10 reasons why digital marketers should care more about organic link building

Link building could be one of the most well-known SEO strategies. But did you know there is a difference between organic link building and other paid link building techniques? When it comes to marketing, however, organic link building may not be what first comes to mind. In fact, it can be more useful than you first thought and here is why.

What is organic link building?

Firstly, let’s dive into what link building is. Link building refers to the techniques used to acquire backlinks to your website. These links, when placed on trusted, high-quality websites, pass good ‘link juice’ to your website through the link. This ‘link juice’ helps to raise your website’s off-site SEO and can lead to an increased domain and page authorities (DA and PA respectively).

The goal of link building is to boost SEO and increase the potential for ranking highly in SERPs. As links are one of the most highly regarded ranking factors, the higher the quantity and quality of the links the better. Ultimately, contributing to increased organic search traffic, higher conversions and boosted sales.

There are various link building techniques employed as part of an SEO strategy. Including, guest posting, blog commenting, sponsored content, and advertising. However, organic link building mainly differs from other types of link building techniques because of its natural occurrence.

An organic link, also known as a natural link, is the name given to links that are not sponsored or part of paid content. Therefore, they have no tracking parameters and do not redirect through monetisation tools or JavaScript. No party receives compensation like link exchange or payment from the placement of your link on another website.

Simply put, an organic link can be placed without your knowledge or suggestion and acts as the word of mouth online. An example of an organic link is a friend sharing a blog post from Forbes because they found it interesting, helpful and wanted to share it with more friends.

If you need help link building, check out our SEO beginners guide!

10 reasons organic link building is beneficial

Below are some the top reasons to consider organic link building for SEO as part of a digital marketing strategy.

1. Build a reputation in your niche

Organic links are like a virtual compliment. That person enjoys and values your content so much to add a link and direct other’s there too. This helps to build on your reputation and expertise within your niche as well increasing the potential for traffic.

Building a positive reputation and becoming more well known in your niche will also help to attract more organic links. Other website owners and content creators can be attracted to your website and link to your content. In addition, a more prominent reputation can result in more opportunities for guest posts or podcast interviews, further strengthening your distinction in your niche.

Therefore, leading to more link building opportunities in the future and boosting your SEO organically.

2. Can be more successful than other marketing techniques

When content is shared or linked organically, this is a positive sign that your target audience enjoys your content. This can be more successful and encourage more warm leads to your website than other marketing techniques.

This is because advertising, for example, can take time and testing to be properly effective. Often, wasting time and funds whilst not reaching your target audience. Whereas organic link building is free and can continually return new links and visitors to your website.

 3. Organic Link building is low cost

Other marketing methods, such as advertising, can be expensive like I mentioned above. Even paying for a link placement can be extortionate when proposing the idea to high authority websites. Therefore, organic links keep the costs down because they do not require any compensation or payment to be obtained.

4. Encourages White Hat SEO techniques

Paying for links is frowned upon by Google and other search engines and can lead to penalisation of your website. Potentially lowering rankings and resulting in poor traffic from organic search. Therefore, using white hat SEO techniques like organic link building is much more favourable for your business.

5. Leads to unique content creation

Organic link building employs the technique of creating killer content that is shareable and relatable to your audience. This can include creating skyscraper content, calculators or new tools to solve problems. News announcements can be excellent for online businesses to announce new products, new collaborations or new people on the team.

This content not only boosts shares and inbound links but also adds to your website’s authority because of its value. This content has the potential to rank highly in search engines because of its value, quality, and organic links.

6. Can encourage the use of visuals

Well made visuals, infographics, videos and other media can attract more attention than simple plain text. Not only that, they are versatile and can be shared on so many platforms so that more people can see and link to that content. Leveraging visuals can give your content an edge and also help you show up in image search results pages too.

7. Organic link building helps to build community

Places like forums can see both organic and purposeful link building. For example, if another user links to your website, this is an organic link. Your content then becomes part of the conversation and encourages others to visit and interact with your content. Helping to create a sense of community and atmosphere surrounding your content.

Linking forcibly or in irrelevant places isn’t going to help your chances with Google or in the forums. Irrelevant link placement is not going to promote people to visit your website and can be seen a spammy. Potentially leading to penalisation or suspension of your account.

In addition, commenting on other people’s blogs helps to build a relationship with the readers you interact with as well as the content creator. All of these ideas help start conversations and increase your reputation in your area of expertise.

8. Helps to build relationships within your niche

The reason that other link building techniques may not work is usually due to conducting cold email SEO outreach. Cold leads mean you have no relationship or trust between you and the recipient. Therefore, this has a higher potential for rejection of your proposal or no answer at all.

However, organic link building techniques can generate a relationship with other business and site owners to warm up leads. Relationships within your niche can be powerful things and sharing with others can lead to further link building opportunities. You most likely love their content and they love yours, causing you to share each other’s content. They also might refer their clients to you if they aren’t a good fit for them or refer people to content that you have created to help them.

9. Social sharing

Social media is going to be a big part of organic link building because of the massive reach potential of the platforms. You can easily repurpose content for social platforms so it is easily shareable. As well as ensure social share buttons are available on all of your website pages to encourage visitors to share and organically link to your content. In addition, this helps you to build social relationships with your customers so they become more connected to your business and brand.

10. Leverage local SEO

A physical business might not find organic links helpful for their marketing however, local SEO can be an integral part of your SEO strategy. Therefore, organic link building can lead you to be part of the local community, sharing and maintaining relevance within the local area. Not only does this help build organic links and boost SEO, but it also helps bring people to your store.