Link Building vs. Link Earning, what’s the difference? Let’s dive into the post to know. The SEO world revolves around backlinks. They are the most important factors in ranking a website. You call them backlinks or inbound links; they are all the same and have the same purposes. These are the links from other websites that direct visitors of different sites to your website through the links. Backlinks are vital in the eye of search engines, especially Google. Google uses these links as a signal of authority and trust.
But to acquire such valuable links, there are two different ways i.e. link building and link earning. Meanwhile, both methods’ purpose is to improve the backlinks quantity directing towards your website. However, they do differ in terms of long-term sustainability and methodology. Let’s discuss both and see what fits your website.
What is Link Building?
To become successful in your SEO tactics you need to understand what link building is and how it fuels your SEO success. Link building is an important element in SEO that focuses on getting backlinks from other sites to your website. Another name of the backlink is an inbound link, so don’t get confused about the name. They are both the same. A backlink is a hyperlink that directs users from one website to another website to gain more traffic.
The practice of actively looking for and getting backlinks from external sources is called link building. In reality, it intrigues the other website owners to get involved in multiple methods of persuasion to link to your website. There are several ways of doing link building which include directory submissions, outreach campaigns and most commonly guest blogging. The reason for doing this whole thing is to get as many links as possible because these links boost the ranking, quality and authority of your website.
General link-building methods include:
- Guest Blogging: In this method, you write blogs on other websites in return for a backlink.
- Outreach Campaigns: Here you reach out to another website owner, and ask them to provide a backlink for your content.
- Link Exchanges: This is a mutually beneficial method; in this, both website owners offer each other a link to enjoy the perks of SEO.
- Directory Listings: In this method, you submit your site to online directories to attract more visitors and backlinks.
- Paid Links: This method is not encouraged at all. But it requires buying backlinks from other websites.
What is Link Earning?
On the other hand, link earning is a very sustainable and natural method to gain backlinks. Instead of asking for backlinks directly from anyone, link earning emphasizes generating top-notch content that automatically and organically attracts backlinks from other sites. In this method, website owners are more interested in creating such worthy and valuable content that other websites would want to link and share.
Methods for link earning are as follows:
- Creating Shareable Content: Here, you need to create top-notch blogs, articles, research or Infographics, so others would want to link and share it on their website.
- Building Relationships: In this method, you have to do more meet and greets to build relations with content creators and influencers. This good gesture may intrigue them to link to your content organically.
- Public Relations (PR): Here, you need to promote and market your brand via media outreach which will allow you to get reputable backlinks from news sources.
- Data-Driven Content: In this strategy, you can produce unique content in the form of case studies and research that might be effective in your niche for others and they usually get cited.
- Social Media Engagement: This way, you can increase your online sharing which will result in more digital existence and increase the possibility of natural achievement of backlinks.
Link Building Vs Link Earning: Key Differences
The thing that separates both link building and link earning is their approach. The manual and proactive strategy of seeking out opportunities to get backlinks is link building. It can be very effective for growing your backlink profile. But sometimes this can be referred to as an inauthentic method and might not be a very effective strategy in the long run if not executed correctly.
Meanwhile, on the other hand, there is link earning. It is a more natural approach to back-linking. This method requires exceptional content with all SEO aspects fulfilled. This way it attracts more natural backlinks thus resulting in long-term benefits rather than a quick win. Link earning creates authority and trust which is more beneficial in the long term.
Conclusion
In the final words of this post, I would say that link building and link earning both boost and increase your website’s ranking, visibility and authority in the result pages of search engines. To produce a balanced SEO campaign strategy, you need to understand the differences between both so you can decide which benefits the most in your case. But even then if you are not sure, where to proceed, you can get help from the SEO experts who are professionals in link building and help you with your problem.
