When should I work on link building?

Do you have a website? Then link building should be on your agenda. Whether you sell services or products online, use your website for lead generation, manage the website of your local tennis club, or maintain a personal blog. Link building can make the difference between profit and loss. But link building is not always simple and can be very time-consuming. When is the right time to actively start collecting links to your website? We discuss three common situations and advise how much time you should spend on link building in each case.

The first steps of SEO: keywords, content, and technical aspects

Are you just starting with SEO because your website is brand new or you have only recently truly discovered the possibilities of online? Chances are you still need to take several steps before link building will make a difference.

Why? Link building works best when your website looks good, works fast, and offers valuable content. Additionally, you need to know exactly who your target audience is, what your goal with the website is, and how you will achieve it. If you are just taking the first steps, make sure the functionality and appearance of your website are right, then start with step one of SEO success: a solid SEO strategy.

The foundation: The basis of your SEO strategy

Your situation: You are starting with an efficient and effective SEO strategy, but your website and other online resources are still yielding little result.

In our article ‘A 3-step SEO strategy’ we explain the three steps you need to take to create a simple but powerful SEO strategy that gives you an edge over 95% of the market, namely:

• Keyword research
• Technical SEO
• Content marketing

Indeed, link building is not included here. When you are just starting, link building is a nice, very valuable extra. But also even more difficult because your website and SEO strategy are not yet fully ready to receive many links. Therefore, focus first on the basics, research which keywords are important for your goal, and apply this to your technical SEO and content marketing.

If an opportunity arises to get a link to your website, for example from a new supplier, sponsor, client, or partner? Go for it! That’s a bonus, and don’t hesitate to ask for a link. But then offer to add value by, for example, writing an article, sharing your expertise in another way, or providing a reference. But otherwise, spend as much, if not all, of your time setting up and executing your SEO strategy.

Being found: content strategy and internal links

Your situation: Your website is in perfect order, you know which keywords matter, and your target audience is slowly finding you better and better.

Is it time now to fully focus on link building? Not so fast! You build your online presence gradually, and engagement with your target audience only arises if you appear regularly, preferably at various points in their customer journey.

For SEO and content strategy, you need patience. Authority is not built in a day; it takes years and depends on how saturated your (online) market is. Want immediate online results? Fine, spend part of your time and budget on search engine ads (SEA). In fact, for a complete strategy aimed at results now and in the future, we always recommend our clients a combination of SEO and SEA. Unfortunately, there is no single answer for Online Marketing success.

Are you well on your way and already have a large collection of blogs online? Then try to take the next step in SEO by combining SEO and content marketing. How? The Hub-and-Spoke strategy. Never heard of it? Then first read our full article ‘Advanced SEO: hub and spoke content marketing strategy’.

Internal link strategy and link building within your network

Simply put, the Hub-and-Spoke strategy is a combination of SEO and content marketing because you bundle all your content on one very strong page supported by all your separate, more in-depth articles. With links from your hub article to the various spokes and vice versa, you build many internal links, which also indicate authority. This is pure internal link building and with this, you take truly important first steps that lead to good online findability.

Meanwhile, you can look out for available link building opportunities within your network. Have you just completed a nice project, started a new partnership, or delved into new regulations that are also interesting for an industry association? These are fairly accessible opportunities to write a guest blog for another website, for example. Naturally, you place a valuable link to your website! In this phase, spend most of your time and money creating content and establishing the right internal structure, and invest 10 to 20 percent of your time in possible link building options within your network.

Top of Google: content, SEO, and link building

Your situation: You regularly share content with your target audience, coming up with and writing content is becoming easier, and technically your website is well built. You probably already notice that you are well found online and maybe you even get some spontaneous links. Visitors and Google see your website as a source of information.

You are ready, time to make your move with link building!

Now that you have enough information and unique insights to offer, it is much easier to persuade people to link to your website. Decide for yourself on which 5 to 10 pages you prefer to receive links. This number depends somewhat on your website, what you write about, and which pages are of great value for your goal.

For each of these pages, think about which other websites or organizations might be interested in the information you share here. Do you have an extensive article about the best way to make delicious meatballs? Maybe this is also interesting for a spice producer, cooking club, fellow blogger, or cooking store. Approach these websites with some arguments why your text is relevant and explore the possibilities!

Link profile: improvements and inspiration for your backlinks

When you actively start collecting links, it is always a good idea to check if and which links you may have already received unnoticed. Use MOZ, for example, and review your link profile. Then analyze whether you can improve these links. Maybe a better anchor text or a website links to an earlier, non-optimized article? Contact the linking party for possible improvements.

Besides your own existing link profile, it can also be interesting to look at the link profiles of your online competitors for some inspiration. Where do they get quality links from, and does this also offer opportunities for you?

At this stage, it is not unusual to spend about half of your time creating new content and half on link building; both activities are quite time-consuming!

Our final tip: don’t forget to also make room for conversion on the pages you focus on with link building. Can visitors, for example, buy something from you or do you want to collect leads? These are the pages that will attract many visitors, so keep your end goal in mind and optimize for conversion! Of course, unique visitors and a high position in the search engine are great, but even better is if your Online Marketing contributes to the business results.

Want to know more about SEO, content, and link building? Read all our online marketing tips and articles on our online marketing page.