Link building is a central discipline in the field of Search engine optimization (SEO). It refers to the strategic process of acquiring hyperlinks, so-called Backlinks, from external websites to your own Internet presence. The main objective is to increase the visibility and the Ranking of a website in the search engine results. Search engines such as Google interpret backlinks as recommendations or proof of trust from other websites. The more high-quality and thematically relevant backlinks a site has, the more likely it is to be classified as authoritative and trustworthy by search engines, which has a positive impact on its ranking in the search engine results. SERP (Search Engine Result Pages) has an impact.
The quality of a Backlinks is more important than pure quantity. A single, thematically relevant link from a highly authoritative website is much more valuable than numerous links from irrelevant or low-quality sites. Effective link building not only helps to boost rankings, but can also generate direct referral traffic and increase brand awareness.
Link building strategies
The acquisition of high-quality Backlinks requires diverse and often time-consuming strategies. Serious link building avoids manipulative behavior, which can be penalized by search engines, and concentrates on organic methods:
- Content Marketing: The creation of outstanding, informative and unique content that is inherently link-worthy (linkbait). This includes studies, infographics, comprehensive guides or tools.
- Guest contributions: Writing articles for thematically relevant external blogs or news sites that contain one or more links to your own website.
- Broken Link building: Identifying broken external links on other websites and offering your own relevant content as a replacement.
- Unlinked Mentions: Detecting mentions of your own brand, company or specific products and services that have not yet been provided with a link and requesting a subsequent link.
- Resource pages: Placing your own website on relevant resource or business directories, provided they offer real added value for users.
- Skyscraper technique: Identifying popular content with many links, creating even better and more up-to-date content on this topic and contacting the original link providers.
- Digital PR: Generating media interest and press releases that lead to publications and thus to Backlinks of news portals and magazines.
Quality criteria for backlinks
In order to maximize the SEO-Benefit from Link building-measures, the following criteria should be used to evaluate a Backlinks decisive:
- Relevance: The link should come from a website that is thematically or industry-related to your own website. A high thematic overlap signals a stronger connection to search engines.
- Authority of the linking domain: Links from websites with a high Domain Authority (DA) or Domain Rating (DR) - metrics that evaluate the strength of a domain - transfer more „Linkjuice“ and are therefore more valuable.
- Naturalness of the link profile: A balanced and natural-looking link profile is essential. Search engines recognize and devalue manipulative link structures, such as those created by buying links.
- Anchor text: The anchor text, i.e. the visible and clickable text of a link, should be relevant and ideally reflect the relevance of the linked content. It is advisable to use a variety of anchor texts instead of just one keyword.
- Position of the link: Links that are placed in the main content of a page are generally rated higher than links in the footer, sidebar or comments.
- „Dofollow“ vs.„Nofollow“: For the transfer of Linkjuice „dofollow“ links are required. „Nofollow“ attributes instruct search engines not to follow the link and not to assign a rating, even if they are used for referral links. Traffic can be useful.
Successful Link building is an ongoing process that requires strategic planning, quality content and building relationships with other website owners. It is a fundamental building block of a successful long-term SEO-strategy and contributes significantly to online visibility and business success.
