A Slice of Orange

Link building on your website and blog posts is important because it helps build your SEO (search engine optimization). Google uses links to measure the quality of a page. The more links there are that go back to that page from good sources, the higher the SEO. Link building is only one part of the bigger SEO picture, but for this post, I’m discussing link building only.

Linking between other websites and/or pages is important

Why is it important to have other pages link to your page and vice versa?

It’s a vote of confidence that what you’ve written is worth reading. Similar to a recommendation for say a plumber, car repair, or a restaurant. 

There are other benefits to link building as well:

• Relationships between websites
• Referral Traffic
• Building your brand

The algorithm Google uses changes constantly, so no one truly knows specifically how much link building is appropriate, but in my research there are things you should and should not do. Do not submit your website to a web directory in order to get a link in return.

This means links should be complementary to the content that the blog post is written about. Adding links is also a great way to provide extra content to your readers.

But what if you don’t have anything to link?

I have found some web pages and blog posts I write have links that naturally fit, and then with other pages and blog posts, I draw a blank. I especially found it difficult when my website and blog were brand new.

Potential content ideas that include link building:

• Your welcome page can introduce your other pages with links to those pages (even if you have a menu).
• Create a page for each book you’ve written and then talk about each one in a separate blog post and put the link to the book page in it.
• If you are unpublished, you could write a blog post about setting, clothes, animals or any other topic that connects with your manuscript and include links to a pinterest page with sample photos.
• Review other writers’ books and include links to where the book can be purchased.
• Write a blog post about craft and include a link to the website or person where you learned about that topic.

Whatever you do, don’t despair. As you add content to your website and/or blog, you are building content. That content may be linkable material later. Just keep building your content.

For example, I have written several blog posts about SEO both on my own blog (Why the M), and here on A Slice of Orange (What is Alt Text and How To Use it).

And, my Marketing for Authors program now has a newsletter (where you can sign up and receive a free booklet of SEO help), with the plan to have training courses available this year.

Did you see what I did there? I added several links to previous blog posts as well as actual pages on my website, all in some way related to the topic I am writing about – SEO and link building.

Remember, SEO looks at both internal and external linking, which leads me to my next tip.

Write guest blogs so that you can link back to your website.

Another way to add links to your blog post is to add your social media links. These would count for outside links.

This can be done at the bottom of your post with a phrase such as: If you’d like to connect with me on social media, you can follow me on Twitter and Facebook.

You could even link to a specific post on your social media. Since this post is about SEO, I’m linking two separate tweets here and here I’ve posted related to SEO.

You can go back and add in links, however, it is BETTER to REWRITE a new post with a little different angle or side-topic (SEO does not like duplicate content) so it reads differently, then add a link to your old post.

Remember, links can include other pages or posts on your website. Circling in a loop is okay. And you can add links to both words (Anchor Text) or photos. The goal would be for every blog post to have at least two links in it (one internal and one external).

There are many other things to learn about link building, but I will save those tips for another post. For now this is enough to get your started.

Give it time. You won’t have enough content in the beginning to do this right away. But in time you will be able to add link building into your SEO plans.