Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not a recent phenomenon, its original form came to fruition in the 90s during the dot-com boom through the use of keywords and indexation tactics. Those days were prolific with website owners filling their pages with as many keywords as possible in the attempt to organically attract visitors. If someone wanted to increase their ranking, they could simply add more keywords onto their webpages, and while this approach was very simple, it resulted in lower quality, less organic search engine results.
Keyword stuffing eventually evolved into more sophisticated tactics, including link building often harnessing BackRub. Never heard of BackRub? Think again, this search engine actually evolved into Google and helped to develop the tool we know as SEO today. The use of inbound links, instead of simply utilizing keywords, allowed for higher quality search results because the search engine was able to consider outside data points. Read on to learn about the history, and most importantly, the future of link building and how you can leverage this massive trust and domain authority building effort to surge in search.
Is Link Building Still a Viable Marketing Strategy in 2022?
In the last decade, marketing professionals have witnessed the rise of mobile, video, and social media marketing. The digital marketing field is always evolving, but the success of using SEO as an epicenter of trust, authority, visibility and coveted traffic has remained a constant way to achieve results. While some of the functions of SEO services are still held closely to the vest, and with search engines not sharing every kernel of how their algorithms function, some methods have proven to be valuable through research and testing.
Although SEO is one of the oldest forms of digital marketing, it is still extremely relevant and an essential part of any marketing strategy. The concept of SEO is that it drives more traffic to a website through high-quality, pertinent search queries. It is vastly important for companies that use SEO to stay on top of trends and new methods that will provide them with a higher ranking in Google and as the algos are always evolving, so should the SEO strategies.
When thinking about link building, it is important to remember that the purpose of Google is to deliver the most relevant results to the user’s search. Utilizing backlinks is a tried-and-true way for the search engine to show the user relevant results, but it is critical that marketing professionals consider their strategy and the metrics that they evaluate when building their backlink profile.
Not All Backlinks are Created Equal
A primary factor to remember is that high quality backlinks must be relevant with the content where the link is garnering insertion and that the audience is relevant, as well as the landing page where they will be directed. All backlinks should have a relationship with the content and pages they are found in, ideally connecting two pages that have similar content. Irrelevant links are less likely to be clicked on by users, thus traffic will not be generated to the website. This type of backlink is considered to be bad or low quality, and should be avoided, particularly because Google and the other search engines can actually penalize the website owner for employing this strategy. Low quality backlinks do not generate traffic to your website, while high quality backlinks generate regular visitors, increasing visibility for your product, service or content. Yes, beyond clicks, Google also discerns thematic, contextual relevance, thus beyond DA (domain authority) and PA (page authority) relevance must be a top qualifying factor.
Building Links in 2022
As we have discussed, link building is an important digital marketing strategy and a foundational element of SEO. However, this process has changed since its first inception as Google continues their efforts to emphasize high quality links in their ranking.
The question is not specifically “if” link building is effective in 2022, but rather, how. Here are some tips that can assist in your link building strategy.
Unlinked Brand Mentions
Far too often companies build brand equity, which propagates into brand mentions. Many of these mentions go unlinked and thus the authority and trust signals do not pass through to the companies website, the DA benefits are not realized and there is a loss of good-quality traffic. Leveraging this knowledge it is important to perform reclamation efforts to secure links within those non-linked brand mentions.
Employing the Broken Link or Broken Page Backlink Strategy
Broken links offer another viable opportunity for link building in 2022. This strategy employs finding broken links in a website and creating similar content to what is no longer available. After recreating the content, the digital marketer will reach out to the website’s owner with the broken link and request that it be replaced with the new content to recreate the page and in doing so garner the backlink.
Another option is to scan your full backlink profile and find lost links or broken links wherein a site is pointing to you but the URL path is no longer functional. You can reach out and request an update to your link or simply focus on 301 redirects to remediate the issue.
Competitor Backlink Mirroring
Competitive analysis is always prudent, in traditional marketing tactics, digital marketing initiatives and indeed, within SEO and link building. By exploring the backlink profiles of your competitors you can find content wherein they are garnering link placements and reach out editorially to obtain an insert within the same articles. Not only is this effective, it places your company within the journey of exploration and due diligence consumers are taking in considering value props, solutions and services that are relevant to your company.
Link Building is Still Important in 2022
It cannot be overly emphasized just how important link building is in your overall digital marketing strategy. Employing some of the methods discussed here can help to drive traffic to your website, increase your domain authority and propel your visibility in organic search by bolstering keyword rankings. Link Building is a critical element to Google’s ranking algorithm, and though it can be hard work, the benefits can be enormous.
