The buzz of search engine optimization is something that has been around for many years, with virtually every webmaster knowing the basic ins and outs of the game. Creating quality content while focusing on improving search rankings has become a mainstay of web maintenance and a large component of internet marketing, but is this the best approach? The reality is that building links is crucial, but too many people focus on the SEO portion of link building rather than the benefits that can come in the form of traffic. If you want to embark upon a link building strategy that attracts fresh faces to your site or blog, then continue reading to find out more.

Effects of Link Quantity

While focusing on SEO is not the theme of this article, it must be said that building links in a “wholesale” format can have negative implications for search rankings. When pinging links solely for exposure, we can forget that links on some sites will impact our rankings. We are not seeking to damage existing optimization strategies, but rather build new opportunities where many do not venture. The more inbound links that exist, the better your overall traffic metrics will be – assuming these are quality links. That being said, a high number of quality links is obviously better than a low number of quality links.

Effects of Link Quality

The interesting element when it comes to link quality is that by focusing on developing strong links for traffic, you are very likely to see increases in your SEO performance as more and more people visit your website in conjunction with strongly-performing websites featuring your links. Quality links should be confined to websites that already have strong performances in key search results, as this is the number one sign that your links will be viewed favourably by search engines. Low quality links can lead to your site being downgraded in search as algorithms interpret this as a sign of spamming or low quality content.

Mitigating These Effects

If you are worried about having your site’s reputation downgraded as a result of sharing links on less than sterling websites, then there is an option to consider. The NoFollow tag exists primarily for this reason: whenever a search engine spider comes across a link that is tagged as NoFollow, the bot will not assign any value to the link in question. In contrast, DoFollow links are read and evaluated by search engines. From the perspective of building live traffic, however, most users do not recognize nor care if the link is NoFollow or DoFollow – only when reducing the impact of link building on potentially harmful sites will this be a concern for you.

If you focus on building links for traffic, remember this: quality matters. If you have the ability to be pinging links on sites while maintaining NoFollow tags on them, then this is less important. Still, attracting new visitors to your site can be done with any type of link. We just want to make sure that the quality of the sites hosting said links are not impacting all the hard work we have put into our SEO strategies.