What is link building?
Link building is a technique used to boost your SEO score on search engines, such as Google. It’s a useful tool that can help your business gain an additional foothold in an already crowded market.
The term link building refers to links that are on your site and those that refer to your site. Search engines don’t just look at the text on the site anymore, they also check out the links within the text. Building up these links, on yours and other sites, will show these search engines that your site is high quality and notable.
How should you use links?
On your side of things you should be linking to high quality sources when making assertions. These should be official or recognised sites and should look as natural as possible within the text. Google’s spokespeople have said in previous years that those that are irregular or thrown will not be counted by the algorithm.
When getting your page out there on other websites things get a little trickier, as search engines are now wise to these techniques. In days gone by, owners of websites could use web directories and over optimisation to boost their SEO score. Now, this has been picked up by Google and other engines, which actually leads to penalisation.
Reaching out to other sites and blogs within the industry will create a natural use of links that will help drive traffic to your site. This is known as Outreach and it will strengthen your SEO and relationships with those in the online community.
This also helps you refer traffic to others’ sites, in the same way that networking groups aim to achieve. A guest post on another blog can be your starting point to reaching out to others on the site. For example, a tour company could make a guest post on a hotel website to gain traction, as they have similar clientele and interests. This inserts the link onto a new site and also creates a natural relationship between the two companies.
Finally, creating content and being linked from other sources shows that your business has a handle on the industry. This feeds back into the brand and helps your company become known for their expertise and knowledge.
Need more free advice?
Chris and his team will send you a weekly email offering high-value insight and advice about a variety of marketing and business development topics related to the tourism industry. We address specific destinations, tours and activities, and the hotel industry. We also provide important travel industry news and updates.
