What is link building anyway? For those of you who may still be unsure of the term “link building” let me give you a quick definition and an example that portrays link building in its simplest form. Link building is a third party endorsement. For example, if I were to walk into Olive Garden and ask them which restaurant provided the best Italian food, Olive Garden would obviously promote itself by saying that it was the best. But, how can you trust such a biased answer? However, if I were talking to a random person off of the street, and I asked him the same question and he answered: “Olive Garden has the best Italian food around,” his answer would be a lot more valuable to me because it wasn’t a biased response. It was a third party endorsement that was not trying to endorse any particular company.
Now that we are more familiar with the definition of link building, what is the most efficient and cost effective way to build links? There are many sites out there that will build links for you, but they tend to cost a lot of money and often they do not add your URL to the best of sites. The most cost effective way to build links is to do reciprocal linking. This means that you add a link to a different site’s URL onto one of your own pages and they will, in return, add your link to their page for free. This works pretty well to help build traffic to your site. When you are doing reciprocal linking try to find sites that have a solid page rank. This will help to add more value to your own website.
Reciprocal Link Building
While reciprocal link building is the most cost friendly solution, the best links are one way links. Google gives more value to one way links. It sees them as the most significant links because a site out there is providing a link back to your site for nothing in return. Google can’t figure out why a site would do one way linking unless the site he is adding a link to is extremely valuable and contains useful information. As a result, Google will give your site better page rank. One way linking is the best method to help bring traffic and value to your site. However, it is extremely tough to find a site that will agree to do one way link building. Usually, you have to offer something in exchange for it such as a payment.
Link building is one of the most important factors in SEO; however, it also proves to be one of the most difficult tasks as well. I’m not trying to put down On Page work because On Page plays a huge role in successful SEO. On Page work is what makes a site relevant and link building is what makes it important. The two work hand in hand with each other, and must be used for any site to be successful in SEO.
