“If you build it . . . they will come”. While this might have been a great idea in Field of Dreams, it doesn’t really hold true in web design. You not only have to create amazing content, structure it properly to ensure search engines will index it well — you also have to raise the authority on your site. One of the best ways to do this is to build links within your content that go to other trusted sites and encourage your audience to share your content with a broader group. This is where link building comes in and helps drive the discoverability of your website.
What is Link Building?
Building a rich infrastructure of links within your site doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a strategic process over time as opposed to a quick-hit checklist that you can knock out in an afternoon. Search Engine Journal has created a comprehensive eBook that will walk you through the strategies, but many businesses find that this could almost be a full-time job. Link building is the process of encouraging backlinks or external links between two websites. Internal links — links to another page in your website — are also an important currency to help improve search engine optimization (SEO). These links from other websites help add legitimacy to your site, and act as digital references from friends would in an analog world.
How Link Building Helps Your Website Grow
Each time someone links the articles on their website to yours or posts your stories in social media, you get a virtual point (Yay, team!). An external link to your page indicates that your content has value and that your website is well on the way to improving your trust and authority — two of the key measures that Google is looking for when it’s algorithm is ranking websites. Each link that you gain helps improve the perceived value of your site, growing traffic organically and even reducing the cost of some digital marketing such as keyword PPC.
Turn your passive website into a marketing powerhouse by creating a relationship with other websites by actively building links and providing your audience with top-notch content. Want to get started growing your website traffic — and your business? Contact the digital marketing professionals at Three Trees Media today or visit us online to learn more.
