Backlinks play a key part in boosting your search engine rankings. So if you want to appear higher up the ladder, increasing the number of backlinks you have will certainly help you out.
Link building is essential when it comes to ranking well on Google, as it currently makes a huge difference due to the algorithm. If you can achieve high-quality backlinks, you will find yourself on the first page of search engines far more often than not.
We want to walk you through some of the best and easiest ways of gaining more backlinks so that you can increase the search engine rankings of your website and the content it produces. By the time you have finished reading this article, you should be up to date with all the best ways of getting hold of those all-important backlinks.
Did You Know?
Most pages on the internet have no backlinks whatsoever; a reported 66.31% of pages online have no backlinks. However, 73.6% of domains have reciprocal links, meaning that some of the websites they link to also link to them. Therefore, teamwork and helping others can benefit you when working within SEO.
What Are Backlinks?
If you are still unaware of what backlinks are, allow us to clear it up for you. You must understand this form of off-site SEO if you want your website’s content to rank well within online search engines.
Backlinks are when another site links back to your content. This can also be known as an external link or an inbound link. So, if a website links to yours within a blog post, for example, you will have gained a backlink. The higher the quality of the website that links back to you, the better effects the backlink will have.
Backlinks are extremely valuable to your website, so you should try to collect as many as you possibly can. They help with all things SEO-related (search engine optimization) and ultimately get your website noticed by more people.
If you can start getting a decent number of websites linking back to you, it will positively affect search engine rankings. This will show that your content offers some form of value, that it is trusted, and it is link-worthy.
With all that being said, we now understand what backlinks are and why they are essential to you, but how do you start getting more of them? Here are a few tips and tricks we believe are worth utilizing in your search for more backlinks.
How To Get Backlinks
Let’s now look at gaining more backlinks that will help you become more noticeable and reach a wider audience. Remember, the more customers you can get, the more sales you will be able to make, which will improve your business’ finances.
Keep Up With Your Competitors
If you are starting to notice, your competitors gaining a lot of backlinks recently, investigate them and find out where they are coming from. What type of content are they developing and posting on their blog? How do they share that content once it has been uploaded? The best way of keeping up with your industry is by regularly looking into it and studying the things that work and those that don’t.
To check on the backlinks your competitors have received, think about using a program such as SEMrush, which has backlink analytics. This will allow you to view a complete history of backlinks on any website of your choosing.
This can help to give you a boost to your collection of backlinks. If your competitors are gaining links from guest posting on a website, then you should feel free to utilize the guest posting site as well to receive a link of your own. Similarly, if the post links to a forum, you can go ahead and create a profile on that same forum so that you can potentially gain a link once again.
Another technique you should try if you want to stay ahead of your direct competition is to sign up for email newsletters and updates or use Google Alerts. This way, you will receive a notification as soon as new content is published or when they are featured on another website. This is an excellent way of keeping tabs on your competition and morally using them to build up your backlinks.
Find Broken Backlinks
While we are discussing the actions of your close competitors, it is worth keeping an eye out for any broken links they may have on their websites. This way, you can identify a link that is no longer working, track down where it was intended to go, and see if you can become a viable replacement for it.
When a link is broken, it no longer leads to where it was initially intended to. This can often lead to a ‘404 error’, which you have likely come across at some point while using the internet. The link may have been removed, or the destination may have changed or closed. This can often be the case as websites update over time.
All you will need to do here is identify a broken link, contact the website, and pitch yourself as the perfect replacement. This way, you will be helping another webpage out and presenting your business with the brilliant opportunity of gaining another backlink. This is yet again why keeping tabs on your competitors is always good practice.
To find these broken links that could lead to important opportunities for you, try using services such as SEMrush or Ahrefs. In addition, you can filter reports to display broken links your competitors may have, which is what you will be taking advantage of in this instance.
When pitching yourself to work as a replacement for any broken links you discover, you should always try to be humble and introduce yourself in a friendly manner. Let them know the location of the broken link and genuinely help them out. This will allow the website owner to form a bond with you instantly and build trust towards you.
