When it comes to developing an online marketing strategy, not enough can be said about the importance of developing unique, informative, and interesting content and delivering it to the right audience.

But an often overlooked and underutilized strategy is benefiting businesses big and small, and though it takes a lot of time and effort, it works.

That strategy is link building.

The importance of building quality links to your website, whether you run a small e-commerce site or one of the biggest website’s in the world, cannot be overlooked. Interested in learning more about link building and exactly how it can benefit your business? You’ve come to the right place.

The background of building links

Back in the day, link building was done purely for an SEO benefit. It was easy to get links, and it was easy to see near instant results from link building.

Links became harder and harder to obtain, and as such, the value of a quality link skyrocketed. What was once a walk in the park became a swim across the English Channel. Many online marketers switched to easier, less time-consuming strategies. But those that continued with link building as a primary SEO strategy never looked back because, even as link building became more difficult, the results continued to be outstanding.

To learn more about link building and how it could benefit your online business, click here.

Going beyond the search engine

As link building has evolved over the years and become a more difficult and resource allocating strategy, it’s also picked up a host of benefits in addition to improving search engine rankings. In fact, many online marketers view the SEO benefits of link building as secondary to the other benefits that link building provides.

The only links that matter now are quality links from relevant websites.  What this means is that these links are working for your website in many ways beyond just benefiting your ranking in the search engines.

(1) Quality links bring relevant visitors directly to your site

Whether the link you’ve built is from a blog, a news article, a social media share, or any other form of media, people are going to see it. And better yet, people are going to click it. In this sense, link building can also be viewed as a PR strategy. Guest blogging is one of these strategies that when done right, can drive relevant traffic and sales. These are the type of visitors that you want on your site, too; they clicked on the link because they’re interested in what your site has to offer.

(2) Quality links can establish your website as an industry leader

Whatever niche your business is in, chances are there’s a following dedicated to that niche online. Integrating your business into the relevant blogs, news sites, weekly roundups, and other content portals through links can help your business become an industry leader.

(3) Quality links don’t ever stop working for you

In most cases, links online are permanent. If you’ve built a quality link, chances are the site that the link is on doesn’t have any plans to remove it. That means that these links will work for you for a long time, well after you’re done with your current round of link building.

Ready to discuss a link building strategy to take your business to the next level? Click here.

Compliant link building: sticking to the search engine’s rules

It’s no secret that websites left and right are being penalized by shoddy SEO strategies. If you choose to pursue link building as a strategy, it’s important that it’s done compliantly.

A real person, doing real outreach

In a post-Penguin world, automated link building is a recipe for disaster. In order to accomplish compliant link building, it’s important that a professional is reaching out to websites on your website’s behalf. One example of compliant link building is for the outreach professional to offer the website an original article or exclusive piece of content, with the hope that the website will link back to your website.

Having an outreach professional or SEO consultant handling your link building is absolutely vital in making sure your link building is compliant. Leaving your link building to some robots overseas is a recipe for a serious penalty.

Links need to be built naturally

In order to comply with the search engines, links need to be natural. They need to be earned. A natural link is a link that you would expect to see. It’s not, for example, a link to your home design website on a health blog. Links need to be built with the potential customer in mind. Think “would a link here benefit the customer?” and if the answer is yes, it’s a relevant, compliant link.

Ready to talk about link building?

In a world of ever-changing SEO strategies, it’s important to stick to the proven ones that work. Organic Media Group is an experienced SEO agency and are leaders in safe, results oriented, link building. If you’re ready to discuss how link building can take your business to the next level, schedule a time to talk to us today.