What are the Basic but Important Aspects ofLink Building?

BY Rachel Cagle

Link building can be a difficult process, especially if you and your clients are new to the task. However, the process is becoming increasingly important to companies’ SEO efforts.

What is it?

Let’s start off with the definition. According to Moz, it’s “the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your own.” So, when your client’s website is linked to another, possibly more established site, it gives your client’s company a greater chance of being discovered by new customers. 

Additionally, as a result of building links, is whenSearch engines use links to crawl (the discovery process in which search engines send out a team of robots (known as crawlers or spiders) to find new and updated content) the web; they will crawl the links between the individual pages on your website, and they will crawl the links between entire websites.”

It's a good thing when search engines look over your client's links this way. It can help your client's web pages rank higher for specific keywords. "Generally speaking, the more high-​quality websites that link to you, the more likely you are to rank well in search results," says Moz. So, applying link-​building strategies benefit both the site being linked to and the site doing the linking.

Today, let’s focus on choosing web pages to which you should be linking your client’s sites. Kevin Rowe, the Founder, and CEO of PureLinq, recently discussed the topic of link building during a Search Engine Land webinar. He says that there are four types of web pages you can consider linking to:

  1. Homepages
  2. Category/​Groupings
  3. Individual Items
  4. Educational/​Informational

There are two that Rowe considers more useful than the others.

1. Homepages

Rowe suggests link building on homepages when you’re trying to boost your client’s rating for a top keyword in their industry. “Homepages have a tendency to rank a lot easier than internal pages for highly competitive keywords,” says Rowe. Additionally, linking to another site’s homepage can help newer companies establish themselves in the industry. It is because they’re now associated with an established company in their industry, and their site gets more attention from potential customers.

2. Category

Category pages list a company’s locations, brands, products, etc. Based on the description, they may not seem important for SEO link building, but Rowe disagrees. “I think these are the hardest to get, but the most impactful because you’re typically going to have the highest search/​find keywords,” he says. 

I like to link to the category page if the client is really focused on short-​term, quarterly goals and growth. Yes, there’s long-​term there too, but typically linking to category pages is the fastest way to generate revenue.” Category pages are basically a list of keywords, many of which your clients are interested in. Why not link with something easily findable like that?

Your client may think they’re doing just fine on the SEO front. But are they really? Run a Digital Audit (available on AdMall by SalesFuel) on them to see how their online presence is faring. Chances are, they’ll need a little help that link building can provide.


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