With almost 96% of Spain’s population online and Google controlling about 94%-95% of the total search engine market share in Spain, it has never been more critical to have an authoritative presence in Spanish search results. For non-Spanish speaking businesses’ or SEO professionals trying to get a handle on the link building process in Spain, this can be overwhelming – however, link building in Spain is essential for engaging Spanish customers. Of Google’s ranking factors, backlinks (links from one website pointing to your website) remain the second most important, and studies show that #1 ranking pages have 3.8× the number of backlinks than pages ranked 2-10. Also, almost 80% of SEO professionals believe link building is important to successful SEO. If you want to establish yourself in Spain, obtaining quality Spanish backlinks can create more visibility, authority, and organic traffic.
In this ultimate guide to link building in Spain, we will cover some of the benefits of linkbuilding in Spain, effective link building strategies in Spain, the common pitfalls to avoid, and the future of link building in Spain. And by the end, you will know how to implement an authoritative link building campaign in Spain – even if you do not speak Spanish! – and why hiring a professional or link building agency in Spain may accelerate your success. The Importance of Link Building in Spain
Why Link Building in Spain Matters
Spain has a massive digital space with 46 million internet users (96% of the population). For all those users, Google is the primary search engine that one needs to rank on (specifically, google.es), which is where link building comes to play in successful SEO. Essentially, you need the authority as defined by Google’s algorithm, and backlinks can help you gain this authority.
Backlinks are essentially “votes of confidence” from other websites that your site is trustworthy and relevant, while at the same time, suggesting to Google that it should trust this site. Earning links from sites based in Spain (especially with a .es domain or Spanish content) suggests your local relevancy and value. The British firm that is targeting Spain could see amazing benefits if they could get Spanish backlinks from reputable Spanish firms, because clicks coming from Spanish language searches are substantially more valuable than clicks on English-only links. Backlinks from Spanish news sites, blogs, or business directories help Google see that your content is relevant to Spain’s audience too. In an era where Google’s algorithms are focused on relevance and quality, locally relevant backlinks can be the difference between a page 1 rank or getting lost in translation.
In addition, link building in Spain represents the opportunity to work in a less saturated market than searching in English. While there will definitely be less Spanish websites than English websites, there will also be less competition for certain topics, and if you have a good link strategy you can leap-frog your competition.
But this will mean that you might also be forced to be more imaginative with how you find link prospects. Some businesses literally subscribe to buying links because they simply did not have that many options. Survey data actually shows 31% of SEO practitioners admit to buying backlinks (for dedicated “link builders,” it’s as high as 74%). This is particularly common in smaller, non-English markets where, even though the risks are present, link opportunities are few and paying cash for links is seen as a logical shortcut to increasing website traffic. Bottom line: link building is as crucial in Spain as in other markets, possibly more than because of the unique cultural and linguistic barriers to their acceptance, and because there is the need to first transplant a machine to facilitate link building, once that machine is transplanted, there has to be care about quality in link building.
Understanding the SEO Landscape in Spain
To build links properly in Spain, you need to understand the local SEO landscape and how it may differ from where you may be currently located:
Google is the King: The share of the market for Google is stable in Spain at 94-95% (with Bing, Yahoo and every other competitor hardly making a dent in the totals). What this means for your link building efforts, is that you site link building efforts should be completely oriented to getting higher rankings in Google. In most instances, optimizing for Google means secondary engines like Bing are also satisfied, as Bing hardly gets traffic in Spain.
Asking the question, what does search engine market share in Spain look like graphically. Google is still the king of Spanish search, holding more than 94% of the market. Conversely, the other search engines, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc., are going to share around 6% of the market. For that reason, Google-focused SEO, and specifically focused link building, is crucial for success in Spain.
- Language and cultural proximity: The vast majority of Spaniards are consuming content and looking in Spanish (Castilian). Many of the professionals and young people may consume English content and engage in English, but for the purpose of this extent of their queries would primarily be in Spanish, and Spanish content is preferred content! Therefore, with link building, this would mean that you want to identify links from Spanish content or from Spanish-language sites or sections of sites. Beyond that, even if you are reaching out to Spaniards, you are better off using Spanish than English. While the Spaniard will respect the English period communication, a post in Spanish provides an opportunity to respond positively to an appeal. Then, just to complicate matters, you will want to be mindful of some of the regional differences as well – think about Spanish-Spanish wording vs. Latin-American wording. The goal for Spanish content and communication is native quality. You could even consider hiring translators or bilingual SEO content professionals to ensure that the content flows. You will want to also consider movement context: written business strength communication in Spanish could be a little more formal than in the U.S., while Latin/Romantic rhetoric tends to allow for more personable, warm communication. If possible, always use a greeting in your outreach emails (Greetings Yo Nombre,) and introduce yourself clearly.
- Think about local domains (use .es) vs. .com: Are you going to try and get links from .es domains? Yes, if you can. A .es domain directly relates to Spain thus providing a strong signal of Spanish connection. However, it is common to find a lot of Spanish language sites that have .com (or .net, etc.) domains. What matters most is that the language of the site is serving Spanish speakers. A link from an authoritative Spanish newspaper like elpais.com (which is .com) is a good link, just as good as a site with a .es domain. A lot of Spanish sites have .com domains to intentionally allow for a broader engagement. A study mentioned that “many of the top Spanish language sites in Latin America” used .com domains which “opened up more doors” to link building and traffic internationally. For the purposes you are looking for, look for relevance and audience over TDL. However, consider where you live, if you have a Spanish version of your site and a .es domain (or subdomain) could provide local trust with your Spanish audience.
- Spanish Content Hubs: Spain has exceptional media and blogging outlets. There are major publications (El PaÃs, El Mundo, 20 Minutos), trade magazines, and influential blogs that can be seen as very desirable link targets. There’s also a growing startup and tech blogger space (think Xataka for tech info to Webpositer or Chuiso for SEO stuff, and any other of that blog variety). Getting covered or guest posting on those sites will improve your backlink profile so much. We’ll discuss how to go about that outlet below.
- Link Building Harmonics: As previous referenced, link buying and negotiated linking is considered more common in Spain, maybe more so than either the US/UK markets. One can expect to find sites that will outright sell “guest post” slots, or bloggers that will ask for a nominal fee to add a link from your site. This is very much against Google’s guidelines (and we don’t want you to do anything against their guidelines) but it is nice to know that option exists, at least. Google algorithms are getting more and more sophisticated at detecting paid links. SpamBrain, which is Google’s AI type of spam detection system that they call spam on any unnatural or purchased links in all languages. You can expect that google is taking quality and authenticity of links very seriously. And you should probably be prepared to think of it as though any spammy action will eventually attract punishment. You want to focus on earning, or building valuable links (or links that at least appear to be). In Spain, that’s probably about developing real relationships with the website owner, instead transactional relationships.
- Competitor Research: If you look at the backlink profiles of your competitors that appear in Spansih SERPS, you will probably see some informative patterns. You might see that many of them getting links from the same group of popular directories or associations or so on. This can also be cost-effective research for some easy link targets (if everyone else in your niche is featured on a particular Spanish business directory – you should probably be featured as well). If you use Ahrefs, Semrush, or Moz you can filter the backlinks of your competitors using Spanish TLD’s or language format options. This research can help you see not only link targets but map the link strategy of your entire Spanish industry segment.
By examining these aspects of the Spanish SEO approach, you are more prepared to construct a link building campaign that fits the market. Next we will outline proven and legitimate ways to acquire Spanish backlinks.