Virtually all businesses these days need websites. Research indicates that most people find businesses online. Thus, whether you’re a roofer, retailer, or any other business owner, you should establish a web presence for your business as soon as possible.

However, there are likely already plenty of businesses similar to yours with existing websites vying for the attention of customers. To deliver any real value, your website needs to attract visitors in a crowded marketplace.

This requires some degree of marketing. Luckily, you don’t necessarily need a high marketing budget to draw in website visitors. A link building strategy is an affordable way to help your business website grow efficiently and easily. 

The following points will help you better understand what link building is, and how it promotes low-cost growth.

Link Building: The Essentials

It’s critical that your website show up on the first page of results when users search for businesses like yours. Second page search results account for a mere 6% of website visits.

Many factors influence where your site ranks when users perform relevant searches. The degree to which other sites link to yours is one such factor. When numerous sites frequently link back to yours, this essentially signals to Google’s algorithm that your site’s content is high-quality and valuable. Your pages will thus start to rank higher in search results.

This is the essence of link building. A link building strategy involves generating consistent links to your site from others.

The following are few key reasons this is an affordable marketing tactic:

Partnerships

When others link to your site, it’s important that they do so for natural reasons. Google may actually penalize your site if it appears you and others are “trading” links with one another simply to manipulate rankings.

That said, to some extent, it’s acceptable to enter into partnerships to share links, as long as you and your partners agree to only link to one another when it makes sense to do so. Because these partnerships are mutually beneficial, they often don’t involve any major financial investment.

Guest Posts

Often, you can generate links to your site by publishing guest blog posts and articles on other websites. Many online publications allow contributors to link to their own sites when submitting guest posts. You typically don’t have to pay for permission to submit a guest article.

Some publications that accept guest posts will even pay you for your submissions. Thus, this approach to link building can help you not only save money, but also make some extra money.

Natural Growth

When more editors and publishers link to your site, more people will see it.

This doesn’t just increase website traffic. It also increases the number of people who may link to your site later. Some of the people who discover your business’ website through a link on another site may be content publishers themselves, after all.

At a certain point, a link building strategy can “take on a life of its own,” allowing your website’s audience to grow naturally and consistently. This is yet another way link building helps you save money marketing your business.

The main point to remember is that you don’t need a big marketing budget to get eyes on your website. Strategies such as link building can deliver significant results at a low cost.

Just keep in mind that a link building strategy requires some degree of expertise and planning to be as effective as possible. If you’re not familiar with this type of marketing, strongly consider partnering with experts to develop your strategy.