Links are the diamonds to your website’s crown. If there are no backlinks for your website, it will forever be wandering in the vast universe of the internet. But, no worries – Burnesseo, South Africa, is here to help you with all types of Search Engine Optimization techniques like – link building and many others.

Link building is a strategy to gain a reputation according to a search engine’s algorithm. To achieve this goal, you produce top-class website content so the relevant websites with higher domain authority can link you back. Through this, you gain organic traffic on your website & its domain gets a higher rank on the search engine.

Before diving into the particulars of backlinks, you can explore our services for your SEO needs. Burnesseo is one of the best SEO companies in South Africa. We can fulfill and handle all SEO requirements for your website like – technical SEO, local SEO, and Google My Business.

What is Link Building in SEO?

In Search Engine Optimization, link building is the process of gaining hyperlinks through websites that are relevant to your website. It is one of the most significant factors for ranking websites on a search engine because the more links your website gains, the more relevant it becomes in the eyes of a search engine.

There are many strategies and techniques to build links. These strategies work by creating quality website content and using black-hat tactics. However, we suggest you use the link-building methods that bring organic & long-term success to your website.

Revising the history of Link Building

Link Building has been an integral part of Search Engine Optimization since the early days of the internet when it was evolving rapidly. Its concept dates back to when different web search engines were being developed in the 1990s and started using the HTTP protocol built by Tim Berners-Lee.

Until the late 1990s, the concept of link building got much popularity & many websites started using this ranking technique. Later, many sophisticated link-building techniques got developed, like link reclamation, link baiting, and vice versa. When these techniques emerged, the world of link building got changed, and now every website tries to get the best links through different ways (Guest blogging, Content development) to gain traffic on their webpages.

What are the different types of links?

Different links can be classified based on source, purpose, and relevance. Some of them are as follows:

Source Based Links

The source-based links originate from your website. Two types of these links are as follows:

Internal Links

These links direct the user back to some other webpage of your website. These links are used for easy website navigation, establishing an informational hierarchy, and distributing the rank equity on your website.

Outbound Links

These links direct your website user to other websites. Using these links, you can connect the relevant resources to your content and develop a reputation on search engines and in the eyes of website users. In addition, these outbound links improve the structure of your website.

Target Based Links

These links originate from other websites and direct back to your website. These links are super important in SEO Techniques, and their subcategories are as follows:

Inbound Links

These links, called Backlinks, originate from other websites and bring traffic to your website if people click on them. These links are essential for building a website’s reputation and domain authority among competitors and on search engines.

Contextual Links

These links emerge from websites having nearly the same content as your webpage. They embed your website through anchor text inside their content, and when users click on those links, they get directed toward your website. So, these links develop relevancy between different websites and help the algorithm rank them on search engines.

Nofollow Links

These links also direct the users back to your website, but their code has an HTML attribute that prevents the algorithm from distributing the rank equity among websites. It means that the users do get directed toward your website, but there is no significant impact on search engine ranking. However, these links can get used to build brand awareness and direct traffic to your website.

Miscellaneous Links

Some other types of links are as follows:

Natural Links

The links that develop between the websites without any special effort are called natural links. These are of high quality, get developed due to top-class website content, and improve the SEO of your website.

Resource Links

There are different directories, forums, and informational sources on the internet. Sometimes your website becomes a data resource for the content of other websites. They mention your web page inside their content, and your website earns a backlink. These links are called resource links.

Guest Post Links

These links originate on other websites when you write guest blogs on them. Using this opportunity, you can generate high-quality inbound links for your website.

Social Media Links

These are usually manual links that you have to build yourself through different social media mediums. These links do not provide a significant website ranking benefit, but they develop awareness for your brand and enhance its online visibility.

Paid Links

These are the types of links that people buy using money or exchange links with other websites. These links violate the search engine’s guidelines and terms of service, so you should never use them. Instead, try creating high-quality content that gains natural links and a reputation on search engines.

What is the difference between Link Building and Backlinks?

Many people confuse these two terms with each other, but they have clear-cut differences. Link building is the overall process of gaining links through other websites using different strategies. On the other hand, Backlinks are links you get from other websites. So, Link building is a technique for search engine optimization, and creating backlinks is a part of this technique.

What is Anchor Text, and how to use it?

Dofollow vs. Nofollow Links

These two types of links get used in the HTML coding of the website. Here is the difference between these two types of HTML links.

Dofollow Links

These links allow the indexing and crawling of the linked pages. It means that – if your website gains a dofollow link from a high-authority website, it will be indexed rapidly on the search engine and gain SEO benefits.

