5 Benefits of Link-Building Services
Just having a website with a sleek design and great UX isn’t enough these days. It’s no good if there are few to no users to appreciate it, right (not to mention that few users mean even fewer prospects)?
One way to solve this problem is by ensuring your website ranks high in certain search results. And this is where link building comes in.
Simply put, it means getting other websites to include hyperlinks to your pages on theirs. Those websites have to have a good reputation – i.e. Google has to see them as reliable. The content containing the link should be high-quality, too: it should fit in organically, and there can be no keyword spam.
But why should you invest in all of that, really? To answer this question, let’s take a deep dive into the top 5 benefits of link building in general – and hiring link-building services in particular. (And there’s a mini-guide on how to avoid unscrupulous companies specializing in this, too!)
1. More Links Mean More Traffic
Here is the key importance of link building, in a nutshell. The more links you get, the more exposure it brings you. And the more users visit your website, the more prospects and leads you will get. (But it’s important to target your campaign right to have a high conversion rate.)
There are two key ways this effort boosts your incoming traffic:
- Your website gets ranked higher in specific search results. And since most users don’t bother going to the second page, getting to the top is crucial here. But remember: Google puts quality over quantity, so trustworthy websites and great content are a must.
- Other websites’ users read your content and click the link to your page. That’s the referral traffic. But for it to work, the anchor itself has to be appealing enough. In other words, users should want to click it.
2. More Traffic Means More (Potential) Customers
The logic here is simple. The more users from your target audience visit your website, the higher your raw sales will be – even if the conversion rate stays more or less the same.
However, bear in mind: the traffic you get from search results and referrals should be the right match for your business.
This is why analysis and strategy are so important here. You need to know which keywords (i.e. search queries) to bet on to get the right kind of people visiting your website. The same goes for websites that agree to work with you: their target audience should be the same as or similar to yours.
Let’s say you sell children’s toys. Negotiating a guest post with a blog for moms would be ideal – people who visit your website from it are more likely to then turn into your customers. But doing the same thing with a blog about YouTube marketing would hardly be as fruitful.
3. It Helps Develop Your Brand’s Credibility
Links aren’t crucial only for Google, even though it’s hard to underestimate the importance of link building in SEO. They’re also a vote of confidence for the real people reading your content on another website.
Consider them a digital equivalent of another person saying to their friends, “Come on and check out this business”. Any website – be it a personal blog or a tech news outlet – has its readers who trust it. You can tap right into that trust and ‘borrow’ some of it.
It’s not just about getting referral traffic. It’s also about brand recognition. If your efforts are well-thought-out, they’ll make your company’s name well-known in the niche. And, they’ll also help you gain authority in the field and develop your brand image in the right direction.
4. You Get High-Quality Links, Fast
The previous three sections concerned the benefits of link building in general. Now, let’s talk about why turning to another company for such services is worth your consideration.
First and foremost, this isn’t a one-day project. You need to:
- Analyze which keywords will bring you the best ROI;
- Negotiate with other websites’ owners;
- Create high-quality content for them: blog posts, infographics, etc.
All of that is plain time-consuming.
There used to be days when you could ‘farm’ links with some basic automation skills. But not anymore – once again, quality trumps quantity, if you ask Google. You can’t game the system as easily anymore.
If you venture into this on your own, you’ll need to hire at least two people in-house: a content writer and an SEO specialist. That’s both expensive and time-consuming. If you have limited resources, it’s definitely not the best way to go about it.
Finding a company specializing in this field is faster than hiring in-house specialists. Plus, they have both the expertise and more manpower to get all the work done well and fast.
Besides, a link-building company already has plenty of connections. If you try to DIY this, you’ll have to build your network from the ground up. But companies that have been working in this field for years don’t. And that translates into faster results, too.
5. You Can Leave It to Experts & Focus on What Matters Most
Wrapping your head around all things SEO can’t be done quickly either. There’s a reason why it’s a whole separate profession, after all. Plus, Google’s guidelines change every six months – and if you don’t keep up with those changes, your ranking will suffer.
If you leave it to the experts, all that saved time will let you and your team focus on what matters the most: your business’s core product(s) and/or service(s). That’s the key benefit of any type of outsourcing.
And, as you should already know, higher productivity inevitably translates into better cost-efficiency.
So, even if the price tag for such services may initially scare you off, think about it this way. You’ll be paying for the most valuable resource out there – time.
Before You Go: 3 Bright Red Flags You Should Avoid
So, are you sold on the idea of turning to a link-building service? If so, there’s an age-old question you’ll have to face: How do you choose the right company?
Since the internet is already full of general advice on the matter, let’s take a closer look at 3 signs that this or that link-building company isn’t worth your trust:
- They promise outstanding results in just a couple of weeks (or worse, days). Quality link building is going to take more than a couple of days. On average, you should expect to see it paying off after 8 to 10 weeks of work.
- You see no mentions of website and keyword analysis and strategizing. If you want to make the most out of your buck, you should prioritize quality over quantity. That quality is impossible to achieve without data-driven decisions.
- Their website lacks any nitty-gritty details. If there’s no description of how they do their job, it’s suspicious. It’s also important to have this transparency to make sure the services offered fall under the ‘white hat’ category. Otherwise, your website will get penalized.