Nozak Consulting

What Are Inbound Links?

Scott Emigh

When improving your website’s search engine optimization (SEO), inbound links are pivotal factors in your success. An inbound link is when an outside source includes a link to your website on it, which can help increase your ranking in search engine results.

Furthermore, inbound links will increase your traffic. Think of it as free advertising. This raises the question: how do you convince other websites to link to yours? There is no magic formula for acquiring inbound links, but there are still many useful methods. 

Examples of Inbound Links

Before you begin acquiring inbound links, you need to know the kinds of outside sources can provide them. While there are numerous avenues to follow, some sources of inbound links are better than others.

If you want to strengthen your SEO, then these are a few of the places you will want to go to for inbound links. 

What Are Directory Links?

Directories catalogue different websites, and organizes them based on a hierarchy or category. Obtaining an inbound link from a directory can be easy or complicated depending on the directory, but they are considered a quality source by search engine algorithms. Make sure, however, that the directory itself is high quality, otherwise little will be done to help your SEO.

A good directory is built on a trusted domain, is designed for human visitors (as opposed to just being designed to boost SEO), and includes links from more robust websites. Dmoz.org, Yahoo Directory, and Business.com are examples of high-quality directories. 

Do Links on Blogs and Social Media Increase Website Traffic?

Information travels fast these days thanks to social media and blogs, and you can capitalize on this advantage, too. Receiving inbound links from social media and blogs will help increase traffic to your website as the information is passed around, leading to more people seeing your website and sharing links to it.

Some search engine algorithms take into consideration how many times a link has been shared to determine its quality, so inbound links from social media and blogs can help your SEO.

Are Links From Other Websites Good?

Maybe you are the webmaster of multiple websites, your business website and a personal blog for example. If this is the case, then you can put a link to your business website on another one of your other websites.

Linking these two websites to each other is a small thing you can do to help improve your SEO.

How Do I Get Inbound Links?

Now that you understand the places you can obtain inbound links from, you might find the prospect of acquiring them to be a daunting one.

Building inbound links will take time and work, but fortunately there are a number of ways to grow your collection. Here are some strategies to help you begin growing your inbound links.

Create Good Content To Generate Links!!

It is undeniable that one of the most reliable ways to acquire inbound links is to create good content. If what you post is high-quality, then people are naturally more likely to want to link back to it.

This method is organic, meaning that if you already were creating high-quality content for your website, then just keep it up. Just be sure the posts are written more for the customers than for your associates.

Admittedly, relying on the quality of your content does leave your chance at growing your inbound links in the hands of others, but most methods will require this in some form.  

Should I Add Sharing Options to My Content?

To help increase your chances of being shared on social media, include an option to share your content on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

This tells readers that you want your content shared with the world. If more people share your content, then people are more likely to see it. When more people see it, then they are more likely to create an inbound link on their personal website or blog.

Partner with Companies in a Similar Field

Teaming up with other companies to create content gives you access to a greater range of clientele that can see your content. If you and another company in a similar field work together to produce a piece of content, when they publish it, have them include a link back to your website.

It is more than just a good way to receive readers from their website, but an easy way to obtain an inbound link from their website.

How Important are Inbound Links to SEO?

Search engine algorithms look to see how many quality inbound links there are to a website from authoritative sources, which helps the algorithms determine where your website places in the results.

When the algorithms see the inbound link from the high-quality source, they know it means your website is popular and authoritative. Search engine algorithms examine how relevant a website is to a search, and inbound links help them determine relevance by providing more accurate targeted data.

With better targeted data for the algorithm to analyze, there is a greater chance that the algorithm will determine your website should be listed higher up in a search. In other words, inbound links are vitally important to SEO.

Try these methods, and look around to see what other ways there are for you to acquire inbound links. Once you begin to grow your inbound links, you will realize how much of a difference they make.