Believe it or not, links are still incredibly important for SEO. Although they are one of the oldest ranking factors, they are still a great indicator of quality and authority.
The rule is simple: if enough brands and websites that are already well-regarded and respected are linking to your site, then yours will start to be considered high-quality too.
Not all links are created equal though, and some can even hurt you tremendously. Back in the early days of SEO, you could use an automated tool to quickly generate thousands upon thousands of spammy links and point them directly at your website.
This would rank your site quickly and very easily. However, Google quickly discovered how to beat this tactic and updated their algorithm accordingly.
Link Building in the Modern Era
Nowadays, less links that have a high domain authority and page authority will trump thousands of junk links.The key to getting high-quality links is through producing stellar content that a person or company will find helpful, want to link to, and share on social media or their own website.
Once you’ve created this piece of content, you have to promote it. This is usually done by email outreach, social media, forums, or commenting on blogs.
Make sure to follow Google’s guidelines and never offer money, a product, or gift in exchange for a link.
Other ways to get links involve guest blogging on other people’s websites. While getting a link from a photographer in your area could help, it's better to stay within your niche. This can be especially helpful if they are willing to give you a link within the body of the content instead of just an author box. These days (in 2018) this is considered a better and more powerful link.
It’s critical to get links to your website if you hope to be able to get to the top of Google. Getting the top of Google is vital because almost all online experiences begin with a search and almost no one views the second page of search results.
The Reality on the Ground
That means only 10 websites have a shot at getting seen and most of the time people go directly to the first, second, or third search result unless the meta description and/or title are more enticing.
If you hope to build your business in 2018 and generate more leads, SEO and digital marketing are a must.
Without them, you’re leaving money on the table and missing the boat.
The Internet is being viewed by more people than you can ever imagine and getting your site to the top of search engines can improve your ROI tremendously.
Although SEO can be expensive, it is far cheaper than radio advertising, billboards, and other forms of offline marketing. Not only that, but it also allows for people to find you instead of making you go out and find them.
Imagine being able to wake up in the morning to leads who actually want to use your services instead of having to cold call people all day long.
That’s the power of digitla marketing (i.e. inbound marketing) and SEO is the driving force behind it.
