Link building has become one of the most important digital marketing strategies utilized by marketers around the world. The problem is, it’s also one of the most misunderstood strategies that can be complicated and overwhelming, especially at first. But one thing is for sure: when link building is done right, its ability to boost your website traffic, improve your search engine rankings, and provide a number of other powerful benefits is nothing short of incredible.
And can you guess what happens without effective link building strategies in place?
- Your site will lack domain authority
- Your traffic will suffer
- Bounce rates will skyrocket
- Your overall online performance will suffer
Luckily, the benefits of link building can start paying off quickly. Before we get into those specific benefits, let’s begin with an overview of link building in case you are new to this strategy.
Let’s Start with the Basics of Link Building
As an important part of your overall search engine optimization strategy, link building is a practice that involves getting other websites to link back to your website. For example, if we link to this Google page explaining how to see who links to you the most, your top-linked pages, and more, we have just provided Google with a backlink.
Now your next question might be why this is important for SEO. There are several answers to that question. But the most straightforward answer is that generating backlinks helps boost your performance in search engine results.
When other websites with relevant content and high domain authority link back to your site, they are letting Google, or other search engines, know your site is a trusted authority on a particular subject. Trust is just one of the many factors that’s important to search engines, along with things like expertise and authority.
(We talk all about the specific link building strategies SEO agencies use in this link building strategy post. If you want to learn things like how to build backlinks organically and the type of links that are most beneficial to your site, it’s one post you can’t skip!)
The more expertise, trust, and authority your site have, the more it can reap the benefits of link building. So, with all of that in mind, let’s now dig into those specific benefits to inspire you to start on your own link building efforts.
Top 14 Benefits of Link Building in SEO
Today we’ll cover 14 of the biggest benefits of link building in SEO. But the truth is, the benefits extend far beyond what we could ever include in a single blog post. However, these 14 benefits are sure to provide you with enough motivation to start implementing link building strategies in your digital marketing plan today.
- Improves Website Traffic
Just about everyone with a website wants more website traffic, right? And that happens to be the most prominent benefit from building backlinks for your site.
In this case, the benefits also happen to be two-fold. For starters, the more other sites link back to your website, the more opportunities you have to get more clicks from their users. Second, these backlinks also boost your domain authority, trust, and expertise. The more authoritative, trustworthy, and expert Google considers your website to be, the higher your site will rank in search engine results. And the better your rankings…you guessed it…the more website traffic you will get!
(On the subject of website traffic and SEO, here’s another post to explore next: 8 Actionable Image SEO Tips for Boosting Organic Traffic)
2. Better Search Rankings
We just mentioned how link building leads to better search rankings in relation to web traffic. But let’s explore that benefit in more detail.
When relevant sites link back to your site, it provides useful context for Google or other search engines to use when ranking their sites. So, if a high-authority boating site links back to your fishing supplies site, this signifies your own authority on a relevant subject. And the more authoritative and relevant the linking site is, the more it can lead to better search rankings for your own site!
3. Higher Site Metrics and SEO Scores
Domain authority (DA) is just one of the SEO metrics we have covered that gets a boost from effective link building strategies. Truthfully, there are several site metrics that improve when your link building strategies are a success. You can check Domain Authority using DA checker which uses Moz APIs to obtain accurate results.
Here are just a few:
Domain Rating (DR)
Ahrefs’ domain rating tool relates specifically to your backlink profile.
According to Ahrefs’, they consider these factors for DR:
- “When a domain’s DR is higher, more “link juice” is transferred to linked domains.
- The source domain splits its rating equally amongst the domains it links to. So: a DR-10 domain which links to three other domains can influence your DR more than a DR-80 domain which links to a million other domains.”
URL Rating (UR)
Another Ahrefs SEO metric is known as URL rating or UR.
Unlike DR, URL rating is a page-level ranking as opposed to a domain-level metric. This means it varies according to each specific URL on your site, as opposed to the site as a whole. The strength of a page’s link profile is represented “on a 100-point scale. The bigger the number, the stronger a page’s link profile is.”
PageRank (PR)
This is one of Google Search’s algorithms used to rank pages for search engine results. It counts the quantity and quality of links for a rough determination of the site’s importance, and this calculation is used for positioning that site in search engine results
Alexa Rank
The Alexa Traffic Rank or Alexa Rank is an Alexa Internet ranking that functions much the same as other SEO metrics and relates to the popularity and importance of a site.
4. Better Credibility and Reputation
Let’s go back to the fishing and boat supplies example we used earlier in this post to explain how backlinks help establish your credibility and reputation.
If you’re browsing a popular boating site you have relied on for information for years, chances are you trust that website. Then, when that trusted website share links to other sites, you are more inclined to trust those sites they are linking to.
This goes a long way for promoting the credibility and reputation of your own site when you can get as many of these links as possible. But it also goes to show why links from high-ranking, trusted sites are more important and beneficial than sites with less credibility.
5. Increase Sales and Revenue Generation Opportunities
Chances are, you are exposed to influencer marketing on a daily basis, simply from browsing a blog you like, opening your Instagram app, or using social media of any kind. When you perform these actions, you’ll often see links to other sites, encouraging you to check them out. This is one form of influencer marketing, and it’s also a way that link building helps you increase sales and revenue generation opportunities.
When links to your site lead to more people visiting your site and paying for your products and services, this automatically leads to more revenue generating opportunities for you! And who doesn’t want more sales?!
