If you’re new to the world of SEO techniques, the importance of link building may be hard to grasp. Even if you have experience with building links, the ever-changing search engine optimization landscape means there is no time to get too comfortable. No matter which camp you are in, this article will help you further understand what link building is and why it is so important.

Link Building Defined – Link building is a means of acquiring hyperlinks from other websites that point back to your own. The hyperlink, or simply link, is what we use to navigate Internet pages. Search engines also use links in two ways:

1.   they crawl the links between individual pages on a website, and

2.   crawl the links between entire websites

Link building is one of the most difficult SEO techniques to master, but digital marketing pros in Scottsdale know it is also one of the most beneficial. Because of this, the right link building campaign can catapult you ahead of the competition.

Why It Is So Important – Search engines use links in two ways:

• to discover new web pages
• to help decide how well a page should rank its results

After a search engine has crawled web pages, it extracts content and adds it to its index. This helps it determine the pages’ quality and ranking for relevant keywords. However, the search engine is not just looking for content. It is also looking at:

• how many links point to the page/s from external sites
• the quality of those external sites

In general, the more high-quality websites you link to, the greater your likelihood of ranking high in search results.

The way a link is interpreted by search engines has evolved since the early days of search engine optimization. In the 1990’s, PageLink, a tool used by Google to determine site’s quality and trustworthiness based on back links, was invented. As such, “link building” became widely adopted and, eventually, badly abused. Shady “black hat” SEO techniques were employed and PageLink was manipulated by SEO’s. Today, tools such as Google’s Penguin give regular updates questionable sites and tactics, and techniques once deemed acceptable by Google are now given less value. The precise algorithm Google uses remains a mystery, but one thing is certain: links play a major role.

Link building is a broad and complex SEO technique, but know this: it is a small business marketing tactic that can help you connect to relevant members of your industry and build your brand by demonstrating your expertise across the web. To learn more about what link building can do for you, contact the search engine optimization experts at Fasturtle: call (888) 468-8785 or Contact Us Online today.