Build the right links to build brand authority

Alexandra says: “Being a brand is the biggest ranking factor. If Google recognises your website as a brand, then it will deem that your site deserves visibility in Google SERPs.

One of the strongest ranking signals of your brand's authority to Google is the number of authoritative sites referring to you, which means that building the right links is one of your biggest responsibilities nowadays. To put it simply, the more influential sites that link back to your brand (that are authoritative and relevant to your niche), the more valuable Google perceives you to be, and the more chances you have to rank better in Google SERPs.

This trend has become increasingly evident and visible to us as marketers with recent Google updates and the growth of AI-generated content. It's quite hard for Google to differentiate what is created by AI. A website that represents a real brand, with real people behind the content, will get a stable flow of links from the right websites. Then, you have a higher chance of ranking better.”

Do you need to continue acquiring meaningful links all the time, and should they happen organically?

“A real brand will continue to get links (which you can essentially think of as recommendations) on a regular basis. If someone is recommending you, and you continue running your business, then it’s safe to assume that you will continue getting those meaningful recommendations.

In an ideal scenario, or if you've reached a certain level of visibility, you would acquire those links organically. Some companies, like HubSpot for instance, are relatively fixed. They're organically influential thanks to their level of brand awareness and overall visibility.

However, even brands like HubSpot need to facilitate their link-building activities sometimes because they want to rank for particular pages that don't receive a stable flow of links. As marketers and SEO specialists, we often want to get links to very specific pages that are not as exciting, but they are the ones that will actually generate leads for the business.”

What are a few examples of the right types of links that you should be building at the moment?

“The right type of link is the link that you'd love to receive organically, but you don't really get. The rest of the links are a substitution for something. If you open your backlink profile, look through the links, and think, ‘I would love to get more links like that.’ – that would be a great win. That is exactly what kind of links you need to build.”

Is it possible to mimic what happens organically and do it yourself?

“Absolutely. It depends on your resources, though, and whether you have time to build relationships with other people in your industry and other companies. For instance, joining a podcast.

Let's imagine my main goal for joining this podcast was getting a link, then it should happen eventually. However, that is not the right way of getting things done. If you become too transactional, people won’t like that. They don't want to be part of a transactional chain of relationships. You have to build stronger bonds and consider links as a part of your marketing activity, rather than just reaching out to people for links.

If you’re going to be a guest on someone’s podcast, for example, then provide value – and make sure to promote the episode. Invest in that content as much as they do. Then, when you do ask for that link, no one will feel that you're trying to take advantage. That is very important. They're more likely to feel taken advantage of if you're just playing a number game or trying to fulfil your own needs without thinking about the other parties that are involved.

A lot of people are trying to get links for websites that don't have any brand behind them. For example, many media outlets have a main page that is essentially a combination of different blog posts. It might be designed in different ways, but it's not a real media outlet or a real brand.

A real brand will have a social media channel and will monetise in other ways, beyond simply selling things and having very aggressive banners. They will do something on top of that to monetise their content – like run some newsletters.

HackerNoon is a good example. Even though they are not an ‘excellent brand’ in terms of their overall authority, they engage in other marketing activities besides just publishing content and trying to monetise that through either paid links or banners. That's why Google perceives them to be a ‘real brand’.”

You say that sites that have a strong domain authority can easily find excellent results in Google SERPs without building any links to individual pages. Does this apply to every type of industry?

“Yes. Of course, there are certain industries where Google is very cautious, in terms of what pages they show – like YMYL sites. There will be some scenarios where your website might not get visibility due to a variety of reasons, such as the type of content, the quality of that content, etc.

We have a client that is not a well-known brand, so no one is kind of linking back to them. On top of that, they don't do any marketing activities besides investing in their content and link-building. They don't run their social media or anything like that which would increase their likelihood of getting clicks. They strictly invest in their SEO channel, which is based on content production and link building.

We've been working with them for more than three years and, even though they don't really get any links organically, the backlinks we've already acquired have built a very strong foundation. That allows their individual pages to rank well – including pages that don't have any organic links at all.

It’s more about the power of domain authority than the internal links on their own. If you build authoritative links back to your homepage, even though you are not really linking back from your homepage to your blog post, the overall link value that you have given to your homepage is going to pass on enough link juice back to your blog post page.”

Is an AI-driven SERP likely to change the way that you would want to build links in the future?

“If a link is the equivalent of a recommendation, then why should it become less important? Imagine there were no links, and nothing related to links really mattered for SEO. How would Google understand that this entity – this website – has enough authority to appear at the top of the results? There would need to be something to replace links for Google to make that judgement, but there is no replacement at the moment.

Even though AI will be trying to find the most relevant answer, Google only wants to show trustworthy information. You can have a lovely piece of content on a low-authority website, but Google only wants to show information that is not going to harm the users.

To Google, only a big brand can produce content that users can trust. Of course, that is not necessarily the case, even big brands sometimes produce horrible content, but that is Google’s logic. They give priority to brands that have the resources, and the legal department, that minimise the risks on the user's side.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2024?

“Stop producing useless content that no one wants to read, and think about how to combine your activities. You still need to produce content, but it needs to be really good content that will help grow your brand authority and will have the highest chance of getting a link.

You can improve your chances of getting a link by reaching out to experts, for instance. Create a content piece by combining the forces of your brand and the experts in your niche. Then, after promoting the content of those influencers for some time, you can also ask for a link as a favour. Think strategically about what you can do together, and the activities that are even more important than link building.”

Alexandra Tachalova is Founder at Digital Olympus, and you can find her over at DigitalOlympus.net.