To Link or Not to link is the biggest question today. If you are a blogger or online entrepreneur then I am sure you would come across this question many times. Hereby, In this article, I will share the answer to this question. I will tell you whether Link Building is still relevant to SEO or not?
Next, I will also tell you how to rank your site without building backlinks.
But, before starting with the article, let us understand the link building and its evolution first.
What Is Link Building
In simple words, Link Building is a process of building backlinks for your website. The more your site is linked back by the other websites the more it will rank higher in the search engine. This is because high-quality backlinks are used as a ranking factor by the search engine (including Google) to rank your site.
Next, there are many techniques used for building backlinks for your website. Some of them are mentioned below.
- Blog Commenting
- Skyscraper technique
- Guest Posting
- Broken links method
- Writing testimonials
- Building Internal Link etc.
For more information on building high-quality backlinks, please refer to articles given at the below link.
How to build High Quality Backlinks for your new Website?
The Evolution Of Link Building
In the earlier days, ‘Backlinks’ was the only key factor used to rank your website.
Lots of bloggers and online entrepreneurs took leverage of this and started link building using un-ethical methods like Link Farming, Paid Links, Links generated using backlinks generator, etc. They started building lots of backlinks for their website, regardless of its quality.
Next, their websites started appearing higher in the search engine irrespective of its quality.
Search Engines (including Google) quickly observed this unpleasant search experience due to over-reliance on the backlinks and update their algorithms.
Now, besides ‘Backlinks’, more than 200 signals are used to rank your content. And, the sites that violated these guidelines or involved in any kind of unethical practices are heavily penalized and even banned from the search results.
But, this does not mean, ‘Link Building’ is no more a ranking factor. Despite these changes, link building is still very important for your site.
Always remember, Link building is the foundation stone of effective SEO. If your website has a good number of high-quality backlinks then it will definitely be going to help you. There is no harm in building high-quality backlinks for your site.
To conclude, link building should not be completely avoided. You should always try to build high-quality backlinks for your website. But, besides this, you should also focus on other ranking factors as well.
In other words, Google wants you to prioritize users over search engines. Hence, it is also focusing on other parameters to rank your site.
The below article will tell you how to rank your website without building backlinks for it?
5 Ways to Rank Without Backlinks
Before starting with the article, let us first understand the meaning of ‘Without Building Backlinks‘.
Here the term ‘Without Building Backlinks’ does not mean you don’t need to build even a single backlink for your site.
As said earlier, ‘Backlink’ is the foundation stone of effective SEO. If you want to rank higher in the search engines then you will definitely require a good number of backlinks for it.
But, What if, you don’t find backlinks for your content. In this case, you should not get disappointed. There are many other ranking factors as well. You can concentrate on those factors to rank higher in the search engines.
So, What are we waiting for? Let us discuss some important factors to rank your site besides backlinks.
#1. Build Internal Backlinks
Seriously, there is no way to rank your content without building backlinks for it. But, there is an alternative to this.
All kinds of backlinks including Internal links are count for this. If you don’t get the chance to build backlinks from other websites then you can even build backlinks internally.
Yes, you read that right? You can also build backlinks by linking your internal page within the article.
For example, How to build Backlinks For Your New Website?
Above, I have created a backlink for my blog by linking back my internal and related articles.
According to me, Internal Links are the best way to boost the performance of your site. This is because these links are created on your own site and hence you have full control over it. You can use well researched and optimized keywords to create such internal links.
To conclude, you can take the help of Internal links to boost SEO performance of your site or content.
#2. Getting More Number Of Mentions
Mentions are another best way to rank higher in the search engines.
Here, by term ‘Mentions’, I mean a fully unlinked URL. In simple words, these are simply the name of your brand or site without linking back to your website.
Yes, getting a mention from a quality site still counts for something.
Always remember, if your business or website is getting online mentions in the positive context then it is good for you.
Next, these mentions also include ‘Social Media Mentions‘.
Social Media mentions will help you to gain visibility easily. This is because users use both search engines and social media to find the content of interest.
#3. Getting Real Reviews For Your Site
Reviews are another powerful tool to boost your visibility in the search engine.
According to one study, 90% of the users search online before purchasing anything.
Have you ever wonder? Why?
This is because, today, with so many options available online, your customers or audience easily get frustrated.
The only way to filter these data is to exclude new names or businesses with low numbers of reviews and ratings.
Hence, if you don’t have good reviews for your business or website, there are higher chances that your site gets unnoticed by the users.
Next, it is also important to note the term ‘Real‘ here. If your reviews are not from a real audience or customers then it will not be going to help you.
Though you can generate lots of fake reviews online, I strongly suggest avoiding these kinds of unethical practices for your site. Remember, this will harm your site in the future.
Various Search Engines (including Google) have already observed this behavior and they are updating their algorithms to incorporate it. The day is not far when search engines will start considering only natural and real reviews.
#4. Write A High-Quality Content
No techniques can work better than high-quality content. If your content is good, well researched and optimized then no one can stop your site from being rank on the first page of the search engines.
Always remember, both the search engines and audiences love good content-rich websites.
If your content is good then the website will have a good user experience and even many of them will return back.
Hence, this will improve the bounce rate on your site and also increase the retention ratio.
Yes, the bounce rate of your site is also an important ranking factor for your site.
#5. Study Your Competitors
This one is my favorite.
Always remember, it is never too late to learn from your competitors. In fact, this is the best place to learn how to rank your content higher in the search engine.
As said earlier in this article, Link Building should not be the only strategy to rank higher in the search engine. The same logic also applies to your competitors.
It means your competitors are also using other strategies to rank their content in search engines.
Hence, if link building is not working for you then you should focus on those other strategies implemented by your competitors.
You will be happy to know that there are many tools available online to spy on your competitors. You can take the help of those tools to find out the strategies of your competitors.
The Final Words
None of the techniques if implemented individually can help you in improving the performance of your site.
It is always advisable that your strategy should consist of all possible techniques in it.
Google ranking is a combination of all these techniques together. If you are good at all these techniques then only your site will rank higher in the search results.
At last, What techniques you used to rank your content higher in the search results? Don’t forget to share your methods with us in below comment box.
I have learned a lot of things through your blog. by understanding your article, I have able to rank our website on google.