View Cart (0)
Login/Join

Link Building

Increase your search engine rankings by getting linked on authoritative websites relating to your business
Link Building
Link Building

Search engine optimization is a long-term process that takes a well-rounded strategy to accomplish successfully. If every page on your website is fully optimized, including keyword-based meta tags, mobile-responsive design, and relevant, valuable content, you have a solid basis for getting the high search engine rankings you're looking for. However, there's one thing your site is missing: authority.

In SEO, authority relates to how others view your content: is it useful and interesting enough to share on their own websites? If other high-quality websites link to your site, Google and other search engines see this as a vote of confidence that your site is also high-quality and should be ranked higher. The more high-quality websites linking to your content, the more "votes" you have, and the more authority your own website will gain on search engines. When a site links to your website, in SEO we call this an inbound link or a backlink.

What is Link Building

How to Find the Best Sites for Backlinks

To get other websites to link to your website, there are a few ways you can go about it. The first way is to simply wait to be noticed. While this can occasionally work for niche websites, it takes years to happen and there are no guarantees it will happen at all, especially if your competition is heavy enough. Businesses on a budget need to be found by new customers as soon as possible and can't afford to wait for years.

Another method to get other websites to link to you is to try to promote them yourself, but this also has some problems. You don't have access to edit websites that don't belong to you, so the only way to add links to them is to post in comments on their articles or in their forums, and this simply doesn't work anymore. Comments with links in them are often instantly identified as spam, and will be deleted, whether by human administrators or automated systems. Plus, in order for links to contribute to your authority, they have to be dofollow links, meaning they signal to search engines that the site is "agreeing" that the link should have authority. Comment sections are almost universally set to designate all links as nofollow, which tells search engines that no authority should be passed to the linked site.

Of course, human visitors to the site that links to you are also likely to click the link to visit your site, so you'll gain human traffic along with search engine authority. Most SEO experts view the increased reputation with search engine algorithms as the bigger benefit of link building, with the increase in traffic (specifically from those links) as a side effect. However, this can vary depending on the exact strategy and websites targeted for backlinks.

Why is Link Building so Important?

Why is Link Building so Important?

Search engines attempt to give the most useful websites the highest rank in results. However, remember that search engines work using algorithms (they're basically robots), and even the most interesting and informative website needs to trigger these algorithms before the search engine will "notice" its value. On-page optimizations (like correct keyword usage and properly formatted meta tags) only tell search engines that your site may be useful.

Search engine algorithms cannot read your website's content the same way a human could, and cannot truly judge whether your website is useful; they can only guess. The only way that a search engine will know that your site is useful is by "seeing" that real humans on other websites are interested in your website, and nothing will "show" this interest to a search engine except dofollow links. Every time another high-quality website links to yours, search engines interpret this as a sign of interest and value that can help raise your ranking.

Of course, human visitors to the site that links to you are also likely to click the link to visit your site, so you'll gain human traffic along with search engine authority. Most SEO experts view the increased reputation with search engine algorithms as the bigger benefit of link building, with the increase in traffic (specifically from those links) as a side effect. However, this can vary depending on the exact strategy and websites targeted for backlinks.

How to Find the Best Sites for Backlinks

How to Find the Best Sites for Backlinks

It's easiest to get backlinks from websites that consider your content useful and feel that linking to your site will provide value to their visitors. However, this can't be a one-way benefit; the point of seeking out a backlink is to earn additional authority, which can only come from websites that already have some authority of their own. This is why getting linked on small, new websites won't help you nearly as much as getting backlinks from an established site.

Website authority can be estimated by Domain Authority (DA) or Domain Ranking (DR), a numerical measurement of a website's predicted authority on search engines. Developed by SEO leaders Moz.com, DR can be summed up as a "score" of how valuable search engines consider that website.

Domain Ranking is on a scale of 0 - 100 with 100 as the highest score. New websites have a DR of 1 - 5, and a DR of 20 - 30 is considered good, although DR is a comparative metric, so it's normal for a site's score to fluctuate. The scale is also logarithmic, so it's much easier for a site to progress from 20 to 30 than it is to reach a higher number. Even Google itself has a DR that hovers around 95, not 100 as you might expect.

So, while DR is not a super-strict measurement of how authoritative a website is, it's an essential tool for comparing the relative authority of websites and determining great targets for your backlinks. Naturally, the higher a website's DR, the harder it will be to get their attention and prove your value so they will link to you. Targeting websites with a DR of 20 - 30 is fine, with the 31 - 50 range being the highest that are usually willing to link to sites owned by businesses with no prior relationship with them.

How Link Building Works

While link building is the most effective way (and arguably the only real way) to increase your website's authority and reach the "next level" of SEO beyond on-page optimizations, it's also a time-consuming process that needs effort and attention to get results. This is mainly because link building requires direct communication with the owners or content writing teams of other websites.

Link Building requires the following:

  • 1 Research and identification of websites that could find value in linking to your website while also providing enough authority to help you rank better
  • 2 Understanding of anchor text and how these links can fit into the content (anchor text describes the actual text that makes up a link, and must include relevant keywords)
  • 3 Outreach to relevant websites and follow-up during the process
  • 4 Sometimes, guest blog posting to create an opportunity for a link to your website if no placement is available in existing content

As you can see, to effectively approach link building, you need SEO knowledge, industry information, an understanding of domain authority, and the time to contact other websites and convince them to link to you. Many business owners simply don't have the expertise that's needed and/or can't fit this process into their busy schedule, which is why it's best to have a dedicated SEO team to handle link building for you.