Nofollow Links

These links include a rel=”nofollow” attribute in the HTML code of the websites, directing the traffic to your website but do not allow the indexing and ranking for the linked pages. So, if you get a Nofollow link from a website, you can gain website traffic and other indirect benefits, but without original SEO ranking advantages.

Link Building Strategies

Link building is a significant part of Search Engine Optimization. Here are some common and unique link-building strategies:

Common Techniques

These link-building strategies include the following:

Skyscraper Technique

This technique involves identifying the relevant websites and creating high-quality content in the same niche so those websites can link you back. This strategy is the most used among all the link-building techniques.

It needs your time and patience to research the relevant websites, create unique content, and outreaching the relevant websites to get backlinks.

Broken Link Building

This strategy has a simple idea – find broken links on high-authority websites and suggest your own website’s content as a replacement for it. Broken links do not work and direct the website users to a page showing a “404 Not Found” message.

This technique needs a lot of research and time. Firstly, you find broken links on the websites by using different tools. Secondly, you have to create relevant content for that website, and last, you need to outreach those websites to get the backlinks.

Guest Blogging

As identified by the name, this link-building technique involves writing & posting blog posts on other’s websites, & in return, you earn a backlink for your website. This process seems easy but requires much patience and time.

For Guest Blogging, you utilize every potential guest blogging opportunity and write high-quality content for those websites. You can also suggest blog post ideas to the owner and editor of those websites by mailing them directly. However, be careful to avoid the violation of rules.

Other Common Link-Building Techniques

Some other link-building techniques include the following:

Resource Link Building – involves creating informational resources on your website and gaining natural backlinks.

Creating Infographics – involves high-quality & informational infographics that other websites can use and link back to your website.

Social Media Promotion – involves marketing websites on social media platforms to build brand awareness and improve your website’s visibility.

Testimonial Link Building – involves the testimonials or reviews for the products offered by other websites. In return, you can earn a backlink from them.

Directory Listing – this includes listing your websites on the relevant directory websites. In return, people can reach your business website easily.

Forum Participation – involves active & regular posting on online community forums. In return, you can earn organic traffic for your website.

Unique Techniques

Here are some unique link-building strategies:

Link Reclamation

This technique involves finding the websites and brands that mention your website in their content. After generating such leads, contact them to link back to your website.

Influencer Outreach

This unique link-building technique involves reaching out to popular influencers on social media, sending them your products, and requesting a backlink or mention of your business on their profiles.

Image Link Building

This strategy involves developing high-quality images and graphics for other relevant websites and requesting a backlink. Similarly to broken link building, you can find broken images on the websites and request replacing them with your website’s graphics with a backlink.

Interviews & Podcast Participation

This strategy involves participating in online shows, podcasts, and interviews. In return, you can earn a backlink to your profile or website.

Factors to Consider while Evaluating the Quality of Backlinks

The best tools & Resources for Link Building

Different tools & resources give you valuable insights about your competitors, save you time, provide accurate data for your website, and help you track the results of your link-building campaigns. So, we handpicked some best link-building tools for your website that are as follows:

Ahrefs

It is a great tool that you can use to find competitor websites, track their progress, and then build a strategy for your website. This tool provides valuable data on backlinks, anchor text, referring domains, and other metrics.

Google Search Console

It is a free Google tool that provides information about your website’s performance on the search engine. It provides data about backlinks, search queries, referring domains, and other data.

Google Analytics

It is a free analytical tool developed by Google. It provides valuable insights about website traffic & user activity and allows the integration of your website with other relevant digital resources. So, you can also use it for insights about link building.

SEMrush

It is an all-inclusive tool that provides information about backlink-building, keyword research, and competitor analysis. By using this tool, you can save time and build high-quality links for your website.

Miscellaneous Tools

Some other tools to build links are the following:

• Moz Link Explorer
• Majestic SEO
• HARO (Help a Reporter Out)
• BuzzStream
• Ninja Outreach
• Pitchbox

Metrics to track in Link Building

Link-building metrics are significant because they express the success of your chosen link-building strategies. By using the analytics & results of these metrics, you can develop new and personalized SEO strategies for your business.

Here are some of them:

Domain Authority (DA)

Moz developed this metric. It measures the authority of a website’s domain name on a logarithmic scale, ranging from 0 to 100. This metric depends on many factors for authority measurement, and backlinks are one of those factors. So, the better your website scores on this scale, the higher it will rank on the search engines and vice versa.

Page Authority (PA)

This metric also belongs to Moz, and it measures the ranking potential of a single webpage based on backlinks and other factors.

Trust Flow (TF)

It is a metric developed by Majestic SEO that measures the authority of websites according to the quality of backlinks. It scales the websites on a scale from 0 to 100. It assigns a better score to those websites that gain backlinks from high-authority websites. So, the better your backlinks are, the better your website’s score.

