Why Link Building is Important for E-Commerce Success

When the Internet was in its nascent stage, search engines like Yahoo! and Alta Vista ruled the roost. Their search results were based only on the content of the webpages. After the advent of Google and its PageRank algorithm, the quality of the linked pages were also given equal importance. Backlinks are one of Google’s favorite ranking signal, which makes link building a crucial activity for any e-commerce site.

So, what is link building?

Link building is the activity of linking a company’s webpage on another website’s content. You can link into blogs, product pages, blog, or any other content that is trustworthy for readers. Link building is the most important part of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), as well. It involves focused efforts centered around content, sales, and marketing to garner more search engine traffic for your website. By placing authentic website links in their content, e-commerce companies can expect a drastic increase in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) SERP ranking, as well.

What makes a link good or bad?

The logic is that when more websites link to your webpage, your SEO score improves. When the connecting sites are authentic, the greater is the SEO score. The three factors that determine whether a link is good or bad are:

• Trust – Google algorithms determine if your website is trustworthy, and they use the TrustRank test to determine this factor. So, when a search engine trusts your website, it improves the SERP ranking.
• Relevancy – The relevancy of the linked website plays a role in your website’s overall search score. For example, when the website is about organic foods, linking to a leading dietician’s website can help in keeping the relevancy quotient high.
• Authority – When your webpage receives a backlinking from a higher authority such as Forbes.com or pwc.com, the SERP ranking improves.

Search engines use something called link signals that help determine the importance of your website. Using these signals, search engines determine the trustworthiness, authority, and relevancy of your e-commerce site. Some of the link signals used are:

• Fresh Links: Over a period of time, content becomes irrelevant and Google tends to push these under “pages of search results”. The key here is to keep adding fresh links to the content to keep your webpage popular and relevant. Google and other search engines use TrustRank to remove sites that may contain potentially harmful content.
• Link Groups: Just like how trustworthy sites link to quality content, spam sites link to other spam-filled sites. Therefore, if you want Google to recognize all the links in your website content, you need to be cautious when selecting the external links.
• Keywords: The anchor text used to take readers to another webpage needs to be relevant to the topic discussed. Therefore, using the right keywords and phrases is crucial to staying on top of SERP.

As you can see, link building is an elaborate exercise that involves a lot of strategic analysis. When done right, it can make a world of difference in terms of lead generation and conversions for an e-commerce website. Equally important from the lead generation perspective is the use of a mobile app for your online store. M-commerce promises to become a force to reckon with by supporting e-commerce sites in their efforts to reach out to their audiences.

As more customers are shopping via smartphones, a mobile app for your e-commerce store can bring much-needed visibility in the market. Vajro is a renowned mobile app factory, enabling e-commerce companies across the globe to drive more leads to their website. If you want to generate consistent revenue from your e-commerce site, Vajro’s mobile app can lead the way. For more details on how to leverage Vajro’s mobile apps for your business, get in touch with us.