Let Shift4Shop Experts Handle Your Link Building

Let Shift4Shop Experts Handle Your Link Building

Shift4Shop is fully equipped with an experienced team of SEO experts ready to handle link building on your behalf. Our knowledge of SEO and our position in the industry allows us to seek out and find great opportunities for backlinks to your website. We're ready to help you out so you can focus on running your business rather than needing to spend time looking for relevant websites and trying to convince them to add a backlink for you.

What's Included in Our Link Building Service

When you purchase link building from Shift4Shop, you don't need to do anything else: just make your one-time payment and we'll handle the rest.

  • Our SEO team will identify the anchor text and the target URLs for optimal link building.

  • Our outreach team will reach out to bloggers and evaluate possible placements available.

    • *Backlinks can be secured by reclaiming broken links, getting a link added to an existing article, or submitting a guest post to bloggers. In the case that we need a guest post, we'll supply up to 500 words of copy as well.

  • We'll share the new link including Domain Authority metrics in your monthly report.

Our exact process may be a little different depending on the specific link building service you purchase from us - we offer a few options to choose from:

  • 1 Backlink on a website with Domain Authority 20 - 30: We'll secure a backlink for you on a relevant website with good DR.

  • 1 Backlink on a website with Domain Authority 31 - 50: We'll get you your backlink on a relevant website with great DR, more authoritative than the previous option.

  • 3 Backlinks on high-rated Quora posts: We'll answer 3 popular questions on Quora, a well-known social network respected for its relevant and professionally written content, and include backlinks to your website.

You can pick any of these for a one-time charge when you order the service below. Choose the one that fits best in your budget and with any existing SEO strategy you may have worked out. If you have questions, feel free to ask us first.

How Long does Link Building Take?

How Long does Link Building Take?

The entire process of identifying your ideal backlinks, reaching out to the site owner about placement, and getting your link published is expected to take about a month. This estimate is primarily due to the length of time it can take for a website owner to respond to our outreach efforts, which is out of our control.

If they reply very quickly, your link may be able to go live sooner; of course, all projects are put into a schedule after receipt of payment and are assigned on a first-come, first-served basis.

How Link Building Can Benefit Your Business

Link building secures backlinks for your website that will provide numerous long-term benefits. The end result of each of these benefits is more sales and higher profits for your business.

  • Increased domain authority for your website: As your site grows in domain authority, your overall reputation among both humans and search engine robots will improve. You may even get other websites contacting you for backlinks of their own! This can lead to mutually beneficial relationships between your site and another, such as a blogger who uses your type of product but does not compete with you.

  • Higher rankings on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs): Backlinks help your website rank higher in search engine results, making it more likely for new customers to find you based on their search keywords.

  • An increase in traffic and potential customers: The increase in traffic comes from both higher placement in search results and from visitors coming to your site from the backlink itself. Either way, more traffic means more opportunity for conversions.

  • Improves the image of your business as a source used by reputable websites: When other sites link to you, it's not just a vote of confidence for search engines; it also tells human visitors that the site is linking to you for a reason and that your site is likely to provide high-quality resources.

Ready to get started?

See below to select and purchase the link building option you're ready for today.

Boost Your SEO Rankings with Link Building

Domain Name
Link Type
Page URLs and Anchor Text
$0.00

Frequently Asked Questions

How quickly will I start seeing results from link building?
Just like all other aspects of SEO, link building is a long-term process that works as a foundation rather than a "quick fix." You can't expect to jump up in Google search ranking the day after you get a new backlink; instead, your new inbound link will accumulate authority for your website every single day. If you have enough good backlinks that have persisted for a length of time, your site will gain authority and thus also gain search engine rankings. Think of backlinks as "vitamins" that will benefit the health of your website over time rather than all at once.
How long do these backlinks last?
There's no reason a backlink to your website shouldn't last forever, but keep in mind that we don't control other business's websites — if a site chooses to change its content or even shut down in the future, that link will be gone. However, the deleted backlink will still have contributed to your website's authority during its life, and your rankings may be unaffected by the loss of a single backlink.
How many backlinks do I need?
There is no solid minimum and maximum number of backlinks; in general, as long as your backlinks are on reputable websites, there's no such thing as too many. Of course, even a single backlink will help you, but the more the better.
Can anyone tell I paid for a backlink?
You may ask this question out of worry that it will hurt your reputation if it becomes known that you paid to get a backlink. We do understand this concern, but rest assured, the odds of anyone knowing your link is a paid placement are so extremely low that it shouldn't be considered a factor. Your link will appear as a normal part of the target website's content, so it won't look like an advertisement and there will be no way for a reader to see that you paid to have the link placed by us.
Do you use any black hat link building techniques?
Black hat SEO refers to unethical practices that seek to game the system by breaking rules. The common theme among black hat SEO is that it may appear to work extemely well for a while, but then the website gets penalized as soon as Google discovers the rule-breaking. As for link building, the primary black hat technique is to use a Private Blog Network (PBN) in which all the associated blogs link to each other to simulate organic backlinks. Shift4Shop doesn't use any black hat SEO strategies like PBNs, but do keep in mind that it can be impossible to tell if any one website is part of a PBN.
Information
Categories