Miscellaneous Metrics

There are other measurement methods to assess the influence of backlinks on your website. Those metrics are as follows:

• The number of unique domains that link back to your website
• The individual number of links that direct toward your website
• Usage of anchor text on linked websites
• Content relevancy of linked websites
• Different types and diverse sources of links

Quantity vs. Quality in Link Building

Common Mistakes to Avoid in Link Building

Following are some mistakes that you must avoid while trying out different link-building strategies:

• Avoid buying links from any source. These services violate the guidelines of search engines and do not provide a sustainable benefit.
• Do not over-optimize your web pages, and use the anchor text moderately. If you over-optimize your website, the search engines can identify it as spam, and it will not rank properly.
• Always create relevant content to gain backlinks, and never request a link for misleading or spam content.
• Avoid participating in link farms which are online mediums where people exchange links with each other. It can severely harm your website’s reputation and can cause you a penalty.
• Never rely on a single type of link building. Instead, focus on using all link types in moderate numbers so your website can get the maximum benefit.

Avoiding these mistakes and appropriately using link-building techniques can yield successful results for your website ranking. In return, you can also gain other benefits by maximizing your SEO Benefits, like you can get sales on your eCommerce stores and vice versa.

Tips for Link-Building

Some tips to get and build the best links for your website ranking are the following:

• Create high-quality website content that is informational and keeps the users engaged. This way, you can gain natural backlinks for your website.
• Do thorough research and identify relevant websites to build the links. This research involves analyzing the competitors’ websites and using every opportunity for link-building.
• Use anchor text to develop contextual links embedded within the website content. This way, your website stays relevant on a search engine, and you can get some natural backlinks.
• Use multiple mediums to build and gain links – for example, use social media & editorial links in addition to other methods.
• Keep updating your web pages and identify if there are any low-quality links present on them. Remove these low-quality links and save your website’s reputation on the search engine.
• Build and gain relevant links to your website’s niche and industry because search engines distribute the ranks between the relevant & competitive websites.

FAQs

Which company does Link-building in South Africa?

Many marketing agencies or companies offer link-building services in South Africa. But to keep the answer as short as possible, check out our SEO Services at Burnesseo. We provide link-building services as a part of our SEO techniques, and we are among the top SEO companies in South Africa.

What is link building in PR?

Link building in PR (Public Relations) refers to getting organic links from authoritative websites by creating high-quality, valuable, and informational content for your website. This category includes getting links using infographics, press releases, and other editorial content.

What are the three types of link building?

The three basic types of link building are as follows:

• Natural Link building – Includes creating high-quality website content and getting organic links from relevant & higher-ranking websites.
• Manual Link Building – Includes the process of using every possible opportunity to create backlinks for your website through influencer marketing & contacting other websites.
• Social Link Building – Includes creating links through posting on different social forums, social media channels, and other online mediums.

Which is the best link-building type?

The best type of link-building is Natural link-building because it brings long-term positive results to your website. It works gradually but creates long-lasting results and helps your website rank higher on search engines.

Which tools do you use for link building?

There are many tools to build valuable links for your website. Here are some of them:

• Ahrefs
• SEMrush
• Moz
• Majestic

How much does link building cost in South Africa?

Link Building is a part of Search Engine Optimization services. So, there is less chance of finding it as a lone service. But you can find freelancers to build links for your website. However, if you hire an SEO company, you should expect to pay around R1000 to R10,000 for a complete SEO package that includes Link Building services.

Why Are Expert Link Building Services Important for SEO in South Africa?

When it comes to SEO in South Africa, expert link building services play a crucial role in enhancing website visibility and improving search engine rankings. Link building for better seo involves acquiring high-quality backlinks from reputable websites, which signals to search engines that the site is trustworthy and relevant. In this competitive digital landscape, partnering with professionals who specialize in link building can significantly boost your online presence and drive organic traffic to your website.

To Conclude – Link Building in Professional SEO South Africa

South Africa has a highly diverse digital landscape, and – it is essential to create reputable links for your website in the South African online market. These links help you stay relevant and competitive in the eyes of search engines.

Gaining backlinks from highly authoritative websites helps you gain organic traffic on your website, improves its ranking, and ultimately helps you earn money by enhancing your marketing strategies. So, create such valuable, informational, and organic content that other websites can easily link to.

And if you have no time for it, contact us at Burnesseo SEO agency, and we will be happy to sort it out for you. Our comprehensive services include content development, SEO copywriting, link building, and other Search Engine Optimization aspects. So, Burnesseo is a one-stop shop for your business SEO needs.

Thank you for Reading!