Ethical link building: The sustainable way to grow your online visibility
If your business or SEO agency is looking to achieve top rankings, ethical link-building is a key tool to achieving online visibility.
Ethical link-building is the process of gaining backlinks by using legitimate practices. The process involves using SEO best practices to build a sturdy and reputable online presence.
In this blog, we’ll teach you what ethical link building is and how to link build effectively to ensure your content stays on top of the search engine results pages.
Why is ethical link-building important?
What Is Link Building?Google penalises unethical tactics by deeming them as black hat tactics.
These tactics won’t improve your online performance in the long run and are a cheap way to boost your rankings on search engine results pages. However, white hat tactics are favoured by search engines and increase your rankings.
Thoughtful link building is a crucial part of ethical SEO and is a significant part of improving search engine rankings alongside tactics like keyword research and E-E-A-T optimised content.
When Google crawls a webpage, there are certain factors it looks for to determine the value of a page and its place on the SERPs. One of these is internal linking and backlinks.
Google views high-quality and ethical backlinks as an indicator of a page’s authority and value, so the more ethical links you have in your content, the higher your page is likely to rank.
How does this increase visibility?
Many companies wrongly believe that simply stuffing lots of internal and external links into their content will raise its value and as such they resort to black hat tactics like spamming links. This is not effective link-building and in fact, can result in a loss of authority on a page and harsh penalties from Google.
Ethical link building on the other hand is a crucial organic SEO strategy that increases visibility in the SERPs by meeting the demands set by Google and proving webpage authority.
1. Boosts brand recognition
When you link a relevant external page in your work or your webpage is linked to someone else’s content, you are raising awareness of your brand and what you do. This helps to build credibility amongst other companies as well as with Google.
2. Increases traffic
Internal linking can help drive traffic to other areas of your website. When people browse blogs and landing pages they’ve found in the SERPs they’re likely to follow any outgoing relevant links to other pages on your site.
3. Higher SERP rankings
As previously mentioned, Google has a set of requirements it uses when crawling pages, and one of these is quality linking. If your ethical links demonstrate E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) they are automatically deemed valuable by Google and your page is likely to climb the SERP rankings.
Building high-quality links that are relevant to a user’s search queries and intent and lead users to respected, relevant websites is the best way to ensure Google favours your content.
What are the strategies?
So now you know how important ethical links are, how do you create them? How do you utilise E-E-A-T to grow your online visibility? We’ve got some handy tips and tricks on how to ace link building.
Guest writing
Arranging to write blogs and articles for other websites in the same industry as you is a great way to gain solid backlinks. If another website utilises your expertise, in return you can ask for them to include backlinks to your website providing it’s relevant to do so.
Link outreach
Reaching out to websites with broken links in their copy is a great way to link build. You can highlight the issue and suggest they replace their links with more relevant, functioning links from your website. In this situation, it’s a win-win for both sides.
High-quality content
Writing content that is valuable to users, answers search queries and keeps readers engaged is the easiest way to encourage linking. If your blogs or articles are optimised with detailed keyword research and are appealing then other websites will want to link to your work.
Collaboration
Utilising other creators in your industry is a brilliant way to increase linking opportunities. This could be in the form of social media sponsorships, partnerships with competitors, or utilising influencers with a large online presence in your field.
Marketing director, Charlotte Fallon, explains why it’s vital to use legitimate practices when link building:
“There are two reasons. The first being it is the right thing to do. Illegitimate link building practices are only ever a short term solution. All it takes is a Google update to reward sites that have built legitimate links and, overnight, your website gets hit.
Legitimate links are of far greater value because they often come from websites with high domain authorities that are relevant to what you’re buying and selling.
Speaking of relevancy, links that are earned legitimately is also a sound business decision. You don’t want to spend money on cheap, low quality links that attract irrelevant traffic that aren’t wanting to purchase from you.”
Build brilliant links with Embryo
There are a wide range of ways to build brilliant links and boost your SEO rankings. With so many ways to link build, it can be difficult to know where to start. At Embryo, we have a team of SEO experts who will be able to devise the perfect strategy for your business based on your needs.
We’ll use our in depth knowledge and experience of online SEO and link building best practices to create a unique strategy for you that will provide strong, ethical back links and boost your online visibility.
FAQs
Answered by Dan McCartney
What is an example of grey-hat SEO?
Guest-posting is an example of grey-hat SEO if it is not done out of pure generosity of knowledge. While there is not always an exchange of money between website owners, sometimes payment is arranged knowing the understanding of the value that a backlink can have.
Can internal linking for website growth be unethical?
Yes, internal linking can be deceptive. Site users may click on a hyperlink and be misled on the website which can go through to a link which doesn’t match anchor text or intent, to artificially inflate a website’s engagement figures. This however provides a poor user experience, and risks increasing the bounce rate.
How can influencers help me to gain links to my website?
Influencers can promote you on their social media pages. From this, other informational websites in that sector may see this, write about your business, and refer to you. Influence can be a very strong vote of confidence.
Does link building need to follow a strategy?
Yes, internal link building should follow the strategy of your site structure. You need descriptive anchor text and well-thought-out reference pages. Internal links should be concise (5 words max.) and be useful for the user. Always link through to informational pages where it is natural to help with topic clustering.
