quality links under a mutual agreement with another site to solely increase popularity.
Hidden Links. As the title suggests, these are invisible links hidden from the user with the same aim as Link Farms.
Sybil Attack. Coined after a famous multiple-personality-disorder patient, this malicious technique is practiced by producing multiple websites under different hostnames to create links referencing one another.
When determining the quality of a link, one of the factors is the “authority” of the referring website. Getting links placed on sites known for their authority and quality, like Copyblogger, is key in building authority for any website trying to rank higher in search results. Another factor that search engines look for is the location of the back link. For example, if the back link is embedded in an article that is relevant to your website, then it will be considered a higher quality link as opposed to a link on a reference page.
Again, sticking with the principle, “less is more,” is key in building a website’s reputation. The most important factor is the quality – not quantity – of the link.
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