There are currently more than 1,9 billion websites and it now seems impossible to rank high in Google. Search engine optimization (SEO) seems to be the solution for this, but link building is just as important. In this article we give you answers to the questions 'what is link building?' and 'how do you apply it?'. We go one step further than sharing basic knowledge so that you will soon know everything about this subject.

What is link building?

Link building means that you try to get your website higher in Google by placing links (on your own website or on someone else's). If your website has many incoming links, it will have a higher Page Rank. This makes it easier to rank higher in Google faster in the future. It is important to apply link building properly so that you do not run into problems with any updates from Google.

What are the biggest benefits of link building?

So many websites are already doing link building that this must be the method to boost your online business. But why is this the way?

• You will quickly* rank high in Google, which means you can easily recoup your costs
• It saves time and effort: you no longer have to spend years building a name. People will find you automatically
• Link building is sustainable: you continue to attract customers through your website every month
• It's easier than creating shareable content (linkbait articles)

*by 'fast' we mean relatively fast. If you do not work properly and get a lot of links to your website in a short period of time, then this is unnatural. We'll tell you more about that later!

The difference between internal and external link building

Internal link building means that you link from different pages and blog articles to other pages on your website. This allows you to indicate to Google that that one page may also be relevant to the visitor to your website. You can do this, for example, by putting the most important pages in the menu at the top of your website or by linking internally in blog articles. External link building is the opposite: you ensure that other websites link to yours.

You should not confuse this with the difference between internal and external linking: you can also link externally from your own website, namely to another website.

Get higher in Google through link building

Nowadays people do everything they can to get to the top of Google. It is important to know that Google still attaches great importance to good backlinks. This is how you do it right:

• The most common method is to place links on relevant pages, such as home pages.
• Many web shops also do link building. Some use a different way: they let bloggers write about their products. This way they not only get links, but also more visitors and conversions.

If you want to achieve a good Google position, you will really have to get started with link building. However, there is one but: SEO and writing good content are also very important.

The power of combining link building & SEO

Let us disabuse you for a moment: you will not get there by just collecting links. It's all about the power of combining multiple SEO and link building methods to rank higher. Moreover, it is strange if your website has little content or articles, but many incoming links. You have to find a good balance in that. If you receive too many (or too few) links, you can even receive spam flags from Google.

So your SEO should not be left behind

By first writing good SEO-optimized pages (or having them written by SEO experts) and then moving on to external link building, you have a much better chance that your page will score high. 1 + 1 is 3 in this case. So you can score in two ways – namely through link building and SEO. Combining these two methods works extremely well. The previously mentioned balance between the number of pages and incoming links works well for this external link building. If you also always write new blog articles with good SEO (search engine optimization) and with relevant internal links, this will help you internal link building.

More blog articles on your website means more options to link to. It also ensures that you can attract even more customers. Especially if you apply your link building strategy and good SEO per article.

What does Google think of link building?

Since the google penguin update From 2012, Google pays more attention to spam websites. They also pay more attention to links that are of poor quality. This means that you should pay more attention to how much certain links are worth and that you should have both follow and no-follow links to your website. On the other hand, it's not like they penalize websites with links on homepages. On the contrary: if you have links on relevant home pages, then there is nothing to worry about. That can also be very valuable for Google.

This is how you ensure natural link building

You will achieve the best results by thoroughly studying the different types of links. There are several roads leading to Rome, in other words: use the different ways! We have listed the best link building tips for you:

• Make sure you don't link too many websites in too short a time
• Vary and choose a combination of links from blogs, web pages, forums and home pages
• As long as you vary, it remains natural. There may be some highly paid links among them, if you do this the right way.
• A variation in quality is also important: don't just go for the best links, but also for some of the less good links.
• It is important to pay attention to whether you are receiving links from websites with high spam scores
• Don't always use the same link keywords, but vary and choose synonyms
• It is also valuable if you have links not only to your homepage, but also to other pages within your site
• In-content links are more natural than links in footers (which are always seen as unnatural) and sidebars.

Link building step-by-step plan

Now it is really time for a concrete step-by-step plan. How do you proceed if you want to get everything right?

1. After setting up your website, you start writing blog articles for your website. In this initial phase you can already achieve a higher position in Google by focusing on SEO.
2. So now you have the content that can be linked to. Pick the most important pages and see if you can get valuable links to them.
3. We offer on our marketplace a wide variety of links On. Take a look and discover the possibilities!
4. You can then get started with link building via blogs: approach them yourself or let us do this: we can pitch for you via a large blogger network. We also offer content links ourselves.
5. It is important that you do not collect links like crazy. Take it easy. Do you want to be sure of your case? We are happy to help you if you want to outsource your link building.

How do you check whether your link building campaign has helped?

Once you have a natural link profile? Then you would probably like to see whether this has helped your website to rank better. You can check this by checking whether your domain value (domain authority or DA), Pagerank (PA), trustflow (TF) and citationflow (CF) have increased. The first two are especially important to get to the top of Google. A useful tool to check your DA and PA is this tool.

Do it yourself or outsource?

You can do link building yourself if you are really good at it. In that case, knowledge of Google's rules is very important, because you don't have to spam flags want to receive and certainly do not want your website to be removed from the search results. In most cases it is smart to outsource it to people who really understand it. You have to do good research into this, because before you know it someone will post hundreds of links to your website within a short time. You are sure of the result - namely that Google will see your website as spam - but that is of course not what you want to achieve. A link building expert takes a different approach: he slowly creates links to your website from reliable websites and home pages.

A free, no-obligation SEO & link building report

We are happy to give you advice about your website. In this day and age you cannot stay behind and it is a must to have a good website that can be found by your customers. And also for customers who do not yet know your company. Do you not yet have much experience with getting to the top of Google, but do you want to get started with this? Then a no-obligation SEO & link building report is a useful first step. Contact us via chat or email.

Outsource link building to us

You can look for that link building expert we talked about, but actually you've already found it 😉 When you contact us, you will be in direct contact with Rik Engelen. He has advised the largest SEO companies in the Netherlands over the past 10 years and has been in the world of SEO for 20 years.