Link Building Benefits for SEO

Link building SHOULD be a part of any SEO strategy.

Why?

Because links are like votes for search engines, which they use to understand what pages to rank.

So by that logic, the more votes/backlinks you have, the better your chances of higher rankings (providing they are high quality + relevant links).

To highlight just how important building a solid backlink profile is to the performance of your website, here are 10 linking building benefits you should know.

10 Link Building Benefits

Link building remains one of the most important ranking factors that Google and other search engines pay close attention to.

Think of it like this:

Let’s say you’ve built yourself a house in the middle of nowhere.

As charming as it may be, nobody is coming to visit if there are no roads leading to it.

Your website can be thought of in the same way.

Just like the house, with no backlinks directing traffic (or Googlebots) in your direction, your website might as well be built out in the boondocks.

If you’ve ever wondered “why is everybody so hung up on link building,” here’s why:

1. Build Authority and Credibility

Domain authority and domain rating are both site metrics, used by search engine optimization (SEO) analysis tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz, that represent the degree of trust that a domain name has with respect to a search engine.

Domain authority is largely determined by evaluating the quality and quantity of backlinks that a website has – collectively referred to as a backlink profile.

The higher the number of high-quality backlinks, the more authoritative and credible a website is considered to be.

You can see this shown here:

Some notes:

• This example, pulled from Ahrefs, is a website that possesses a relatively respectable backlink profile.
• Some 77K backlinks have awarded this website a domain rating of 66.
• A domain rating that is sure to grab the attention of search engines whenever this website posts new content.

Further reading: 10 Link Building Mistakes (to avoid)

2. Improve SERP Rankings

Generally, the higher the domain authority, the more likely it is that the website will rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Why?

Google and other search engines wish to grant their users the best experience.

Here you can see this in the flesh:

This case study from Backlinko shows that the pages that secure position 1 have 3.8x more backlinks than those pages that sit in positions 2-10.

So, what’s happening here? Why do backlinks help improve rankings?

Well it goes back to Google wanting to give users the best experience and/or answer for their search query.

Search engines achieve this by providing their users with search results that match the intention behind their search term as closely as possible – something referred to as search intent.

Usually, the most informative, comprehensive, and high-quality content comes from websites that are well respected and have a high domain authority.

That’s not to say as a small to medium-sized website cannot rank high, it’s just a lot harder to do so for topic niches that are stacked with high authority sites.

And as we’ve just seen, high domain authority, and subsequent ranking position, is largely dictated by a site’s backlink profile.

3. Generate More Website Traffic

When other websites link to your website, it signals to search engines that your website is an authority on the relevant topic. As a result, your website will rank higher in search engine results pages, which will increase organic traffic to your website.

As an added bonus, the more websites (referring domains) link out to your website, the more people will be directed to your site’s web pages.

You can see this here:

Ahrefs provides us with this super helpful graph that shows the more referring domains adding inbound links to your website, the more organic traffic you are likely to receive from Google search.

4. Backlinks Generate More Backlinks

A positive feedback loop is a system where the output of a process feeds back into the input of the process, amplifying the effect.

In the context of link building strategies, the more backlinks you can obtain for your website, the higher its credibility climbs, the higher its SERP positions and site traffic, subsequently, the more backlinks you are likely to receive.

Consider this graph.

Here you can see that in January 2021 there was a significant climb in the amount of referring domains this site started to receive. Before this period, the procurement of backlinks was steady but slow. Although once this tipping point was reached, the amount of referring domains, and subsequent backlinks, this site received exploded.

It’s also important to note that there exists different types of backlinks, some lending more authority to your site than others. Be sure to understand them before setting out on your link building journey.

5. Support Your Internal Linking

Alongside backlinks, you’ll often hear SEO experts bring up internal linking. That’s because internal linking is an important ranking factor.

Why?

Well, internal links help search engines crawl and index your website content. The better structured your internal linking, the easier it is for Googlebots to index your site.

Source: https://moz.com/blog/backlinks-google-study

While search engine crawlers carry out this procedure, they are also noting how much authority each of your webpages possess. SEO tools like Ahrefs call this URL rating (UR) while Google refers to this algorithm ranking system as PageRank.

