Link building strategies have always been a polarizing approach in the digital marketing world, at least to some point. Some marketing experts swear by it; others dread it’s going to earn them drawbacks or a poor online status, and some remain to a certain degree ill-informed of the online strategy in general.

According to the latest online reports from expert marketing blogs, link building continues to be seriously abandoned—or at the very minimum misunderstood. Many marketing experts list link building as one of their least-used digital marketing tactics and rank it as the second-hardest digital strategy to use (influencer marketing is first). But what’s really surprising is that 38% of members aren’t using the online approach at all.

Considering link building is essential to earn greater search ranks and remains one of the most resourceful digital marketing schemes around, this is astonishing. So why is it, that link building is so ignored?

1. Link Building has Significantly Changed in the last couple of Years

Tech giants such as Google has always used backlinks as its most substantial way to measure the “authority” of a given website, but that procedure has changed radically over the course of the past three to five years with the roll out of Penguin and its ensuing modifications starting in 2012. The superiority of a link now matters far more than its mere presence, and anybody who states to fully understand how links are appraised is almost certainly lying. The fact is, a link building strategy is difficult, and it’s a totally different digital landscape than it was just a few years ago—and that’s turning businesses away.

2. Anxiety of Penalties

Thanks to the sensationalist digital marketers scattering terror about “Penguin penalties,” digital users have an ongoing anxiety of link-based penalties for their brands websites. It’s gotten the digital strategy of link building a humiliation it doesn’t warrant, and most folks who aren’t partaking in link building will cite this disgrace among their main reasons for not following it. Yes, it’s conceivable to be penalized for building a bad links or strategy, but that just means brands have to spend their marketing efforts constructing good, natural links.

3. Most Companies Don’t Realize the Range of Benefits

Link building isn’t just about growing your search rank, though that is one of the most attractive advantage. In actuality, link building conveys a number of different online benefits. Referral traffic is one of the most significant—if you pick a respectable source and you create great content, you could earn thousands of web visitors from a particular guest post, not even bearing in mind search-originated web traffic. Plus, your company’s visibility will develop as you spread your business to new sources, and your status will similarly surge, increasing the likelihood that new web visitors will buy from your business.

4. Its Role in SEO is underrated

Link building methods isn’t just one way to grow your web search rank; without it, it’s almost impossible to see considerable gains. There are two main factors Google takes into thought when categorizing ranks for a given inquiry; the significance of a specific web page, and the authority of that web page. You need both if you want to create any substantial rank, so assuming your brand has targeted suitable keywords, your main effort should be on authority. How is this authority measured? Inbound links. They’re estimated and measured in complex ways, but the bottom line is that without some inbound link-based plan, your authority will remain motionless.

Your company needs both if you want to make any substantial rank, so supposing you’ve targeted fitting keywords, your main focus should be on authority. How is authority measured? Inbound links. They’re evaluated and considered in complex ways, but the bottom line is that without some kind of inbound link-based strategy, your authority will remain stagnant.

If you’re a digital marketer, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be including a link building tactic into your overall digital marketing approach. Between the SEO advantages, the brand visibility aspect, and the direct referral traffic you’ll obtain, link building (the correct way) is useful, universal, and highly cost-effective. There’s a substantial barrier to admittance—the learning curve—but it’s no big deal, a little research and training can’t fix all of that. You owe it to yourself, and your business, to try it.