Why is Content Important in the Link Building Process?

Content is important link building - laptop linked by chains to different logos of marketing and social media companies including facebook, google and youtube

Proper SEO can be the true game-changer in the digital marketing field.

A well-structured and right amount of SEO can go a long way – meaning your web page will go exactly where you want – on the first page of Google.

SEO is constantly changing its terms, but the one thing that has remained the same is the link building process. Link building is undoubtedly one of the interesting ways Google decides on your ranking factors.

If your goal is to considerably boost your site’s SEO and improve your Google ranking, link building is the route you need to think about. Link building is one of the most direct ways your website relevance in search engines can be increased.

In the past, link buildings were very simple – get as many links to your page. For example, even if your link was from low – quality sites or even forums – that was also marked and included in the link building process.

But now, the thing has become more clear and transparent – Google wants links they can trust. And here is where your content comes in!

Truth to be told content and SEO love each other very much – because your SEO doesn’t have much sense if your content isn’t of great quality.

In this article, we will answer the question of why your content is important and how it affects your link building process.

We will also look at why quality content is bringing traffic to your website and how you can improve it so that it performs even better.

Why is Content So Important in The Link Building Plan?

Clearly explained, link building is getting the links of your website on relevant internet sources such as other websites or blogs.

Subsequently, search engines crawl the web and try to find a connection between your websites and other websites to decide how valuable your website (and content) is. The process of link building is like fine art – very fragile yet compelling.

Do also keep in mind that not every form of content that you produce will contribute you with backlinks and link building.

Today the internet is saturated with so much content, fake news, and scraped materials that it’s hard to know where to look.

By merely publishing content that is pumped with keywords and links and wait for people to link and share just doesn’t work anymore.

The rule of thumb today is – quality over quantity. Getting your content published on the sites that matters has more weight than getting it published on a lot of sites.

If sources that have authority send backlinks to you, your site will be regarded as more credible, and your SERPs will be subsequently boosted.

Right now, Google focuses on quality over quantity and getting those quality backlinks are much more difficult to obtain.

What is then essential for the link building process?

Here are 2 golden rules:

 

  • Create valuable, original and useful content, that is engaging with your target audience and easily shareable
  • Get your content in front of the right people at the right time and by distributing it through the right Right?

Now you already might get a glimpse of what we meant by content + link building. The most important goal is – create content that people will love and share easily, but also create backlinks to your website. Sounds easy-peasy?

How To Create Linkable (and Lovable) Content?

Content is the king! Shouts the great marketer and copies articles from his competitors. As you realised from our irony, your content needs to be original! But also informational, inspirational and educational with a fun twist!

Important to remember: 1000 + is your number. And yes, we are talking about the number of words in your article. Recent studies have shown that articles with 1000+ words are more likely to get shared and back-linked on relevant websites. Do not try to build links with 500-word blog post that doesn’t give any deep insight of a topic.

Finally, you want your content to be:

  • Researched and with the correct information
  • Extremely important material for your target audience
  • Enriched with images, videos or infographics
  • Content that’s relevant and up-to-date at the time of publishing

As you know by now, creating awesome content that attracts links isn’t easy. It takes a lot of time and effort to create, but it will surely finish with backlinks. With incorporating these 4 points, you will head in the right direction with your content.

The power of researching the content in link building

The first issue you need to begin with is in-depth analysis.

You need to realise the highest items of content regarding your subject and confirm what every one of them is missing.

Your research should answer burning questions of the industry/brand and provide value for your target group.

So, basically, when somebody wants to reference the information in your article, they will have no other way then – backlink to you.

Important content for your audience

Of course, you want to write about something that is relevant and influential for your readers. Well to do that, you need to understand the audience you are talking to.

Think about the topics and content that they would love to read about.

Topics that surprise and intrigue them and that create emotions in them.

It is not enough to create great content, you need to create content your audience is looking for in the waste internet space.

Do not write content that bores them or focuses on you and your company rather than on them, their needs, wants and your solutions to them.

Appealing visuals are the key to shareable content

Underline what you have to say with great visuals – pictures and videos are proven to be a great asset to your content, and they make your content much more link-worthy!

Visuals attract an audience, captivate attention, makes the text less boring and more appealing to the reader.

Whether you use to break the text with pictures, videos or infographics they can assist in illustrating your point.

