Link building meaning
So what is the link building meaning? Link building is the process of acquiring incoming links to your website from other websites. Links are important because they tell search engines that your content is valuable and should rank higher in organic search results. The more links you have, the more likely you are to rank high for a particular keyword and therefore the easier you will be found online.
In simpler terms, link building ensures that your website becomes more popular. This way you will be easier to find for potential customers.
Link Building Meaning
To understand link building, it is useful to know the meaning of certain terms. So you know exactly what is talked about when someone talks about link building. Below I will discuss the most important terms.
Anchors
Anchors are also called anchors or anchor texts. This is the piece of text under which your link is placed. So it's a clickable term which leads you to another website or page. Usually these anchors already tell something about the website or page you are linking to.
Backlinks
Backlinks are links on external websites that link to your website. Or links on your website that link to external websites. Google sees these links as recommendations. It is important for link building that you have many quality backlinks.
External links
External links are links that point to external websites. Actually, external links are a synonym for backlinks.
Internal links
Internal links are links within your website that point to other pages within your website. So you can easily ensure yourself that you have enough internal links.
Link profile
Your link profile is your total of internal and external links. To ensure that this profile is a good one, it is important to provide relevant links.
What should you take into account with link building?
If you want to start link building, there are some important things to take into account. Link building is a very useful process, but only if it is done well and thought through. In fact, if you don't pay attention to link building and simply (illegally) buy some links, it will eventually backfire. The following things are important to take into account when you want to start link building:
Ideal number of links
First of all you should look at the ideal number of links. You might think that it is best to collect as many links as possible, but this is not true. You have to make sure that Google doesn't get the idea that you're gathering links for marketing purposes. When you start gathering a lot of links, Google will get that impression. So it's better to take it a little slower and collect a few links per week.
Link building simply takes time. So make sure you work gradually, then you will eventually achieve the best results.
Quality of the links
As mentioned above, link building is not necessarily about quantity. Quality is actually much more important. Ideally, you want large and important websites, such as nu.nl, to link to your website. If you do, chances are you'll get a lot of visitors. Google also sees that a good website links to your website. Google will therefore see your website as more valuable and will ensure that you will rank higher in the search results.
Another part of the quality of the links is the relevance of the links. A link only has value when it is relevant. For example, if you have a painting company, it is not very useful to have a link on a website for maternity wear. Not only does it not have much added value, but it probably makes Google not trust it at all.
Anchor texts
Besides looking at the quantity and quality of your links, it is also important to provide relevant anchor texts. Anchor texts are texts behind which the link is placed. It is important that these anchor texts clearly indicate where they link to. Usually the anchor texts are brand names, URLs or keywords, but in principle it can be anything. As long as you provide a little variety.
Topicality of the links
Finally, you also have to make sure that your links are a bit up to date. Google wants the content to be relevant. It makes no sense to talk about the weather and then link to the weather forecast from three years ago. To prevent this, it is useful to make a planning and to keep an eye on it.
Monitor link building
You should regularly monitor your link building process. It's best to check the total number of links and their quality every so often. Fortunately, this is very easy. You can check this with the so-called spam score. There are various tools to improve the spam score. In the end, it is best to keep only the links that score green. Links with a red spam score should be removed. Please note that you should not do this all at once because it will again have a negative effect on the link value.
Why is link building important?
Link building is one of the most essential parts of SEO. Unfortunately it is also the most labour intensive. Yet all your efforts will be rewarded. Google determines how important your website is based on your links.
In addition, a good link-building strategy will also bring more traffic to your website. This is partly because Google sees your website as more relevant and therefore higher in the search results. And of course, all the links to your website on other websites ensure that many more people visit your website.
More visitors eventually lead to more customers and thus to more turnover. So it is an investment, but you will not regret it!