5 Types of Link Building To Support Your Website
Link building is an important part of SEO and there are many different stages of link building. One of the most important things to remember is that backlinks need to be built in a natural way and should be a good mix of follow and no follow links. It’s not all about the number of backlinks you build either, one quality link can have more of an effect than hundreds of poor quality links. Keep reading below to find out more about the 5 main types of backlinks and how they can support your website’s SEO.
5 Methods of Link Building To Support Your Website
There are five main types of link building methods that will support the overall strength of your website. When it comes to link building, there are a number of things you should consider when choosing a backlink such as whether it’s dofollow or nofollow and metrics such as trust flow, citation flow, domain authority and domain rating. Whilst the types of links we will be talking about aren’t the only types available, they are some of the most important and effective methods of linking building. The 5 main methods of link building to support SEO are:
- Citations
- Competitor Backlinks
- Customer Sourced Links
- Premium Link Placements
- Guest Posts
No matter what type of website you have or industry you might be in, link building is an important part of any SEO campaign. Backlinks are included in all of our SEO strategies and we also offer one-off link building packages. For more information, please don’t hesitate to get in touch and one of our team will be happy to help you.
What Each Type of Link Building Is...
To ensure your backlinks are having the best effect for your website, it’s important for you to understand what each type is and what part they play. Below we’ll cover each type of backlink and some of the most frequently asked questions about them.
Citations
Citations in relation to websites and SEO are typically an online reference that is NAP consistent with the details from your website or Google My Business listings. NAP stands for name, address and phone number. When used in SEO, citations are typically websites such as business directories that will focus on specific groups of businesses.
When it comes to citations, there are a number of main types to build such as local citations, national citations and niche citations. Local citations are typically directories or websites focussed on a specific town, county or region and the businesses listed will only reflect that. National citations are websites that promote businesses from across a whole country or multiple areas across the globe. The other type is niche citations, these types of citations are industry specific such as gardening directories, home directories or any other type of directory that is focussed on a specific niche.
Citations are designed to help people find local businesses and they’ll contain your NAP information and will likely also provide a backlink to your website. Citations websites such as directories will either provide a follow or no follow link to your website. In addition to providing link support, citations can also offer referral traffic to your website. Citations are the first step in any link building campaign, as they help to keep a flow of backlinks coming into your website over a period of time and help to form a natural backlink profile.
When it comes to building citations, there are a number of directory websites you can list on. Whether it’s searching “top web directories” or something else, you will easily find a list of places to put your website on. One of the downsides to citation building is it can take time when carrying it out yourself and you might spend an hour or more building just a few citations. We provide citation building and can list your website on 200 of the top directories in the UK, which will help to improve your trust and citation flow metrics.
A no follow citation, is a link from a directory website that contains a specific HTML tag that is designed to stop the website passing link juice to it. Most citation websites will contain a no follow attribute, however some do have the option for paid promotions or guest posting that will provide a follow link instead.
A do follow citation is a link from a directory or website that contains a HTML tag that instructs Google and other search engines to pass the link strength from site A to site B. These types of links will pass on authority or link juice through the designated website being linked to.
Competitor Backlinks
A competitor backlink is a link that is sourced from a competitor’s backlink profile. One of the great things about competitor backlinks is you can pick the best of the bunch and avoid any that might actually pose a risk to your website's backlink profile.
These types of links can be harder to find as they require specific tools to do so. We offer full and complete competitor backlink analysis using a number of tools such as Majestic, SEMrush, Moz and Ahrefs.
Competitor backlinks should be sourced from people ranking on the front page of Google or above you for the terms you wish to rank for. Backlinks make up a huge part of Google’s ranking algorithm which means if you build the ones your competitors are using, as well as some other authoritative links then you’ll likely rank above them on Google and other search engines. It’s also important to remember good content and technical SEO is important to ensure the links have the best effect.
Competitor backlink analysis is when one or multiple websites that compete with yours are analysed for their backlinks. The analysis should list which are the strongest links and which are the weakest, as well as what pages the links are coming from or pointing to. The authoritativeness of each link will help you to decide which are the best ones to build for yourself. However, it’s important to remember the analysis won’t tell you how they obtained the link which means you might not be able to get every backlink they have.
Competitor backlinks are sourced by carrying out a competitor backlink gap analysis, this will say which links you have and which links your competition has. From this you’ll then be able to begin obtaining the links that you don’t have.
No. Just like you can see a competitor's links, if they have the right tools then they’ll also be able to see yours as well. Trying to hide backlinks will also mean you’re hiding them from Google as well, which will have a detrimental impact. Continuous link building will help to keep you one step ahead of the competition, so it doesn’t matter if they can see the backlinks you have.