After this, suggest some replacement links and include your website as a standout example. Hopefully, positive results will follow, and you will earn your company another backlink. Broken link building may be the perfect strategy for a business in a tightly contested marketplace.
Create Content People Want To Link To
A natural way of gaining backlinks is to publish content that demands them. If you are constantly producing high-quality content via your company blog, and any other forms of publication you may have, you will earn a few backlinks naturally over time. Remember that websites will be linking to you because they want to either reference useful information you have provided or give their readers a direct access to something that will entertain them.
If you are consistently putting out a good piece of content, you will naturally be developing a link-building strategy without even trying to. People want to consume great content, and if you provide it, other businesses will link to your website frequently. This falls under content marketing and will help dramatically in ranking factors.
Try to produce content that directly directs your business venture, which will also be interesting or entertaining to your consumers. But, again, think about your audience first, and then hopefully, a bigger one will follow over a length of time.
Try Making Some Skyscraper Content
Keeping on the topic of content, you may find link-building success by producing some skyscraper pieces. These usually are long-form content posts, such as lengthy guides on existing subjects and topics. A skyscraper piece will often be thousands of words long and should strive to go into great levels of detail.
If you are writing skyscraper content, you should aim to cover all aspects and details of what you are talking about. Your main goal will be going into more detail than anyone else has done thus far and ensuring that your post is better than what’s already out there. Be informative informational, and show off your expert level of knowledge to gain as much traction as you can.
This should get you ranking highly across multiple search engines and encourage other sites to frequently link back to your post. This will build more backlinks for your website and give your business the online boost that it needs.
Start by searching a topic on the internet and observing what the top search results are right now. This should be about a niche subject related to your own business and make for appropriate content. Then, closely study the top results and ask yourself what makes them so good?
For instance, if you are going to be writing about business loans in Chesterfield, you should investigate the top search results. After this, go through the content that has inspired you and develop a far better piece and much more detailed than that is.
However, the job will not be done once you have finished writing, as it will then be time for promotion. You need to promote the skyscraper pieces you create, or all of your efforts may go to waste. There are many ways in which you can promote a long-form piece of content that will help to build links.
One way is to reach out to influencers on social media, people, companies, sources you have sighted in the article itself, and even tools. Let them know how they have inspired the creation of your content and thank them for it. This could encourage them to share your work and reward you with a backlink.
The more the word is spread about your skyscraper piece, the greater number of backlinks you will receive.
Infographics Can Help With Link Building
You are going to need some written text in your articles, but visual content is the new way to go. Infographics are the perfect way to pack lots of useful information into a single image; your audience will appreciate this. You will be able to take something highly complex and present it in a significantly simplified way to your readers.
When you create engaging and helpful infographics, you aid other content creators. They may use your image in their content and give you a backlink as a reference to the original creator of the infographic.
You don’t need to be an expert in design or hire someone to start making infographics for you. There are many helpful tools that you can freely access right now. Try out Canva, for instance, and begin your infographic link-building strategy now. Visual content will also aid you in ranking higher in the search results, so try to create original images as often as you can.
Write Guest Posts For Other Websites
Guest posting is a phenomenal method to get backlinks for your site and is a strong, proven strategy. You can contact various sites that take guest posts and pitch an idea.
Numerous sites offer a contributor account or a ‘compose for us’ area where anybody can write an article and get highlighted on the site. They even let you link to your site, either in the creator bio segment or inside the written text of the content.
You can discover guest blogging sites by searching around on Google. Type the keyword you are looking for along with guest posting. You will then likely be directed to several good options you’ll be able to choose from. Most importantly, you’ll be gaining another backlink.
Give It Time
Gaining new backlinks is often a difficult and tedious process, but one that is greatly important to business ventures around the globe. If you are a small business owner that needs a better link-building strategy, try a few things out until you discover what’s right for you.
