Link Building & Establishing Authority

Turn up the volume

You've created content that people are searching for, that answers their questions, and that search engines can understand, but those qualities alone don't mean it'll rank. To outrank the rest of the sites with those qualities, you have to establish authority. That can be accomplished by earning links from authoritative websites, building your brand, and nurturing an audience who will help amplify your content.

Google has confirmed that links and quality content (which we covered back in Chapter 4) are two of the three most important ranking factors for SEO. Trustworthy sites tend to link to other trustworthy sites, and spammy sites tend to link to other spammy sites.

What are links?

Inbound links, also known as backlinks or external links, are HTML hyperlinks that point from one website to another. They're the currency of the Internet, as they act a lot like real-life reputation. If you went on vacation and asked three people (all completely unrelated to one another) what the best coffee shop in town was, and they all said, "Cuppa Joe on Main Street," you would feel confident that Cuppa Joe is indeed the best coffee place in town. Links do that for search engines.

Since the late 1990s, search engines have treated links as votes for popularity and importance on the web.

Internal links, or links that connect internal pages of the same domain, work very similarly for your website. A high amount of internal links pointing to a particular page on your site will provide a signal to Google that the page is important, so long as it's done naturally and not in a spammy way.

You are what you E-E-A-T

Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines put a great deal of importance on the concept of E-E-A-T — an acronym for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Sites that don't display these characteristics tend to be seen as lower-quality in the eyes of the engines, while those that do are subsequently rewarded. E-E-A-T is becoming more and more important as search evolves and increases the importance of solving for user intent.

Creating a site that's considered expert, authoritative, and trustworthy should be your guiding light as you practice SEO. Not only will it simply result in a better site, but it's future-proof. After all, providing great value to searchers is what Google itself is trying to do.

What is user intent?

"User intent" refers to the driving reason behind a searcher's query. A search for "puppy" doesn't have a strong intent — are they looking for pictures? Facts about breeds? Care information? On the other hand, a search for "puppy training in Seattle, WA" has a very strong intent: this user wants to train their puppy, they're probably looking for help in Seattle, and they may wish to sign up for a class. Try to craft content that satisfies your searchers' intent.

E-E-A-T and links to your site

The more popular and important a site is, the more weight the links from that site carry. A site like Wikipedia, for example, has thousands of diverse sites linking to it. This indicates it provides lots of expertise, has cultivated authority, and is trusted among those other sites.

To earn trust and authority with search engines, you'll need links from websites that display the qualities of E-E-A-T. These don't have to be Wikipedia-level sites, but they should provide searchers with credible, trustworthy content.

Moz has proprietary metrics to help you determine how authoritative a site is: Domain Authority, Page Authority, and Spam Score. In general, you'll want links from sites with a higher Domain Authority than your sites.

Followed vs. nofollowed links

Remember how links act as votes? The rel=nofollow attribute (pronounced as two words, "no follow") allows you to link to a resource while removing your "vote" for search engine purposes.

Just like it sounds, "nofollow" tells search engines not to follow the link. Some engines still follow them simply to discover new pages, but these links don't pass link equity (the "votes of popularity" we talked about above), so they can be useful in situations where a page is either linking to an untrustworthy source or was paid for or created by the owner of the destination page (making it an unnatural link).

Standard links (ones that haven't had nofollow added) look like this:

<a href="">I love Moz</a>

Nofollow link markup looks like this:

<a href="" rel="nofollow">I love Moz</a>

Your link profile

Your link profile is an overall assessment of all the inbound links your site has earned: the total number of links, their quality (or spamminess), their diversity (is one site linking to you hundreds of times, or are hundreds of sites linking to you once?), and more. The state of your link profile helps search engines understand how your site relates to other sites on the Internet.

Qualities of a healthy link profile

A healthy link profile is one that indicates to search engines that you're earning your links and authority fairly. Just like you shouldn't lie, cheat, or steal, you should strive to ensure your link profile is honest and earned via good, old-fashioned hard work.

Links are earned or editorially placed

Editorial links are links added naturally by sites and pages that want to link to your website.

The foundation of acquiring earned links is almost always through creating high-quality content that people genuinely wish to reference. This is where creating 10X content (a way of describing extremely high-quality content) is essential! If you can provide the best and most interesting resource on the web, people will naturally link to it.

Links should always:

• Be earned/editorial: They should never be bought, traded, or otherwise self-created.
• Come from authoritative pages: Try to ensure you earn links from authoritative sources, rather than low-quality ones.
• Increase with time: The amount of earned links should increase over time, rather than be created in bulk once and never grown again.
• Come from topically relevant sources: Try not to earn links from sources that don’t match your page’s topic.
• Use relevant, natural anchor text: Descriptive anchor text helps Google understand what the page is about.
• Bring qualified traffic to your site: Links exist for people to use, not just search engines.
• Be a healthy mix of follow and nofollow: Healthy link profiles include both follow links and legitimate nofollow links.
• Be strategically targeted or naturally earned: Links should be thoughtfully given, not automatically generated.

How to build high-quality backlinks

Link building comes in many shapes and sizes, but one thing is always true: link campaigns should always match your unique goals. Some popular methods that tend to work well for most campaigns include:

Find customer and partner links

If you have partners you work with regularly, or loyal customers that love your brand, there are ways to earn links from them with relative ease. You might send out partnership badges or offer to write up testimonials of their products.

Publish a blog

Blogs have the unique ability to contribute fresh material on a consistent basis, generate conversations across the web, and earn listings and links from other blogs. Be careful to avoid low-quality guest posting just for the sake of link building.

Create unique resources

Creating unique, high-quality resources can help attract a lot of links. These should address a timely need or interest, be visually appealing, and elicit strong emotions.

Engage with your local community

For a local business, community outreach can result in some of the most valuable and influential links, such as engaging in sponsorships or donating to worthy local causes.

Link building for local SEO

Building linked unstructured citations is important for local SEO and a great way to earn valuable links.

Measuring and improving your link efforts

Track the growth of total links to your site or page using tools like Moz’s Link Explorer. It's important to evaluate the quality of the links received and strive to earn links from high-domain authority sites.

Beyond links: How awareness, amplification, and sentiment impact authority

Link building can help build your brand awareness. Search engines measure trust based on the quality and quantity of links along with the content on your site. Earning links from reputable sources while providing great customer experiences can help build trust and authority over time.

Conclusion

Establishing a solid link building strategy is crucial for enhancing your site's search engine ranking and authority. Focus on earning links through quality content and maintaining a healthy link profile.