Customer Sourced Links
A customer sourced link is one that you source yourself from people who you know in the local area or who you work with. Many people that work b2b are much more likely to share links or provide a backlink to your website. Although not all customer sourced links are good, links that are in the same local area or similar industry are deemed authoritative. If you work with a SEO agency such as ourselves, we can check the strength of a particular backlink for you.
The best way to get backlinks from people you with with is to just ask them, many industries such as the wedding industry will be much more open to share links as they regularly promote other businesses such as wedding dress shops promoting cake makers or vice versa; as long as they are both working in the same industry. One of the most important things to remember about customer links is there’s no harm in asking.
Most links will provide some value and with sourced links you might find a diamond that could really help your website. The older a domain is, the more strength it will naturally gain over time. One of the bigger benefits of customer sourced links is they can be quite relevant in the sense that they’ll likely be from similar industries or websites in the same location as yourselves.
This will depend entirely on your website and the majority of links provided typically link back to a homepage of a website. However, SEO agencies such as ourselves can provide advice on any other pages you might want to start getting links back to. Some article based websites, newspapers or even industry specific sites, might link back to specific pages or blogs that they naturally deem more relevant.
Ideally yes. The most effective links are backlinks that are authoritative and these are websites that are ideally driving traffic to your own through referral traffic. As customer sourced links are typically from people you know or work with, they’ll likely be relevant anyway and this is because they’ll work in a similar industry or be based in the same location as you.
Most links you source yourself from people you know or work with will be free. However, you might see some websites or businesses ask for a link back and this is known as a reciprocal link. The odd reciprocal link won’t hurt your website however it’s vital to maintain the right balance with backlinks and if your whole profile was made up of reciprocal links then this could have a detrimental impact on your website. Some websites such as charities, newspapers or even people you know might ask for something in return such as a small token payment or promotion social media post.
Premium Link Placements
Premium link placements are typically links such as homepage placements, sponsored adverts or paid citations. These types of backlinks help to form a natural backlink profile and search engines know these types of links are regularly used, as long as it’s done in the right way.
There are many different types of premium link placement options available and the most popular are sponsored links and premium citations that offer a follow link. These types of links might even provide deep links to additional service pages on your website.
Premium links will help to give your trust and citation flow metrics a boost. In addition to this, they will also help to improve both the domain authority and domain rating for your website.
This will depend on where the link is being obtained from, some options will offer a lifetime placement and others will require renewal on a yearly basis or every couple of years.
Finding the best premium link placements can be difficult if you’re doing it on your own. At DUO Digital, we can help to source and place the best premium link placements that will support your backlink profile and website.
The cost of premium links will vary depending on a number of factors such as where they are obtained from and how long they last for. We offer link building packages to suit all budgets and will tailor a plan to help support your website and its domain metrics.
Guest Posts
Guest posting, which is also known as guest blogging, is when an article is posted on a specific relevant website and links back to your own. These types of backlinks are deemed as the most authoritative as they contain a backlink which is surrounded by relevant text and can also drive traffic back to the website as well.
Finding guest posts can be much more difficult and it’s not only finding them, it’s about finding one that’s relevant to your business and ones that will provide the right support. Guest posting can be carried out on any website that has a dedicated blog section. We have a vast portfolio of guest post placements and can help to find the ones most relevant to you. Our packages can be tailored to suit any budget.
Yes. Guest posting is still alive and in fact it’s one of the most popular and effective types of link building. As well as providing an authoritative backlink, the placement can also drive referral traffic to your website. Whilst guest posting is highly effective, they can take time to show the desired impact on your website.
The simple answer is YES! As long as they are carried out correctly and surrounded by relevant text, the guest post will benefit you. Guest posts are deemed as one of the top tiers of link building and they will likely be a part of any type of SEO strategy.
Guest posts not only support your domain they also drive referral traffic as well; if they are well placed. By placing guest posts on relevant websites, you will help to improve both your domain authority and domain rating which will help to support your overall website rankings.
The minimum length a guest post should be is 300 words if the website is closely related to yourself. However, if a website is more generic then the more relevant text around it, the more useful the link will be. One of the important things to remember is there is no maximum length for a guest post blog.
How To Improve Your Backlink Profile
If you have a website and are looking to improve your overall backlink profile, then we can help with our effective and ethical link building methods. We use a combination of techniques which are designed to benefit a number of metrics such as citation flow, trust flow, domain authority and domain rating. We build in an ethical manner and start any campaign with citations, before moving onto things such as competitor backlinks, premium links and guest posts.
Link building is not only a great way to build the overall backlink profile for your website and its strength, but it can also support the rankings for the main keywords or locations you are looking to push. At DUO Digital, we offer affordable link building campaigns to support all budgets and can work with you to create a strategy that best supports your business and website. Contact us today and we’d be more than happy to arrange a free link consultation with you.
Improve Your Online Search Presence