What is Link Building?

Google doesn’t directly state that backlinks are ranking factors. However, it does evaluate relevance and quality when determining which websites appear at the top of the search engine results. Most digital marketers agree that link building is essential for SEO.

Websites can (and often do) make an active effort to generate backlinks. For instance, they may try guest blogging, manual outreach, or simple social media promotion.

These approaches are all standard practices, but they should be done organically and reasonably. Any backlink generation that appears spammy can actually harm a site’s SEO.

Furthermore, you only want trustworthy websites to link back to your content. When low-quality or untrustworthy sites link to your site, they can negatively affect your SEO. In severe cases, Google can even penalize websites for violating its terms of service.