Today we’re going to talk about external optimization: site link promotion. It’s impossible to build a competent promotion strategy without understanding the essence of link building. We’ll tell you why you should increase your link mass, what it gives you, and how to correctly insert backlinks.
Why do we need SEO in 2023?
Like many previous years, in 2023, the planet’s main search engine Google is still very fond of good links. Without a high-quality link mass, it’s very difficult (and in some subjects simply impossible) for a newly registered domain to reach the top of the search results.
The top organic search result positions are the result of long and comprehensive work on internal and external website optimization. If you want to get to the TOP quickly, choose contextual advertising. If you want long-term results: take a close look at SEO, but don’t expect to “soar” to the first positions quickly.
What is link mass?
Link mass is a set of links on third-party resources that are sent to the site being promoted. Search engines “like” sites that have links to other, more authoritative sites.
An important point is that backlinks should be indexed by search engines, only then will the link weight will be transmitted. Therefore, the task of a linkbuilder or SEO specialist is to make sure that nothing interferes with indexing a link with the URL being promoted.
What is the purpose of increasing link mass?
Link building helps to resolve the following tasks:
- increasing the trust of an online resource;
- active growth and development of the site;
- improving search engine ranking and promotion in organic search results;
- increase in referral traffic;
- increased brand awareness
Put simply, if more authoritative sites refer to your site, then for search engine algorithms this is an indicator of user trust. Such pages quickly get indexed and rise in the search results. So, competent linking is the best way to increase the trust of the site.
What does link promotion mean?
Link promotion or link building is the process of obtaining or buying natural external links to a promoted site, in order to improve search engine rankings. The following are involved in this process:
- donor – a platform that links to the resource being promoted;
- acceptor – the page to which the link leads.
Can link building harm the site?
Link promotion isn’t always helpful. Before focusing on link mass, carry out internal optimization. Work through the technical aspects and fill the site with high-quality content: make it useful and easy-to-use for people. If the site is frankly terrible, link promotion not only won’t help, but will aggravate the situation.
Another way to harm your site with links is to position yourself with a low-quality donor. There are many factors to consider when choosing potential donors:
- domain Influence;
- the number of backlinks;
- relevance of the topic;
- quality of the link profile;
- the ratio of the number of indexed pages to the total number of URLs on the site;
- to the traffic volume dynamics, etc.
The visual sign of a bad donor is a long or numbered domain name, spam domain zones, primitive layout, lack of navigation, and poor usability. Such sites can be cheaper, but the consequences will be more expensive.
The main methods of increasing link mass
There are “white” and “black” methods of obtaining links. It’s worth remembering that search engines can in any case “punish” links. First, let’s look at the most popular ways to work with links:
Crowd marketing
This is activity on forums, review sites, questions and answers. Crowdsourcing is a good way to increase brand or product awareness. It doesn’t require cash investments, but it’s not fair to call it free. Finding a platform and a section with a suitable topic, understanding the essence of the dialogue, and “inserting” the link in the right place – all this takes a lot of time and we don’t recommend the use of commercial anchors. To avoid being filtered, it’s best to choose branded or diluted anchors for crowd marketing.
Content Marketing
This is the preparation of high-quality content and positioning it on sites with relevant topics. Expert articles, useful collections, up-to-date reviews and news – everything that trust resources can quote in the future. These are very valuable backlinks, but you need to work carefully on the content.
Submit promotion or registration in catalogues
This is another way to make yourself known. The main difficulty is to find such sites where the target audience lives. First of all, you need to be positioned on Yandex. Directory, Google My Business, then search for other sites.
Social network links
The description of the social network profile must contain a link to the site. It doesn’t directly affect the ranking, but it will increase the volume of traffic. Links can also be left in posts which stimulate reposts. People tend to repost topical posts and refer back to the source.
Buying links on the exchange
This is risky, but with a competent approach, it’s also an effective way to build up link mass. Search engines penalize for purchasing links by trying to suppress the resources that sell them, but they still exist.
Outreach
A crowd marketing segment where links are published based on an agreement with the site owner. This method, unlike classic crowd marketing, isn’t seen as spam by search robots. Another option, if it’s beneficial for both parties, you can negotiate the exchange of links.
“Black” ways of link promotion
We don’t recommend using them, but you should be aware of them.
Spam
This means inserting links in order to manipulate search results. More simply, spamming means showing ads to users who don’t want to see them. The method works. In order to avoid unexpectedly getting a spam filter, regularly monitor your link profile and remove unnecessary links.
PBN (Private Blog Network)
This is a gray SEO method, where a webmaster creates a network of sites with links to their own resources. Algorithms regularly calculate networks like these and mercilessly ban them.
Doorways
Multiple pages which are most often generated automatically. They are filled with low-quality or meaningless content stuffed with low-frequency and medium-frequency queries. Depending on queries, such sites quickly get into the TOP and a 301 redirect sends to the site being promoted.
Automatic link promotion exchanges
This is a terrible way to saturate your link profile quickly against payment with a huge number of low-quality and temporary links.
It is up to you whether you want to use such methods or not. However, bear in mind that search engines ruthlessly pessimize websites for this. Along with your search result positions, you will lose traffic, and therefore the ability to monetize your site.
Instead of a conclusion
Use our recommendations to make the process of increasing link mass successful, and not achieve the opposite effect:
- the number of commercial or transactional links should not occupy more than 20% of the total link profile, since such links are perceived by search engines as spam;
- focus not on the quantity, but on the quality of the links provided;
- avoid a “link explosion” – a sharp increase in referring domains or removal of links. For young sites in particular, we don’t recommend posting more than 50-90 links per month;
- carefully select donors manually, don’t use exchanges to automatically purchase links;
- build a competent link promotion strategy based on the average link profile of competitors;
- external links must be located on different domains, otherwise it won’t create link mass;
If you want to avoid a search engine filter, you need to find and remove low-quality links, while simultaneously building up high-quality ones. This can take weeks or months. Remember that blindly inserting backlinks in the belief that this will help raise the site to higher positions and attract traffic, brings nothing but pessimisation.
In order to avoid losing traffic, build a competent link promotion strategy and start with internal optimization of your site.
