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Until about a year ago, webmasters had it very easy. All they had to do was build tons and tons of backlinks and their sites would be hogging the SERPs in no time. The Search Engines never stopped preaching the importance of quality links over quantity, but their algorithms were not good enough to put their preaching into practice. Bloggers simply mass produced backlinks and beat the system easily. Fast forward to 2015 and the scenario has flipped completely. Search engines have become savvy, with tuned up algorithms that catch and penalize mass backlink sites in a jiffy. More importantly, the search engines have reduced the importance of backlinks, with regards to their effect on SERP and SEO. So, webmasters have no choice but to fall in line with the rules of the all powerful Google. All said and done, links still have some relevance and here’s a look at the right way to build links in 2015.

SEO – It’s still very alive 

Inbound links still continue to be an important parameter for site authority. Site engines still trace the site links while assessing the content authority but the emphasis now is on the quality of links, instead of the pre 2015 yardstick, quantity. In fact, the search engines do not even consider inbound links coming from low authority sources. So, there is no point in producing mass links through, comments, posts, etc. You might as well save time and money by not doing to altogether.

Quality of Links: So, we’ve seen why we need good quality inbound links to our blog but do you know what constitutes as a good link? Here is a simplified explanation. When you get an inbound link for a source that already has some authority, age and SERP standing of its own, that link is high quality. More importantly, this links should also be organic, natural and must add content value to both – the recipient of the link (you) and the source. Google has made sure that it has done its best to prevent ‘link building process’ adopted by SEO practitioners completely. However, it is not all doom and gloom for us because there still are ways to get good backlinks organically (well, pseudo organically).

Start building contextual links: The only way to align to the ‘value’ standard of Google is to build contextual links. When your backlink comes from content that is also related to your niche, the link becomes contextual. So, a link coming from your own Facebook fan page or Youtube Video or Google + page, is a contextual link. It also has high SEO value because these sources by themselves rank well on the SERPs. In fact, it is much easier to get your Facebook page or video or G+ page ranked on Google, than your site. So, start building your link tiers on these social platforms and gain exponentially through the indirect link juice.

Link everything internally on your site: Knowledge graph is the process that Google uses nowadays to determine the quality and authority of a site. When Google crawls your site, it compares its own knowledge base on your niche and sees how many topics you have covered on your site. Then it sees how well each topic is interconnected to the other on the site. So, start creating content that can be clustered into one big interconnected bubble, both literally (internal linking) and contextually (topic wise).

These two link building methods are enough. Yes, that’s it. There is no need for fancy link building bots or tedious comment posting processes to get good backlinks.