Put simply, a link is something you click to take you to another web page (or website) on the internet. You can “build” a link by encouraging someone to link to your website from theirs. When this happens, search engines like Google treat the link as a recommendation.

There are two different types of links: dofollow and nofollow.

Dofollow is a link where one website gives its full backing to another. It’s a bit like someone recommending a restaurant where they’ve eaten many times before. You can trust their recommendation because they have first-hand experience.

Nofollow is a link where a website links out to another website, but it doesn’t take any responsibility for that recommendation. This one’s a bit like someone suggesting a restaurant that they’ve heard was good, but they haven’t tried the food yet.

Dofollow links are valuable and sought after because they can help boost search engine rankings — and this value has not gone unnoticed. Earning a dofollow link often requires building personal relationships with other website owners, and can also require payment. 

A nofollow link is still valuable (it’s also a recommendation, and it can deliver direct traffic from one website to another), but it doesn’t carry as much clout with search engines.

It all comes down to something called “domain authority.” 

If, for example, you have a website dedicated to socks, and lots of other websites are linking to your website when they’re writing about socks, Google will consider your website an authority on the subject. As a result, your website will have a high domain authority, which in turn means you’ll rank higher in the search engine results for keywords related to socks. 

In other words, trustworthy and highly recommended websites are rewarded by search engines because they know their end-users are more likely to enjoy a good user experience.

But it’s not all about volume when it comes to links.

To illustrate, let’s imagine there are two speeches happening simultaneously, and both are about saving the planet. 

The first speech was recommended by Sir David Attenborough, Prof. Brian Cox, and Elon Musk. It’s a must-watch in the eyes of those guys. 

Meanwhile, the second speech has hundreds of reviews, but you couldn’t put a name to any of them.

In this scenario, we can reasonably assume the speech with the renowned backers is probably more worthy of our time because of the credibility of those recommending it. 

It’s the same online. More isn’t always better — the quality and trustworthiness of the links matter too.

A few decades ago, link building was relatively straightforward. You could sign up to a forum, drop a link in the comments, and reap the benefits described above. 

But then Google got smarter. 

They realised that these low-quality links were manipulating the search results, so they set about punishing “spammy” links while rewarding natural, high-quality web content.

This makes link building in 2022 one of the most labour-intensive SEO tactics.

With this in mind, our general approach to link building looks a little like this:

- Identify link targets (keywords we wish to target, pages we want to push, etc.)

- Identify link opportunities on reputable and related websites

- Reach out to the relevant contact from each website

- Negotiate over the content and link placement

- Create and publish content

- Repeat