The end goal of every good online web marketer is to get traffic flowing to your site. Nobody wants to find themselves on the second page of a Google search.

Therefore, your website needs a high number of high quality links that point to your site. This ranks it as important in the eyes of the Search Engine Gods and deems you worthy of landing on the first page.

How do you do it? Well, think of it as a popularity contest; the more people know you, the more important you are. But search engines aren’t people, so to earn a higher ranking, you’ll need the help of other sites.

I’ve outlined the elements you need to be successful at the art link building. I’ve also added some possible strategies for you to follow.

Quality
The content on your site has to be of a high quality. This means that it can;t be copied or scraped from other sites. If you do use content from another site, it should be a reloaded version: add opinions or new data on the acquired content.

Avoid low quality guest posts like the plague they are. Otherwise, Google will strike you down with their mighty hammer. The posts on your site should be authentic and original and offer a substantial value to your readers.

There is a massive amount of spam floating around the Internet. Search engines use systems to measure trust and can weed out irrelevant content.

Strategy: Build a blog. By creating an informative and entertaining resource, you’ll create value for your visitors. I highly recommend this strategy – and so do the engineers at Google for that matter! A blog will allow users to contribute fresh material and earn links from other blogs.

Relevance
While one of the most important criteria is certainly quality, it’s also important that it be relevant. Google will rank your site based on how useful a user finds a search result. So make sure that your earned links come from sites in the same industry as your own. If you have links from unrelated industry sites, then that content should at least be relatable.

Strategy: Capitalize on your industry partners and customers. Avail them of e-commerce links back toy our site for them to use.

Fresh
Once you’ve reached the top of the mountain, and by mountain I mean the search engines rankings, your work doesn’t stop there. You see, links tend to decay over time. even the most popular sites run the risk of failing to earn new links. Sites are constantly being graded on their popularity and relevance.

Let me put it to you this way, there is no mountaintop; only the constant climb!

Strategy: Create content that is shareable and newsworthy. Users will want to share it across the internet, building trust and authority for your site.

Diverse
If you just stick to one or two strategies, then you won’t even figure in the search engine’s algorithms. Therefore, I suggest you use a variety of link building tactics to rank higher in importance.

I’ve already mentioned the importance of publishing high quality content. But this content won’t get links all by itself.

Strategy: Promote to other sites and blogs to builds links. Stay active on social media. This creates social proof and higher relevance. Also, try to syndicate your content on the major sites within your industry.

Conclusion
You can’t do it alone. Literally; Google won’t let you. It ranks your website on the quality and relevance of links. Follow some of the strategies I outlined in the article and see where it takes your site.

I want to hear about your progress! Let me know in the comments below. And feel free to share any other link building strategies.