Link building has become a vital strategy for boosting your website’s SEO performance. The problem is, that most people start building links far too early or do not have good SEO link building strategies and tactics.
This usually results in all your hard work has little to no effect on your rankings. So, before you move on to the next section, ask yourself:
Is my website worth linking to? Does it have strong technical foundations?
If the answer is yes, great, keep reading; if not, you’ve got some work to do as SEO is very different from SEM.
Why Building Backlinks Is Critical
Whether you’re planning to outsource your link building, have an in-house team, or do it yourself, you need to understand the very basics of link building.
So, in this section, you’re going to learn why backlinks are essential.
Backlinks have been an official ranking factor since 1998 in Google and other search engines. Google decided that each link pointing to your site was a sign of endorsement.
When it first came around, they judged the number of links. But praise the stars; they have been slowly making it more about the quality and if it comes from relevant websites.
This means you now have to pay attention to how you’re building links, making sure that it is high-quality links versus spamming links on forums and comment pages.
Google and other search engines look at how many links are pointing to your site as it counts each link as a vote of approval; the more votes you have from a relevant page, high authority site the more Google rates your site. Any links coming from spammy link farm sites will damage your site.
QuickFire SEO Link Building Strategies
Because links have been a ranking factor for so long, lots of strategies have been tried and tested.
Below are nine effective link building strategies that are currently winning the race and can help you to have a great link building campaign:
#1 Sponsor Events
You can use local, national, or international events to build links. Not only do you get the link placed on the host’s site, but you’ll also receive brand recognition.
You have two options with this strategy; you could host your own event and get other sites to link back to yours.
The other way is to sponsor events that other people host. You can find relevant events using Google. You’re probably thinking about what kind of events you should sponsor, well it could be things like…
- Youth clubs
- Sports clubs
- School events
- Workshops
- Conferences
- Lectures
Scan through some google listings and see if anything is relevant to your niche.
#2 Find Your Mentions
This strategy works pretty well if you have a brand that’s fairly well-recognized in your niche. You see, if you’re well known, it’s pretty likely people have mentioned your brand and will continue to do so on their websites.
The thing is, some of them might not be linking to your website, which is something you want to fix. Luckily it’s a pretty easy fix.
Do a google search to find any sites that mention your brand. It should look something like this:
“<insert URL>” -inurl:<brand name>
Now, it’s a case of reaching out to any website that mentions your name and doesn’t link to your page. And simply ask them to add your link to your website.
#3 Steal Broken Links
It’s a super easy strategy for you to use. Most websites will have a broken link on their site, and most of the time, the owner doesn’t know about it.
This gives you a unique opportunity to swoop in and steal the link for yourself.
You see, broken links ruin the user’s experience and aren’t great for your SEO. By finding broken links for them, you get to build a rapport with the site owner and offer your link as a replacement. This is also commonly known as broken link building.
To find broken links, you can use tools like Ahrefs; once you enter the URL, it will provide you with a list of their broken links. Just see which of your content would be a good replacement (you can even write some new content if the link is really worth it) and reach out to the site owner/editor.
#4 Guest Post
It’s a very popular strategy used by websites worldwide. It is basically about offering to write a high-quality blog post for the website and in exchange to be able to have a link back to your website.
The key is to avoid sites that look like spammy link/guest post farms. They are usually pretty easy to find; they often have pages like:
- Write for us
- Submit guest post
- Add guest post
Google knows that these sites accept guest posts, and any links placed within these posts are a risk. So, how do you find safe guest posting opportunities that won’t put your backlink profile at risk?
The best way is to look at which sites your competitors are winning links from (more on this later).
#5 Use Testimonials
Honestly, you’ll probably think this link building strategy is too easy to work. Well, it is easy, and it does work.
The idea is to think about products/services you’ve used in the past and reach out to exchange a testimonial for a link.
When you write your testimonial, make sure you include details of why it worked and why you recommend other people to use it. You’ll get bonus points if you can include real-life results.
#6 Link Round-Ups
Link round-up posts are snippets of content that have a link pointing back to your site. Most sites that feature link round-ups will do them weekly to monthly, which means you get plenty of linking opportunities.
Finding these opportunities is super easy; you can do it with a quick Google search. Something like…
- <keyword> + Link roundup
- <keyword> + roundup
- <keyword> + weekly round up
Go through all the search results to find round-up posts that suit your niche. Make a list of any opportunities you find and then pitch them. Make sure you cover exactly why your link is worth adding to their round up and the value it will offer their audience.
#7 Internal Links
Internal linking is one of the most underused strategies when it comes to link building. This is strange because it holds so much power when done correctly.
Internal links have a few benefits:
- They help Google find new content
- Directs traffic to more important pages
- They can spread the link power across pages
Finding link opportunities might seem hard now, but it’s made very simple when you use the Google indexing tool.
#8 Steal Your Competitors’ Backlinks
Stealing your competitor’s backlinks is all about working smarter rather than harder.
All you need to do is use Ahrefs to find your competitor’s best backlinks. Once you’ve found all their good links, it’s a case of finding out how you can replicate the link yourself.
These links are obviously regarded highly by Google because they have helped your competitors reach the top spots in the SERPs.
To make things better, when you compare it with the time spent and links won, it’s actually one of the best strategies for building backlinks at scale.
#9 Use Resource Pages
A lot of websites have started using resource pages on their website. A resource page basically lists all the websites that the site owner finds helpful.
Resource pages usually have a small write-up about the website, but more importantly, it includes a link to the website.
Your job is to find resource pages that are related to your niche. You then want to reach out to them to see if they’ll include you on their resource page.
It really is that easy.
Wrapping Up
There you have 9 top strategies you can use to increase the rankings of your site. Link building takes time and effort, but with these strategies and the use of link building tools, you should have some powerful high-quality links in no time.
If one strategy isn’t working for you, move on to the next. Remember, you don’t have to stick to one method; spread your bets to get the best results as different strategies will work better depending on your niche.
But do take note that link building is just 1 key part of search engine optimization (SEO) and it is also important to have high-quality content that delivered useful information and is relevant based on the keywords you are trying to rank for.
