Digital marketing is constantly evolving with new marketing techniques coming in, leaving out the old ones. Although, marketing methods such as video production, mobile marketing, and social media marketing have yielded businesses exploding revenues and lots of brand awareness. But, link-building proves to be a highly effective marketing strategy today. It’s because link-building is to do with effectively strengthening the SEO of a website. But is link building still a Google ranking factor today?
Both SEO and digital marketing have come a long way in their evolution. And the role of link-building strategies in the SEO growth of websites is more crucial than ever before.
To emphasize the growing significance of link-building in 2022, we will look at its benefits and some reassuring stats.
Is Link Building Still A Google Ranking Factor today in 2022?
Does Back-Linking Still Yield Result in Google?
Yes, backlinking definitely does do a lot when it comes to improving the ranking of a website on Google. Backlinking is in fact the backbone of a long-term SEO strategy that brings in huge amounts of organic traffic.
The more high-quality white-hat links a website’s page has, the better it is for fetching traffic from Google. The point is to stay updated with the changes that are new in the algorithms of Google that determine rankings.
This means that you also need to create new types of backlinks to keep up with the changes.
What Importance Do Links Hold Currently?
There’s no doubt that link building holds the same importance for the past two decades as a major SEO strategy. No matter how surprising this may seem, that’s how it is. One reason why links are so essential is that links are the basis of how the world wide web works.
Links are like the binding force that keeps online properties i.e websites in one place. In the absence of links, the whole landscape of the internet would be different.
Link building helps the readers go from one piece of content to another that is relevant.
Back in the day, doing SEO was a matter of inserting keywords into a website’s content for the most part. Marketers did not bother much about improving the user experience or improving the website quality. If any business wanted its rival business to rank low in the search results, they would simply stuff in more keywords.
But today, the search engine algorithms are sophisticated in that try to create the least friction between searchers’ intent and the information that is shown to them – for maximum relevancy. In this scenario, the inclusion of links as a major ranking factor changed the way search engines like Google work.
Links are like the binding force that keeps online properties i.e websites in one place. In the absence of links, the whole landscape of the internet would be different. #SEO
Click To Tweet
Links Not Just Keywords Anymore
With links, Google is no longer dependent on just the content and keywords. With the help of backlinking, high-quality websites can stand out in the algorithms of Google as worthy of showing on page one. Due to the relevance in the search results made possible through backlinking, a website with quality backlinks gets popularity and relevance in search results.
This way, backlinks proved a breakthrough in creating a network of quality websites. Resultantly, all the websites that are low quality with keywords stuffed are automatically not part of the network.
This further forces all the website owners to make sound link-building strategies and level up the worth of their site in search algorithms.
What are the Essential Elements of High-Quality Backlinks?
Relevance
The topmost thing about high-quality backlinks is that they should be relevant to the content and page they are linking to. This means the backlink is contextual and that the phrase lets the reader know exactly where the link will take them.
Low-quality backlinks have no context and are irrelevant to the content they are placed in. It is why Google penalizes websites for creating low-quality content.
Relevant links are important for your website or blog to rank in the search engines.
For instance, if you run an IT services website, then getting backlinks from software or internet service websites will make sense as in relevance. It’s because businesses interested in IT are likely to take interest in content relating to software or the internet.
On the other hand, irrelevant and non-contextual links are pointless insertions and do not even get clicks as readers can sense the inauthenticity. So, bad backlinks not only hurt the ranking algorithm but also forces the readers to click away from the content.
Is Link Building Still a Google Ranking Factor Today With Only Trusted Sites?
There are literally millions of websites on the internet selling products and services. But, not every other website is a high-quality website. There are a small number of websites out there that are well-established in their niche, unlike so many others that aren’t as high-quality.
Websites that have made a big name, and have a domain authority of more than 70 are said to be the ‘authority sites’.
However, getting a backlink from such trustworthy websites isn’t a piece of cake. But, all the websites with links from authority sites, have high-quality backlinks.
Quality Backlinks Direct Big Traffic
The main aim of a backlink is to bring in traffic. In this respect, all such backlinks that are generating considerable amounts of traffic can be seen as backlinks with high quality. Whereas, backlinks that bring in no to low amounts of clicks contain low-quality links.
Quality backlinks ensure that potential leads continue to land on your website. Not just once but, on a consistent basis – adding to the organic traffic.
Uniquely Phrased and Contextual
A chief characteristic of high-quality backlinks is that they are phrased in a novel way instead of copying generically. Unique links have originality as they are not duplicate links.
Therefore, it is ideal that you link to ten trustworthy sites than getting backlinks from a hundred low-quality websites. Due to the reason that generic backlinks will hurt your website, and will bring the progress backward instead.
Use unique keyword phrases for your link-building efforts to be more high quality.
So, another sign of a quality link is a unique phrase.
So, Is Link Building Still a Google Ranking Factor Today?
The above-discussed points show how backlinking is here to stay in 2022 and its unique benefits for the ranking of your website. It’s time that you start implementing link-building in your marketing strategy if you haven’t yet.
Last, I’d love to hear from you about how are you building quality backlinks to your blog or website. What other tips would you add to this blog post?
