When strategists say that backlinks are just one of the 200 signals that determine your website ranking, we cannot say they are wrong. However, the statement trivializes the importance of backlinks in the world of SEO and digital marketing. Link building is one of the most prominent features to determine the worth of a site even when the SEO algorithm is continually evolving. Links endow power and context to the pages that the bots crawl for indexing. Therefore, it is not surprising to find amazingly exciting content without any relevant backlinks to evade the search engine crawlers and fade into oblivion.
Back in 2016, Backlinko ran a survey to find the factor that affected SEO the most. They found a direct link between the ranks and links. The quality AND the quantity of links a webpage bears directly affects its ranking and optimization. It merely means that having a thousand backlinks is NOT enough unless they are from credible sources and reliable too. Spamming links to directories, forums, and blog comments are not a smart way to build links. In fact, it is still Black Hat, and Google checks the number of referring domains during ranking as well.
Link building trends that will define the new year
In 2018, link building is undoubtedly not going to take a back seat in terms of importance and contributions to Search Engine Optimization. So here are four super useful techniques of white hat link-buildingthat will help your site crawl up the SERP this year.
Guest blogging will always be the savior
According to all the experts in SEO and digital marketing, guest blogging is always relevant and helpful. You can use it as per your industry requirements and it gives you the opportunity to become visible on someone else’s blog/platform as well. Posting on other sites will help you take advantage of their popularity and “borrow” visitors from their domain. Guest blogging is a great way to attract a new set of audiences from entirely different quadrants that you would otherwise not access. It is a brilliant way of utilizing free promotion for your brand. Doing it on a popular platform adds gravitas to your profile as a blogger, your website, and posts.
Do not forget to add the influencers
Adding some important names to your post in the relevant places, of course, makes your post more valuable as well. There are blog posts like “The Top 10 digital marketing companies of 2018”, or “The Top 10 Entrepreneurs to Make Billions in 2017”. These posts are the best anchors of backlinks, and the mention of a leading influencer in the right place will get you more views, references, guest blogging opportunities and links. People, who might not know you and your site, are likely to know the influencer you are mentioning on your blog. They are likely to find your blog from related searches using the influencer’s name.
Infographics are great link baits
Infographics are the pandas of the digital marketing world. Everyone loves them! They are neat, they are interesting, and they are indeed informative. One reason behind the raging popularity of infographics is their potential to become viral. People share infographics more often. In fact, people are three times more likely to share infographics as compared to other forms of content. They are easy to understand, and they love to use infographics (cropped images) for their own blogs. It opens up more windows for back-links.
Unleash the power of video content
The video is hot everywhere. From sharing live videos on Instagram to sharing old school videos from YouTube; people are openly expressing their love for all kinds of videos. The most popular ones are still tutorials and how-to videos. Makeup tutorials, recipes, website set up and CMS installation videos are incredibly popular among the few. The idea is to share all self-hosted videos on social media platforms and reclaim the links on YouTube. Even industry-specific reviews are incredibly popular as far as videos go. In fact, modern SEOs find relevant videos to be 66% more efficient for link building. You can take crude videos using your phone, edit and mix sound using freebie software. Research shows that people love videos that look a little DIY and a lot relatable.
2018 is not going to make link building any easier for the folks miraculously. However, the concept of black and white will become a lot clearer. Even ranking for relevant keywords will directly depend on the quality and quantity of your website backlinks, more than ever. There is no secret formula to express backlinking, but in all situations, Google is going to ensure that sites that rely on link farms and low-grade backlinks will not climb the steps of SERPs.
Author Bio: Derek Iwasiuk is a marketer. He has been helping companies adapt to white hat link-building since the advent of SEO strategies for digital marketing. His endeavors have helped many smaller companies and startups develop low-budget campaigns for site optimization.