In your content you might include:

  • Infographics: These are still very popular! When you manage to incorporate content in a visual form – it gets tons of value and more likely to get shared.

Websites are a visual media, with less and less attention span – use your time wisely! Plenty of businesses may use your infographics in their own blog posts, especially if they contain helpful information, research or statistics.

  • Videos: The importance of video increases every day as video continues to dominate content marketing and social media.

Videos are much more difficult for plagiarisers to duplicate than a blog post, and if you can create a great video, other influencers will gladly share it.

Looking at the popularity of Facebook and Youtube videos, it is safe to say that this medium is going to continue in its dominance when it comes to content marketing and social media.

Content relevance at the time of publishing

Okay so, you polished your content, now it is researched material, that is useful and interesting to your readers, you even inserted few pictures… what else there is to make a key benefit to link building process?

Timing and relevance is everything! You can’t expect to be relevant just by trying and posting great content.

Always make sure that your content matches current events, whatever those may be in your business. If your content isn’t relevant and timely, it won’t succeed in the right way.

The biggest mistake you can do is to base your ideas on old trends or past data/events.

Constantly staying up to date and figuring out what your audience wants and likes right now is the end game of your strong content that will improve your link building.

Being both timely and relevant requires you to tune in to your readers, get to know them and produce content that they want to see and share.

What Else Can You Do To Improve Your Link Building With Content? Distribute it!

How to maximise your content potential? By distributing your content that will not only get the result but will also have an amazing SEO impact!

Authentic, fantastic and relevant content alone rarely brings in links. You must jump in action and warn people about your shiny new and important content through the right channels. And these are…

1. Influence with Influencers

When it comes down to influencers, they are critical mass in charge of the success of your content.

If influencers share your content, you have much better odds of getting the attention that your content needs.

An influencer might even share your content on their own site, which might have good site authority, and of course, these are the types of links you want.

2. Write Guest Blog Posts

One more way to distribute your content and get quality backlinks is to start writing guest posts for high-authority blogs. Guest posting will strengthen your relationship with these sites and their readers.

It could also provide you the chance to place a backlink to your research article or guide, and that would prove the facts or data you provide in your post.

Links from a blog such as this can help get you the SEO results you want.

3. Claim Your Links

Track your brand mentions, and you might be getting way more backlinks. How?

Directly ask the author that mentioned you or your company for a link inside their article.

Many bloggers don’t have a problem with supplying a backlink to your already existing mention.

The sites that already mentioned your content on their website are probably already loyal to your brand and find your content significant.

It would not be a bad idea to go and develop a steady relationship with them along with more valuable content and potentially more backlinks.

4. Promote The Content on Social Media

Your social media channels are an ideal way to distribute your best content. And with paid advertising on social media, you can get a lot of eyes on your content quickly. Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads or LinkedIn Ads are all notable ways of getting your content in front of the right audience.

Social media advertising allows you to target audiences on specific networks through detailed information, such as demographics, sex, interest, and similar so targeted groups can see your brand in their feeds.

Social ads are generally used to get your content in front of your target audiences, but you can also use social ads to gain and display your content to other peers and even influencers that will then share your content.

In Conclusion

Generating unique, uncommon and valuable content is crucial to gain high-quality backlinks and improving your SEO. The search algorithm evaluation of backlinks has unfolded in recent years from basic strategy to deep analysis.

Link building today goes outside the limits of simply linking and expecting to influence your search engine rank.

That is why today is so much more difficult to get high-quality backlinks, but it is not impossible. The most powerful way to get the links you want is to create linkable content – which that brings value and benefits your target audiences.

Some of the simplest content, and often most important is content that helps solve a problem or answers questions.

With these ideas that we mentioned in the article and the right distribution plan for how to get precious backlinks, you can get those links and start experiencing improved rankings and more traffic before you know it.

You will need a proper link-building plan that matches your content creation and your business goals, designing the content that is most likely to be shared and focusing on the efforts that will convert to sales.

Because it is no longer just a game of links, it is the game of content – content that wants to be shared.

If you need more clarity about the direction of your web content to help boost your traffic, feel free to reach out to me using this contact form.

About Murray Dare

Murray Dare is a Marketing Consultant, Strategist and Director at Dare Media. Murray helps UK businesses find better ways to connect with their audiences through targeted content marketing strategies.