Google helps its users to find what they’re looking for by delivering relevant and targeted results, so writing for humans and writing for Google should be one and the same. Trying to score SEO points by writing for the robots doesn’t fly any more, and is more likely to get you penalised than rewarded.

So how can you write quality links that help your site visitors, the search engines and yourself?

Links should be relevant and descriptive

Every link on your website and blog needs to be relevant to the page it directs users to. The anchor text doesn’t have to contain the exact heading of the linked content, but it should give users (and Google) a clear idea of what that page contains. If it includes your targeted keywords, all the better.

Avoid generic anchor text like “click here” or “read more.” This is missing out on an easy opportunity for SEO.

Links should feature keywords

Include the destination page’s targeted keywords in the link’s anchor text. This helps Google to associate those keywords with the link and can improve the page’s SEO.

But you shouldn’t do this excessively. Keyword stuffing applies just as much to anchor text as it does to plain text, so avoid including extraneous keywords in a way that feels unnatural to the reader.

Links should be concise

There’s no limit to how long or short links can be, but the length of anchor text affects the user experience and also affects SEO.

Long, ungainly links can be unsightly or annoying for people using screen readers, while links that are too short (such as single-word links) are easy to miss entirely. Google may ignore anchor text over eight words in search results, so try to keep your links to that length or at least make sure the important keywords are included in the first eight words.

Links should be useful

Google can spot links that don’t serve a function beyond link building. If your pages or blogs include unnecessary links or hidden links (such as linking a hyphen or other small character, or changing a link’s colour to match plain text), this could be seen as deceptive and breaching Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

Don’t forget your URLs

It’s not just anchor text that needs to be well sculpted for your users, but also the link addresses themselves.

These should also be keyword-rich and relevant to the page’s content. Keywords are especially useful if the URL gets shared on social media without anchor text.

If you’re publishing a blog post or other content through WordPress or a similar CMS, the URL will contain the post’s title by default. If you would prefer something different, you can adjust the URL by editing the permalink. This is especially useful for replacing parameters (e.g. ?id=44) with something more substantial, like keywords or a description.

For example, if your website has a product page about capes for cats, a good URL looks like:

www.petdandy.com/cats/cat-accessories/cat-capes

A bad URL looks like:

www.petdandy.com/index.php?option=com_product&task=product&businessLine=1&id=77&parent_id=77&Itemid=57#loaddelay

It helps if your website has a relevant, keyword-rich domain name too.

What about off-page links?

When you’ve mastered the art of writing links on your own pages, writing off-page links that link back to your site is a different discipline entirely.

Find out how to build links ethically to improve SEO and help more people discover your site.

Because inbound links are so valuable, it didn’t take long for unscrupulous internet entrepreneurs to commodotise them. For a price, businesses would spam forums, social media and blog comments with as many links back to your site as you paid them to.

That is, until Google released its Penguin update in April 2012, which destroyed this backlinking business model and generally made search results a lot more useful for everyone.

In the post-Penguin world, links have to be earned, not bought. Like everything else in your content marketing, the links pointing to your site should offer value to the people clicking them. That means putting links in places where you’ll reach people who are actually interested in you, and presenting them in ways that aren’t annoying.

Why is link building important?

If you don’t promote your website and your marketing content, it’s not going to reach the kind of audience you want. Even if your content is optimised for SEO, having valuable links to your pages and blogs is one of the factors that improves SEO.

As well as helping you to rank higher on search engines, good quality links help you:

• improve traffic
• generate leads
• develop relationships
• strengthen your brand.

If you’ve earned a good reputation in your field, people are going to link to your pages all the time. For everyone else, ethical link building can help you get there. Just as long as you keep Google happy when you’re doing it.

How to avoid unethical links

Don’t pay an agency to create links to your content.

Don’t spam forums and comment sections or be overly promotional on social media.

Don’t always use the same type of links with the same wording.

Don’t create a huge number of links in a suspiciously short period of time.

How to build ethical links

Do request inbound links from good sources in your circle (other blogs, trade associations, non-profits, directories).

Do provide outbound links to reputable sites in return (don’t use the nofollow attribute).

Do write guest posts on other blogs to get your name (and links) out there. Make sure you include a link in all your social profiles.

Do vary the type of links you use (alternate keyword links, branded links and http links).

Do vary the wording and avoid keyword stuffing your links.

Do build links on a regular basis over an extended period of time.

If you can get an exclusive interview with a thought leader or other industry personality for your blog, this is a sure-fire way to draw traffic and build your reputation as well as those links.

You can find out which sites and platforms are linking to your competitors’ sites using tools such as Open Site Explorer by Moz, Ahrefs and Majestic SEO. This will show you the types of areas you should be focussing on in your own link building.

Social sharing: The new link building

If you produce interesting marketing content, people will want to share it. Every fresh pair of eyes on your blog post, infographic or video is another visit to your site and a potential lead. However, social shares alone don’t count as much as links when it comes to SEO.

The big exception is Google+ shares, which Google’s search engine follows. This means that every time someone shares your Google+ post, their profile will include links to your site – as long as you remembered to include links in the post.

Integrating Google+ into your social media strategy is a great way to build links ethically and to reach more people in your industry. Read more about how to promote your blog on social media.