We have been emphasizing on the fact since, our first lesson that focus should be on working on SEO strategy that are safe. By safe we mean Google doesn’t consider it bad and provide a penalty. We also talked about how over a period Google has been working and upgrading its technology and the latest Penguin edition gives more Page Ranking in its algorithm to sites with better off page SEO. It gives more importance to links or referrals that link back to your site. In this chapter of inbound marketing certification course, we would be discussing about  backlinks and strategies about how to create them. This is a very big topic and would require lots of detail.

What is a backlink?

It is a link that has been referred to by another website. Let’s take the example of The Buzz Stand and On Mogul. There is an article present about The Buzz Stand on Mogul, the image has been attached below. As you can see in between the articles there are links that are referring to your site. These links are known as backlinks. They provide authority to your site. They help you in proving Google that your website has some content that has some value. They prove to be the most important tool for any inbound marketing strategy.

We are talking about improving our seo strategy and using backlinks for off page seo

Link Building strategy- off page SEO

Uses of Link Building

Search Engines use them

The most important use is that search engines consider websites with links to your website on popular websites more important. As we discussed above as well greater the authority of website, more valuable would be the link for you.

Similarly, if we have our links on spammy sites it can impact us negatively as well. Hence, we need to make sure our SEO strategy is done carefully.

Popularity

It helps generating traffic directly as well. Suppose, your article is mentioned on Forbes. Now, Forbes has millions of visitors every month. If your website has a link there, then it is highly probable that these people just might visit your website. Hence, these act as a great source of traffic generation

Domain Authority

We know that search engines use them. But, it is used by Moz and Majestic to define ranks in term of authority. Domain Authority helps define how strong your domain is and how likely it can rank in Google for keywords. It also helps define level of trust a search engine might have and hence, domain authority forms a useful part of SEO strategy.

After discussing uses of link building there are 3 link building strategy we can work upon. Let’s have a look at them in detail.

  1. Natural Links

When a website links to your content saying that it might add some value to customer. Google acknowledges this link and gives the maximum value to such kind of backlinks. As an example, mentioning of your link on blog posts of websites. This is a natural link building method.

This is an example of natural ink building strategy as a part of inbound marketing strategy and an help us do a better a seo analysis

Natural backlink example

  1. Manual outreach

We can link our website by submitting to various directories, postings like jobs or when you pay for posting your links like advertisements. These also get recognized by Google but they have less weightage compared to natural links. You can see as an example posting of internship of The Buzz Stand on Twenty19 website.

This is a part of inbound marketing certification course and helps us know how manual link building strategy can be used for seo analysis

Manual backlink strategy – off page SEO

  1. Self-Created

This link building strategy is the weakest and have lesser impact than other two. When you include links while creating profiles, commenting on blogs, answering questions on Quorra etc. This is also done by backlink builders available online, that submit your links to various websites. This can have a negative impact as well if Google thinks these are being done intentionally and can downgrade your link as spam.

  1. Brand Mention

A new method that is coming up is not having a link but a mention of your brand name, that can help Google identify and link it back to your site. Most people involved in SEO analysis don’t use this at present as they don’t know much about it. But Google’s AI is intelligent enough to recognize what that brand might be and links it to relevant keywords. For example, if a website has some content about inbound marketing strategy and mentions The Buzz Stand, then Google might recognize the brand as related to inbound marketing strategy and show the URL in its search results. Brand mention also helps create an image in the mind of reader of the post as well in similar way it does to Google and the user might just want to come to your website to see what it is about?

The Buzz Stand provides link building service in India and we use all the above strategies and have been very successful in helping businesses to generate visibility with the same. We would be discussing more about backlinks and link building strategy in our next chapter of inbound marketing certification course.