Search engines treat links like votes. So when your site gets linked by others, you become more popular. The more links — the higher your site’s popularity. The search engines will utilize complex algorithms for evaluations of sites according to linking information and rank them accordingly. SEO consultants Sydney will advise you on how link building works.
Even though link building is not the gist of SEO, experts Sydney associate it largely as an important cause of ranking. Popularity is not just the only important metric search engines will pick up from link building, but also spam, trust, and authority. Trustworthy sites will only link to other reliable websites.
Link Signals
Search engines give value to links depending on a variety of factors including:
Global Popularity
A popular site will have a huge number of other websites linking to it. Wikipedia is such an example. It has thousands of other sites linking to it, meaning that it is an important website. To show that your site is reliable, you should strive to get multiple sites linking back to yours.
Freshness
The signals of links diminish with time explaining why the once famous sites go stale with time if they do not get fresh links. Therefore, it is essential to continue getting links over a period of time to gain the current popularity of the site.
Local Popularity
Sites that get links from sites that are related to the topic they work for are seen to be more important than those from irrelevant topic sites. For instance, a website dealing with dog’s health tips will increase in value when another site dealing with dog products links to it rather than one dealing in vehicle parts.
TrustRank
The internet has plenty of spam. In fact, SEO specialist Sydney say that over 60 % of what we see on the web cannot be trusted. Therefore, search engines employ link graph to measure trust. Therefore, sites that get links from domains that are highly trusted, scores higher. Some of these trusted websites include government sites and NGOs.
Link Neighbourhood
With your site linking to certain sites on the web, the search engines will rank them according to their value. A site that contains spammy links will link with other sites with similar characteristics. So search engines place you in the same neighbourhood with the sites you link to and those that link back to you. So, you need to always ensure you get backlinks from a trustworthy site.
Anchor Text
Anchor text is one of the top signals that aid in ranking sites. If multiple links are pointing to a page on your site with the relevant use of keywords, then there are high chances of that page ranking high for the targeted anchor text phrase.
Social Shares
Getting good amount of shares for your content on social platforms is critical to get noticed by search engines. They do not have as much value as other links but are equally important when it comes to recognition. It is important to note that social channels are growing and will continue rising in importance.
When you get professional SEO consultants Sydney, they can help you get value from link building. Links are an essential part of SEO and your site can greatly benefit from them.