Terms like good links, quality links, and natural links are used widely by SEO professionals and website developers. Their importance has precedence in refining a website’s SEO, while also improving its rankings. But what are natural links and why are they important? Let us find out.
What is a Natural Link?
In simple terms, a natural link is any link that occurs on the web organically without any effort of generating them from the website itself. If a website owner or a business gains a link to their web pages or website from an external entity who used it organically because they believe that the link holds value, then it is a natural link. These external entities can be bloggers, researchers, webmasters, and other website owners.
The properties of natural links SEO are as follows:
- They don’t have any tracking parameters
- They don’t redirect the users through any monetization tools or JavaScript
- They do not exist in any paid or sponsored content
- They exist as a reference or a source to information within the content
Importance of Natural Link Building
Natural link building is considered to be one of the safest and fastest ways for businesses to enhance their website’s SEO. With natural links, your website gains authority and its rankings improve since it is a positive factor for search engine algorithms. Moreover, you can feel secure about your traffic or rankings remaining unaffected by any updates or changes in search engine algorithms since it is the most organic method of refining your website’s SEO.
Is Natural Link Building an SEO Myth?
Many people might confuse link building with natural link building, which often creates a conversation about this technique being a myth. While it’s not a myth, you need to know the good from the bad to properly understand what natural link building comprises.
If search engines find out that the links you are building are not natural, it might negatively affect your rankings. If you are only implementing white hat SEO techniques to build natural links, you are in no danger of this happening.
Benefits from Natural Links
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Boosts Website Traffic
Natural links bring in the most organic traffic to your website. The users come from other pages that have naturally used your webpage’s link to provide additional information to the users who want to explore more. This helps your website in building its domain authority.
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Recognition
Another added benefit that comes from natural links is brand awareness and recognition. Since your website is used as a reference or source of information, it makes it more recognizable to regular consumers and professionals in your industry.
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Earning more natural links
If you are being referenced by a big player in your domain, it makes it a chain reaction for other websites to reference you as well. This domino effect proves to be one of the best ways of natural link building and even obtaining backlinks for your website.
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Boosts social shares
If any information cited in a piece of content is referenced to your website, it significantly increases the chances of your links being shared by people on various social channels. This is because your links are already being used by trusted websites, which creates additional trust amongst the audience to share them.
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Improved rankings
Incoming links and natural backlinks are positive ranking factors for search engines. Thus, natural links can significantly help you in reaching the top rankings on SERPs.
How to Earn Natural Links?
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Publish Quality Content
Needless to say, if your content is not of good quality, other websites or domains will not link it for information. Publishing content that imparts valuable and/or new information about your industry can help you in gaining natural links from other websites.
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Social Media
Social media is the greatest resource for natural link building. While your rankings might not get affected by natural links on social media platforms, they will reach a very wide audience, some of whom might even link it on their websites!
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Consistency in Writing
Consistently putting out good content will also help you in gaining natural links, as it establishes that your content is a reliable and authoritative source of information. Pushing out quality content periodically and sharing it is the easiest way to gain attention and obtain natural links.
Is Guest Posting similar to natural link building?
Links generated in guest blogs are not natural links. When you publish content on other platforms, it is still you who is doing it, which is a direct correlation to your business. While these links can still be valuable, they are not considered natural links.
Build Natural Links to Elevate Your Rankings
Natural links can prove to be a great asset in elevating your rankings and boosting your domain authority. Make sure to use only white-hat SEO techniques for natural link building, and you will start seeing results quickly and effectively.
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