Backlinks form an integral part of internet marketing. They help to improve website traffic, reputation, ranking and even develop new relationships across the internet. If you use outdated backlink strategies along with unreliable SEO services, then Google can severely penalize your website.
So, while the effectiveness of high-quality backlinks remains the same, the methods to obtain them has greatly altered.
To gain success, it is essential to incorporate backlink strategies into your marketing strategy and build links with a better meaning.
Besides quality content, you need to add valuable strategies for a backlink to stay in a lucrative position. This post will explain to you about such backlink strategies that actually work!
But before that, let’s first have a quick glance at what backlinks mean and why are they important for your online business.
What are Backlinks?
A backlink is built when an external website or third party website, links to your site.
For this reason, backlinks are also known as ‘external links.’ Such links from an external piece of ranking riddle.
But make sure your website is prepared for backlinks before you delve into the backlink strategies.
Significance of Backlinks:
Backlinks of high-quality are essential to get higher ranking in search engines.
When your blog or site has unique content then you must plan an effective backlink strategy for a good amount of incoming traffic that would fetch you higher rankings on search algorithms.
One important thing to consider is backlinks have the same meaning as inbound links. Hence, two are just the same.
It is because backlinks are placed inside or at the bottom of a blog, article, comment, or post.
It is essential that you get backlinks from genuine or real sites as Google offer rewards to websites with quality backlinks.
Furthermore, other websites would offer links to your website only when your site holds high-quality links. When you will receive more links, then you will get increased visibility and more hits on your website.
Backlinks can be divided into two groups:
1. The first level
2. The second level
In the initial or first level, it may take some time to avail the desired quantity of links from authentic sites.
The second level of links are the links that can be linked to the first level. The safer method is to generate links for the second level, which implies getting lots of links directing towards the first level.
Some of the rich sources to get first level links are:
- Articles on Wikipedia
- Reputed article directories
- Directory submissions
- Posting content on other websites with links directing back to your website
Sources to get second level links are:
- Links on social media websites
- Commenting on articles or blogs
- Links on FAQs, Q, and A or forums
Now, that you know most of the things about backlinks, let’s talk about some backlink strategies that are effective and that actually work!
Backlink Strategies that Work:
1. Guest Blogging for Reputed Websites:
This is a time-intensive strategy, but it can also help you get the biggest payouts. Guest blogging on bigger, reputed websites links back to your sites.
You may build guest blogging connections to post your unique content on other sites. This will broaden the reach of your brand as well as drive traffic to your site.
This backlink strategy aims to offer you the benefit to gain a long-term relationship with a more authoritative and established brand and website.
When you develop a relationship with bigger brands then you open the opportunity to new marketing opportunities including guest blogs, articles, engagement with others, co-branded projects, and more backlinks.
2. Create a List of Sites for Referral Traffic:
To begin with, you need to first find sites that can provide you with referral traffic. Think about where your customers are going for information!
You can create a list of the best 20 – 30 websites. You could go after high authority sites to get backlinks, but your efforts worth the solution, only when you are able to broaden your reach.
Hence, include websites on your list that your customers would be interested to visit and read.
3. Narrow down the Research:
Now the next strategy is to rank websites with their domain authority, relevance to your persona and services, and social authority.
There are various sites such as Moz Bar, Open Site Explorer, and Followerwonk that can be used to identify social authority.
Note the followers of LinkedIn and Facebook to increase your ranking. Look for rules of the website regarding sharing and posting. It is because there are few sites that do not accept guest posts outside their network.
Once you are done with your analysis, begin with the websites that are of highest importance and potential. Most of your efforts must be focused on such sites.
4. Draft a Well-Thought Pitch:
Find submission forms and submit ideas, email addresses of copywriters on each website. It is essential to create a great first impression and for this, you need to perfect your pitch, or otherwise, you will be overlooked.
When deciding about the topics to pitch, you can refer to other articles on the website and your audience. Make sure you offer valuable content to the audience. If they don’t get anything valuable then you won’t be able to avail the post.
Keep your pitch concise, explain your expertise and make a note of this. You are not alone. They may get hundreds of requests from people to get links back to their websites. Hence, make your pitch relevant and memorable.
Do follow up on your messages and continue building a connection with a person on the other side.
5. Optimize Your Content:
Keep the readers and editors in mind while drafting content. There is always a possibility that they would ditch your content even when you have written with due care. Hence, check for their guidelines on the internet.
