Gaining quality links has always been challenging task of search engine optimization. For more than a decade, search engines considered links as one of the important aspects in search rankings. Even though the emphasis on links has been reduced in Penguin 4.0, backlinks still continue to add value for rankings. Having a great content alone is just not enough to have good rankings in Google and other search engines. It needs an acknowledgment from other sites in the form of links to add credibility to the content. Today in SEO, there are various techniques to grow link profile for a website.

Passive Link Gaining
In natural or organic link building the manual intervention is very less, other than creating worthy content for the targeted audience. When we say worthy content, then it includes quality and information rich. The site should have valuable source of content that your targeted audiences can refer or link to. There is no specific rule to say how the content should be, but as long as it creates interest in users, it automatically gain links to your site without your intervention.

Acquiring natural links is not easy as it requires identifying the intent of targeted audience and supporting them with the informative, and useful content that is easy to understand. Another easy way of gaining natural links faster is to time the content when there is a demand for such content and not many options are available that can provide the information needed. To attract natural links to the website quickly, instead of creating comprehensive source of information, people adopt shortcut methods like publishing a breaking story or giving away freebies for the users etc. These are only temporary solutions but do not give long term SEO benefits. Infographics, resource guides, polls and surveys, quizzes are some of the content types that can help websites acquire natural links.

Active Link Gaining
Sometimes strategic promotion of your website content is required to reach the right audience. For this, manual link gaining methods are very helpful. The process of building links manually is somewhat tricky and time consuming. People have wrong perception that sharing content across social media naturally translates into links. This is not always true. The hardest part in manual link building is identifying the potential websites with relevancy. Links coming from high quality sites with relevant content have high value than the links that are generated randomly. To target those quality links, people follow many techniques such as submitting sites to directories, persuade the other party to add a link in their sites or pay for the listings etc. Google has devalued some of the manual link building types such as blog comments, guest book signing, forum signatures etc. Today following such methods is considered spammy and should be avoided in link building process.
Also, while gaining links, it is also important to be cautious about the quality of backlinks to your site. Check whether the site that you are targeting for link gaining has been indexed by the Google or has any penalty. If the quality of backlink is bad, then it can do harm to your site’s SEO.

In active method of link gaining, the focus is on activities that bring a predictable number of links for a given effort. The basic thing that needs understanding is that a link is also a navigation tool on the web. It is the way to find information on the web. It is far easier to click a link rather than to type it out. It makes for better user experience to click a link.

Many types of business listings and promotional activities include a snippet. Even for the most promising startup, they are advised to have an elevator pitch ready to explain their startup and its benefits with respect to the competitive landscape. When in a business or personal interaction, people want to know about your employer, many times they don’t know your employer and ask you to tell the details in a few sentences.

The digital marketing professionals role is similar to the one above. Their job is to promote a business on the web. They need to find best places to promote the business. When a business is promoted at another website, it is normal to provide a link back. It could be a do-follow link or a no-follow link. It really depend on the policy of that website. Some no-follow links are better from traffic point of view since that website can send a lot of qualified traffic to a client’s site. People seeking info about a specialized topic tend to visit niche sites that cover specialized topics in detail. A mention of a business in that niche sites can lead to a lot of explorative visits from such targeted visitors to check out if the site and its products can satisfy their needs or not.

By: Uma Sri