Totally puzzled by link building/content marketing
-
Hey Mozzers!
I'm going to be starting link building for a website soon and I am having some trouble wrapping my head around a couple of things. First of all, in the current world of SEO, where should I be looking to generate links? Is it as simple as reaching out to bloggers and trawling through competitors links? Or is there something more? In relation to this, if I were to generate a good number of links from high authority sites, how would this effect my ranking for keywords (assuming the anchor text for those links is the website URL)?
The other thing I'm a little puzzled by is, if I were to write a great article on the websites blog and it gains traction in social media circles, people would (I assume) only share a link to the blog post instead of the actual article itself. How would this effect the ranking of keywords that I have optomised (anchor text etc.) for in the article? I assume this is where guest blogging would come in?
Any help would be HUGELY appreciated. I've been trying to logic this one out the last couple of days and just can't do it
Thanks a lot to anyone who replies
-
Hi Matthew!
Link building in today's SEO world is about relevancy, trust and authority.
The guest posting option is fine (asking blogs if you can write something for them), as long as what you're writing is an original and quality piece of content, and you're reaching out to trustworthy blogs that are, ideally, closely topically relevant to your own site for a link. In a perfect world all your links would be from relevant domains. However, links from irrelevant domains aren't bad - they still pass trust and authority, and having irrelevant links is part of a natural, diverse linking pattern. But if all or the vast majority of your links are from topically irrelevant domains, that becomes a problem.
I use Blogger Link Up and My Blog Guest to find prospective blogs to approach, but do your research, make sure you are reaching out to quality sites. Consider creating other content besides articles as well that stand a good chance of getting shared. Videos and ebooks for example.
Although having a peek at competitors' link profiles might give you some good ideas, don't just copy everything. Again, you want only quality links - links from relevant trusted websites to your own. So don't try and copy anything that doesn't meet this criteria.
You want your links to resemble a natural link building pattern and that gives you the biggest clue as to what is acceptable nowadays - so from a variety of sources, using a variety of linking/anchor text including the URL itself as you'd expect if they were just creating from people sharing your content around, and in a natural context (e.g. part of a review, or a resource link in a genuinely useful comment on a relevant article). Be very careful about deliberately creating links with your exact keywords in the anchor text. For example, if you were targeting the keyword 'car wax' you'd be better off linking to your site with natural variations such as 'here's a great article on car wax' 'here's how to apply car wax' 'the pros and cons of using car wax'. I think anchor text carries a lot less importance nowadays and Google will take more of a signal from the content on the linking page and linking site (but on the other hand, if you create lots of exact-match anchor text links to your site, Google does then pay attention as you risk a penalty). So yes, get natural-looking links from authority websites in your niche and you should see an improvement in your rankings for your target keywords. Link building aside, focus on creating great content first and foremost, because in time that'll earn you natural links anyway.
Your second question - if people start talking about your article and sharing it, yes they will just share a link and that's what you want. You don't want them to share the actual content of the article. There would be loads of duplicate copies of your article all over the web then, and that's not good for SEO! (sorry if I have misunderstood this part). Getting all those social shares is good though, it's sending a signal to Google that your site has something worth sharing, that perhaps it's an authority on your subject.
Hope that helps a bit!
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Link Building
I have a question as competitor made backlinks on longtail keywords and just for one specific post, If I wanna rank in Google SERP, then should I have to do the same strategy as my competitor did. or can I use just my own keywords to get rank?
Link Building | | aamirmurtaza670 -
Is guest posting recommended as a link building strategy?
Is guest posting a powerful methods when it comes to building backlinks? There are many relevant websites that have been set up to accept guest posts, still with good DA and PA and traffic Many relevant websites where it's easy to get a guest post on with good DA, PA and traffic What are the metrics to approach websites for guest posting?
Link Building | | elenamendez0 -
Other websites copy content and giving a link back
Hi, I've just noticed a few back links in Google Search Console, I was excited. But when I saw the backlinks, 2 other websites that had completely copied my content and then gave a backlink to my website. Is this bad for SEO and would google penalise my website for this?
Link Building | | thinkLukeSEO1 -
Drowning In a Sea of Link Building Advice
You can visit one SEO forum after the other and 50% of the folks will say 'do this' and the other half will say to do something else. It's always black hat vs white hat and then you still get the grey hat in between. So what does really work? Leon
Link Building | | leonfrancois0 -
Need help with link building
How do I get good links to my site. Is it best to hire a link builder, or do it myself. I am new at seo
Link Building | | mikespy0 -
Press Release Service for Link Building
I have a small question on your Mozzers! I have down in 30 days about 75 Backlink from 75 different sources of PR, National and International Press Release Domains. Some of them, are waiting for approval, from administrator, and some of them goes automatically published, but all have a good PR and PA&DA too. All 75 press release content was unique, 75 different contents, what do you think, are this links worth or not? THanks
Link Building | | leadsprofi1 -
Where to start on building links for a news website? Should I focus on promoting individual articles or create linkbait and create friends with influencial bloggers/editors/ and news websites in the same niche?
Where to start on building links for a news website? Should I focus on promoting individual articles or create linkbait and create friends with influential blogger/editors/ and news websites in the same niche?
Link Building | | purch0 -
Any Tips for Link Building for Boring Topics/Businesses?
I have a number of clients that own businesses in 'boring' sectors, such as: Toxic Waste Removal Steel Erecting Household Plumbing (Boilers, etc...) Link building for these sites is quite difficult. Creating compelling content and 'link bait' is particularly tricky. I found a good post from Michael Gray on the subject, but I don't think food (or McDonalds in this case)is a particularly difficult subject to write about. Any more tips on how to approach this would be appreciated. Thanks
Link Building | | cmaddison0