Just like you would select a CTA for your site’s blog, practice the same for this content. You would want to be meaningful when referral traffic reaches your site. It would be wise if you link to an article or blog that talk deeply about your topic.
Just remember, the editor can remove links or reject the content if you don’t follow the instructions properly. Hence, it is best to stay focused and look out for meaningful links.
6. Include a Review if you are Selling a Product:
This strategy is effective when you sell a product. Build a list of bloggers who are interested to review your product. You can find such bloggers by searching keywords related to your product on Google.
Just make sure your product is ready for review. After identifying the target list, you can craft an email to reach such bloggers.
The email must not be spammy and must be drafted in a friendly tone. In the email, talk about how you reach the blogger, introduce yourself, brief them about the product, and offer them some fee or discount, or product for free.
7. Let Your Content Be a Resource:
Copywriters and bloggers are looking out for resources and links to create content for their audience. You can use utilize some sites from the list created by you for guest blogging.
Another efficient way to search more bloggers to share content is to look for link roundups. There are various video posts that you can consider in order to get the desired results.
Look for link roundups and your keywords on Google to find authors posting. Reach out to such keywords and present your content as a source for an upcoming post.
8. Maintain the Relevancy:
Keep the process relevant for actual link acquisition. The relevancy from Google is based on three core things –
1. General content or theme of the linking domain
2. Relevancy of backlinks that hit the domain
3. Content on the linked page.
9. Let External Authority Sites Link to Your Site:
The stronger your website is, the better results it would deliver. Since Google does not consider PageRank for update anymore, so you need to depend on metrics obtained from the third party only.
It would be wise if you analyze the opportunity first considering all the options that are available to you. There are various online tools also available, which you can use in this concern.
10. Focus on Genuine and Real Websites Getting Genuine Traffic:
Another method to draft a robust back-linking process is to focus and include authentic websites with real traffic. These backlinks are the most difficult to get, however, they are highly rewarding.
You can know about the exact traffic data of a website only through their analytics.
11. Use Anchor Text Wisely:
Distributing or segregating recklessly the anchor text of your backlink can cause twofold damage to your site’s reputation.
It is because an incorrect anchor text distribution will disturb the ranking of your site. Moreover, the hostile anchor text can result in a forfeit.
According to the usual rule, keeping an exact match to your anchor text less than 1% is recommended. Most of the anchor text must be a naked link or branded link anchors.
12. Make Efficient Use of Social Media Websites:
Social media sites are highly common and have become a common source for business users in online marketing.
One of the finest social media websites used for online marketing is Facebook. But besides Facebook, there are other websites that can be considered, like Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
You just have to sign up with these social sites and create your company’s bio with the site link mentioned in it. Make sure you create a Facebook fan page to avail more links and to know about your site.
13. Submit Press Releases:
If you have launched something new, developed or designed something new, like a product, blog or website, then use a press release to let the world know about it.
There are numerous paid and free press release websites that accept submissions for the press release. One great example is PRWeb.com.
Do include a backlink to your site in each press release. The best thing is that you can submit a single press release to lots of platforms for better exposure and to get a higher number of backlinks.
Hence, it is a convenient method offering better results with minimum efforts.
14. Plan Article Marketing:
This is one of the famous backlink tricks that are highly effective. Articles form a backbone for any blog or site.
In the process of article marketing, you need to write quality articles, press releases, and blogs to submit them.
There are numerous article directories and platforms that approve articles for free. Other sites would request your membership before submissions. So, select a platform as per your preference and do the job then.
15. Video Marketing:
Another interesting and appealing way to get higher backlinks is video marketing. Video sharing sites, like YouTube, are ideal to post videos about your website.
One good thing is that you can post uncountable videos you want without rendering any fee or charges.
These video sites allow posting videos on any topic. You just have to post the video and mention backlink to your website underneath.
If there is not enough time to prepare and post videos, then you can comment on other videos and leave your site link in the comment box. But don’t practice it often.
16. Help a Reporter Out:
Also known as the HARO technique, it is worth exploring the authors and reporters to submit posts that can offer your insight on a way to build research for a relevant topic.
Find posts that hold relevancy to the content you have written and this will provide you a better chance to get linked back or being quoted.
You can even search other sites like Yahoo! Answers and Quora, or other social platforms for individuals asking questions relevant to your expertise.
Wrapping Up:
Just like other marketing campaigns, it is essential to plan well and implement efficiently your backlink strategies campaign.
So, follow these tips seriously but only after conducting research. This would help you develop a plan for your industry and business to get backlinks directly to your site.