6. Enhance Relationships and Networking in your Niche
Let’s not overlook the importance of building relationships and networking within your niche when it comes to link building either.
Often, link building is done best when it is a reciprocal relationship. To marketers in a similar niche might exchange links with one another so they can both reap the rewards of more traffic, authority, and other benefits of link building. Not only are these relationships helpful for growing your business, but there are also personal benefits.
Connecting with like-minded business owners in your niche can mean you have a sounding board for new ideas, and it also allows you to learn directly from people who have reached the level of success you’re hoping to attain.
7. Passive Income Generation
Making money from your website is great. But what’s even better is earning passive income from your website. That means you are set up to earn money without the need to be constantly and directly involved in earning it. When there are more links leading to your website where you sell products, and services, or generate ad revenue, it means there are also more opportunities for you to earn money from these links.
In addition to your direct marketing efforts, the income boost you can receive from other sites linking to your content is powerful!
8. Boosting Authority
We’ve already touched on the importance of authority when it comes to SEO. When your site has more domain authority, it will show up higher in search engine results.
For example, let’s consider two dog walking websites that offer virtually the same services. However, one has a much higher domain authority because it has more backlinks and a better link building strategy backing it. When Google crawls these pages and determines their position on search engine results pages, which one do you think will appear higher up?
The site with more authority! No surprises there.
9. Continual and Sustained Referral Traffic
There are many forms of digital marketing that can run their course or require regular updating to be successful.
For example, if you set up Facebook Ads for 30 days, you will need to take action at the end of those 30 days. You can either decide to stop the ads altogether, tweak them and run them again or start fresh.
But with link building, you are able to generate continual and sustained referral traffic without the need to update this link at its permanent spot on an authority website. This means you can continually reap the benefits of link building without constantly checking in on that particular backlink!
10. Better Visibility and Exposure
Visibility and exposure can make or break not only your link building strategy but also your digital marketing strategy as a whole.
Links tend to beget links. So, the more visible your brand and your website site via backlinks on other sites, the more likely you are to continue building links and getting more traffic and other rewards this way.
On top of getting better visibility and exposure with link building, we also encourage you to boost your brand visibility in other ways. This includes establishing a social media strategy and participating in relevant industry events.
11. Low Bounce Rates
Until now, we’ve largely been talking about backlinks in reference to link building. But another important part of link building is your own internal linking structure. This involves linking from one page of your website to another page on your website. So, if a visitor clicks that link, they remain on your site, but just on a different page. This is helpful because it keeps your bounce rate low, which is another factor search engines look at for ranking.
Bounce rate refers to the percentage of users who visit only a single URL on your site before clicking away to another site or closing the tab. Search engines will often consider high bounce rates to be a sign that users aren’t finding what they need. Search engines tend to assume the site isn’t authoritative, relevant, or useful to readers when the bounce rate is high. But getting visitors to click on even one other page on your site will keep your bounce rate lower.
12. Creates More Valuable Content for Readers
Inbound and outbound links, when done strategically, can provide a lot of value to readers. For example, you might have noticed how we include links throughout our blog posts, highlighting certain terms. This is done to provide you with a helpful link to more information regarding the highlighted term. It can be tricky to include all of the information you need in a single blog post, even if it’s several thousand words long. But with links to relevant content, you provide readers with the opportunity to seek out more information if they’re interested in learning more.
13. Improves Your Trust Score
Depending on the platform you’re talking about, trust scores can go by different names. In addition to trust score, this metric is also called TrustRank, MozTrust, and Authority Score.
Regardless, these trust signals are meant to tell search engines that your site and your content can be trusted. For example, a site with a high trust score won’t be a spammy site. Instead, it will be a website that provides value, expertise, and well, trustworthy content to visitors.
14. More Social Media Followers & Email Subscribers
Has your social media follower growth gone stagnant? This is a challenge many businesses face, so you’re not alone. There are a number of different strategies that can help give you the boost you need. But one strategy you might not have considered is link building!
Interestingly, social media growth is one of the lesser-known benefits of link building. But it can be easy to implement!
For starters, you can get links on other websites to your social media platforms rather than your website (or in addition to). At the same time, you can boost your social media followers with links on your own website. At the very least, your website should include visible links or icons that take visitors to your social media platforms. But you can also include these links in other ways.
For example? At the end of your blog posts, remind visitors to follow your brand on Instagram for even more content. The same goes for asking them to subscribe to your email list!
Ready to Enjoy the Benefits of Link Building for Yourself?
Now that you’ve read through these 14 impressive benefits of link building, we know your next question: how can I start reaping these rewards for my own site?
In addition to trying the link building strategies we cover in various blog posts, we encourage you to consider outsourcing your link building and overall SEO strategies to professionals. Why?
For starters, with your SEO services outsourced, you will save yourself a LOT of time. (Think upward of 100 hours per month!) SEO experts can streamline your SEO strategy in a way that’s nearly impossible for beginners to do. So, not only will your SEO strategies be implemented faster, but this also means they can start taking effect a lot faster too.
For example, at Blue Water Marketing in Stuart, FL., our sustainable white hat link building gives you the power to rank higher and faster. Your links appear naturally to a relevant audience on only quality sites. These sites are hand-selected for their ability to rank your specific site. Big, small, local, or international, in this case, size doesn’t matter. We have experience across all industries for top brands as well as for cool startups.
Click here to read more about our link building services and what they can do for you.