Just like your website’s authority, determined by domain rating (DR), UR is largely determined by how many high-quality links a webpage has pointing to it from other high-authority websites.

This is where link equity or link juice comes in.

Link equity is the term used to describe the value that an external or internal link passes onto another webpage. The idea is, a website link is like a vote or endorsement for a page, lending it some of its authority.

Therefore, the higher an internal page’s UR is, determined largely by its backlink profile, the more link equity it will pass on to other internal pages. This “link juice” can be beneficial for the linked to web page’s search engine ranking, as well as its ability to attract visitors.

6. Better ROI

One of the biggest benefits of link building? It will boost your return on investment (ROI).

Source: How To Measure The ROI Of Your SEO Campaign

A (very) quick ROI definition:

ROI (Return on Investment) is how much profit (in %) you make from an investment.

It is calculated with a fairly simple formula: profit of investment divided by the total costs of investment

For example…

• You invest $100 in your business
• After a year, you generate a profit of $20.
• In this case, the ROI after one year is 20%.

As we’ve discussed, when a website has more backlinks pointing its way from quality websites, this tells Google that the website is more reputable and thus will rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).

This increased visibility leads to more website visitors and greater returns on the various content marketing strategies you’ve employed.

7. Cultivate Brand Awareness

Did you know:

91% of B2B marketers use content marketing to promote brand awareness? (source)

Backlinks increase brand awareness because they are a form of word-of-mouth marketing. When someone links to your website from their website, it signals to their readers that your site is worth checking out.

This can help to boost your site’s credibility, establish your brand as a household name, and, subsequently, cultivate a level of brand awareness that supports lead generation.

You might also like: How to Establish a Strong Brand That Can Carry Your Business to Success

8. Increased Sales and Conversions

The more external websites your website has pointing to it, the more people are likely to find you.

Couple an effective link building campaign with great content and solid on-page SEO, and there’s no doubt you’ll be increasing your rate of sales and conversions month after month.

9. Boost Referrals

As you hone your backlink strategy, you’ll also boost your referral traffic.

When another website links to content on your site, it introduces their audience to your content. This can cause an influx of new visitors who may not have otherwise found your site through other means.

The best part?

Backlinks can act as social endorsements, helping to convince other users that your content is worth checking out. Not only will this help to bring in more referral traffic, but it will significantly reduce your outreach and influencer marketing costs.

10. Reduce Your Reliance on Paid Ads

SEO is a long-term digital marketing strategy that focuses on increasing the visibility of a website or web page in search engine results pages (SERPs). As I’m sure you’re clued into by now, one of the key components of any good SEO strategy is the act of obtaining quality backlinks.

Paid ads, on the other hand, are short-term marketing strategies that involve paying for placement of an advertisement on a search engine results page or social media feed. And although effective, paid ads are generally viewed as a more expensive strategy than SEO.

Because of the many variables, evaluating the costs of pay-per-click (PPC) and SEO can be a hard comparison to make.

Although, for argument’s sake, Ahrefs uses a price estimate to show just how much it would cost a website owner to bring in the same amount of organic traffic to a webpage through the use of paid ads.

Here you can see a breakdown of the estimated PPC cost for the top performing pages for this site. I think you’d agree, it’s pretty costly.

With this perspective, you can quickly see just how valuable a good link building strategy can really be.

Backlink Benefits for SEO (and Beyond)

The benefits of following link building best practices and building backlinks to your website are far-reaching. In fact, having a solid backlink profile is proving to be one of the most potent SEO strategies you can use to boost the rankings of your website.

With that said, obtaining backlinks isn’t an easy venture. Many website owners make the mistake of turning to black hat SEO strategies that have proven more times than not to hurt your website rankings, not to help them (like white hat links do). Additionally, building backlinks is both time-consuming and can be a confusing process.

For instance, what in the world is a nofollow or dofollow link?

No matter if you don’t know because, here at Loganix, our team of link building experts is sure to be able to help you decipher the complicated game of obtaining high-quality backlinks. Through their expertise and our link building services, sourcing high-authority links for your website will be a breeze.