If you hang around the SEO community, you’ll notice that some people get deemed as “great link builders.”
Have you ever stopped to wonder what that means?
What kind of links are they building? What strategies are they using? What kinds of links do they build? How does anyone become “good” at link building?
That’s what we’re going to learn in this post.
Real SEO.
How to build real backlinks that actually make an impact on your rankings long-term.
Sustainable links that won’t penalize your site, and instead build a ton of trust authority to it.
Why is link building so important?
Put simply, you have to know how to link build effectively. It goes beyond just growing blogs. A good link builder will always have a way to create income for him/herself. Whether it’s by consulting, being hired as a fulltime employee, or growing their own websites/businesses, a good link builder will always be in demand. It’s what drives the entire SEO community.
Why? Because it’s what makes a site rank for competitive terms.
But, it’s difficult. Not many people know how to do it properly. Even some of the most knowledgeable SEO’s out there are NOT good link builders.
An SEO who sets up PBN’s is not a good link builder. They just know how to utilize a strategy that’s now becoming increasingly difficult to “get away with” and not be penalized.
An SEO who just buys link packages and ranks for a competitive term is not a good link builder.
Any SEO who uses a single method to rank a website is typically not a good link builder. Any link builder who has to “cover his/her tracks” is not a good link builder.
PUT SIMPLY, the better/stronger the link, the more difficult it will be to acquire. Unfortunately, the link building strategies being discussed today in forums only consist of tactics that anyone can emulate for just $5.
I’m going to show you how to become a link building ninja.
You’re going to learn the exact skills it takes to compete head-on with the toughest SEOs for the toughest terms.
You’ll learn what real link building is, the strategies and methods used at the top SEO agencies around the world who work with the biggest online brands.
Most of the link building tactics I know were learned when I was working for an SEO agency myself.
These are links that are valuable long-term rather than just effective today and gone tomorrow.
First, let’s go over some basics of what good link building is:
There are a few key identifiers that can easily tell you if your link building is effective or not.
BAD LINKS
- scalable / can be automated
- identifiable patterns
- control anchor text
Bad links are scalable… extremely scalable. You probably know what I mean if you’ve ever looked around Fiverr or the marketplaces within forums.
They sell links in the hundreds and thousands. They’re easily automated with software.
Because they’re so scalable, they also have identifiable patterns that Google’s algorithms are easily able to detect.
The third identifier is a subtle one and is not always the case. However, if you are able to control the anchor text for every link you build, chances are, the tactics you’re involved with will make your site susceptible to being penalized.
GOOD LINKS
- not very scalable / difficult to automate
- few patterns
- no control over anchor text
Good links, on the other hand, are not scalable at all. They’re impossible to automate with software.
As a result, they don’t contain any dangerous patterns that Google’s algorithms are looking for. (The reason I don’t worry about having my main income source rely on Google)
Again, this is not always the case, but a good link will usually mean you don’t have control over the anchor text.
When you build links like this, you don’t have to worry and sweat when Google announces an update. You’ve done everything right.
Let’s get started
The first thing you must do is change your mindset about link building.
If you’re used to purchasing link packages or using software to build your links, change your mindset completely.
Those links will harm your site without doing much to help its rankings. You might see a temporary increase, but you can be sure it’s not going to last (patterns).
There are many ways to build long-lasting, powerful & natural links to your site. But there are only a few that I focus on actively because they work the best.
I’m going to go through all of them one by one.
How Rankings Work In 2021
In this course lesson, I want to just take a moment and talk about backlinks and how they affect rankings on your site.
We need to get a clear understanding of how we’re going to approach link building to our site, and what our overall plan is to maximize our rankings and search traffic – without risking our site in the long-run.
Our link building strategy
When you’re trying to rank a new site for any keyword, it’s all about domain authority these days.
Domain authority is key, and each quality link you build will increase your domain authority.
What this means: It’s no longer focused solely on ranking a single page individually. It’s about ranking all pages across your domain and pulling in tons of long-tail traffic with no effort.
That doesn’t mean we’re not ranking any individual pages. That just means that link building to one page on our site will help rankings across all of our pages on our domain.
And here’s how we’re going to do that.
Link to Posts
The majority of our initial link building efforts will be focused on our Pillar Posts and the homepage.
They’re targeting the biggest keywords in our niche. They’re the posts that have the potential to drive tens of thousands of visitors to our site every month.
They’re also the easiest to link build to because they contain our highest quality content.
So it’s a win-win in terms of results and convenience.
Also, since our Pillar Posts target high search volume keywords, they’ll usually be the ones with the highest competition, so they need the links to rank on the first page.
What about our other inner pages?
If we’re mostly link building to our Pillar Posts, how do the other pages rank?
Simple… by utilizing internal linking and taking advantage of our domain authority.
Inner pages rank naturally.
If you’re building tons of links to your Pillar Posts and starting to rank for the highest competition keywords in your niche, your inner pages will just rank automatically.
For my own blogs, the ones where I’ve been link building effectively, every new post I write will usually index straight onto the first 2 pages of Google, and then make its way into the top 5 after a week or two.
With no separate link building required on my part.
It’s an amazing feeling to knock out other sites in my niche without needing to do anything.
And that’s the power that building links in the proper way can give you.
This is especially important for e-commerce sites
Let’s say you have an e-commerce site.
How do you get product pages with nothing but 100-word descriptions to rank on the first page?
Nobody’s going to link to a page like that. It’s impossible to “earn” links to a page like that.
What you need to do is create Pillar Posts that you can use to build links to.
These are the pages you’ll be link building to.
And with utilizing the proper site structure and internal linking that we learned in module 2, your product pages can rank with no link building at all.
Does this mean we donʼt build links at all to inner pages?
No. We will still be link building to our inner pages.
As youʼll learn in the following lessons, link building is very much an art form as it is a technical skill.
In the beginning, the majority of our efforts will be directed toward the Pillar Posts. However, inner pages have a special role in link building in that you can create inner pages quickly JUST FOR THE SAKE OF BUILDING A LINK.
For example, with broken link building (which youʼll learn) or just by identifying a “hot” topic at the moment which you can push to leverage link earning.
Inner pages are great for that sort of thing. Theyʼre easy to get quick links and shares to.
Let’s start link building
So now that we know how we’re going to approach link building to our site, let’s learn how we’re going to link build and go through the different strategies and techniques.