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Posted by Sandeep Sharma
May 01, 2018
If you are not considering link building for your SEO campaign, there are less likely chances that your website will rank higher on SERPs.
Link building is very crucial when it comes to getting top rankings on search engines, especially when you are trying it organically.
Just look at any content that has ranked in the first 10 pages of the search engine and it would have tons of links.
However, quantity over quality is the first gospel truth that you need to learn and remember while you are planning for link building.
Do you remember those old false SEO link building activities when SEO professionals used to list your business on irrelevant business dictionaries on the internet and get backlinks to your page?
Thanks to the Google algorithm, it does not exist now.
However, authoritative link building is necessary and you cannot just ignore it if you want to boost your page traffic organically.
First of all, let’s find out why link building is necessary.
Understanding link building and backlinks are simple. You write a piece of content and submit to the authoritative website or blog people trust.
They will offer backlinks to your website if the content meets their guidelines.
Google will understand that you are an authority for that specific niche and it will give you more superior position compared to your competitors.
Remember, you need to get high-quality links from high-quality websites only as it will boost your reliability and authenticity.
As per the study by Backlinko, link building was one of the most crucial things that lead to higher rankings.
Image 1 speaks volumes about a genuine link building exercise.
However, it does not mean that you start generating thousands of backlinks by posting your content everywhere. Backlinks should be from a diverse source of sites to rank higher.
Higher the domain authority- higher the chances of ranking at the top of SERPs. Backlinks are similar to votes you give to your local candidate in the election. The candidate who gets the most votes is the winner.
If you want to generate your brand’s relevancy, popularity and authenticity organically on the internet, you just cannot turn your eyes off link building.
Obviously, there are SEO professionals who go for genuine link building exercises and some go for quick shortcuts just to boost rankings quickly. Genuine and authentic link building practices are called White Hat SEO techniques and wrong SEO techniques are called Black Hat link building techniques.
White-hat link building practices fall well when it comes to webmaster guidelines of different search engines such as Google or Bing. They are low at risk and are generally considered genuine.
Some of the white hat techniques are:
– Creating unique, engaging content for your audience
– Attracting genuine engaging community to discuss on your website
– Getting backlinks from high-authority websites
– Promoting your website authentically on different social media with unique and original content
Black hat techniques are those that are practised to accomplish some short-term goals. They are not ideal and hence, there are chances that they will backfire on you at some point in time.
– Sometimes, such practices make Google give you penalties too.
– Cloaking: it means showing different separate content to search engines and users
– Quantitative backlinks from low-quality websites by wrongful content stuffing
– Hidden text on a web page just for search engines
So, you now have a clear idea about link building and how it helps your brand to rank on search engines.
Now, we will discuss different link building techniques that you can use to rank your brand high.
The famous, yet cliche quote- content is the king- in the SEO industry is here to stay for eternity. Here, we will discuss guest posting on relevant business websites and website blogging.
Guest posting offers you an opportunity to come out as an authority for your brand. In addition to that, you can get high-quality backlinks too.
You can blog on your website too. Updating your blog content regularly is also good for website SEO as it will help crawlers to identify your website.
For every guest post, you will get that separate author bio with a link to your website. It is free too. You don’t have to pay a single penny to them except for highly engaging and original, informative content.
There are many such trustworthy gust posting websites you can approach such as Hub post, Semrush, Moz and many more.
There are advantages to mentioning influencers in your guest post or any other content.
First, they will look into it and they will share your content if they find it engaging, informative and original.
Second, they will attract huge traffic to your website. Just look at the image displayed above.
With such roundup style posts, you can hit many targets with one arrow.
When you mention someone in your post, they feel privileged and it helps you a lot when it comes to link building.
You can come up with such blog posts and it will turn into Harry Potter’s magic wand to show some great magic.
It is a relatively old technique for link building, but it is still relevant and functioning.
Prospecting for broken links is an amazing way to get backlinks.
How does it work?
Suppose you came across a blog on a high-quality website and you have found one or multiple broken or invalid links there with the help of a broken link checker tool.
You have an article that is of the same niche, that can replace the invalid link.
All you need to do is approach the blog owner and request him to replace the invalid link with your genuine link.
Be truthful and humble when you approach for prospecting broken links and there are high chances that it will work in your favour.
Users love visual content and nothing works best than infographics when it comes to link building.
There are many websites that dedicatedly publish only infographics.
– First, they are easy to read as it takes few seconds of minutes to go through
– They are visually pleasing
They get shares and links more than text content.
Hubpost states that infographics are shared and liked three times more than other types of content.
Videos are loved and videos are shared too.
In fact, it is the best way for link building. Self-hosting videos, in fact, can bring you more traffic by posting it on your website and sharing on different social media platforms.
Your videos have been embedded by many website owners and you can approach them to add a backlink to your website. They will happily do that for you.
Find websites that have linked to your video and ask them to give you backlinks too.
Another proven way to link building is to approach to an influencer and ask for an interview. Actually, there are many authoritative influencers who are respected among the community and your target audience.
Users want to know about them and their viewpoints and if you end up offering it, it will enhance your authenticity and popularity too.
Approach these industry people and ask them politely about an interview. They actually love to share their views on a right platform and if you offer it, they will love it.
However, you need to do your homework when it comes to questions you are going to ask the influencer.
Asking the right questions is very important. Don’t just stick to scripted questions. Instead, ask follow-up questions about what they are talking.
Testimonials are also a great way to do link building positively. All you need to do is to write your experiences with a particular brand and you will get a backlink from them.
It is actually a win-win relationship with a brand you are collaborating with. They will happily give you a backlink for the testimonial and it will boost your traffic too.
It was an old practice to spam directories with content and links. Thanks to Google, all those irrelevant SEO practices no longer exist.
However, there are some authentic and high-functioning online directories that you can use for link building.
Business listings on an online directory will serve two purposes-
– You will be able to offer useful information about your business to directory users
– You will get a backlink for each posting
Go for directories that are of the same business niche of yours. Also, it helps search crawlers to find you very easily.
Keeping a sharp eye on your competitors is crucial in the digital world.
When it comes to link building, competitor analysis plays a huge role. Check out the backlinks of their pages and start approaching those websites that are present on the list.
There are many tools such as The Common Backlinks Tool (CBLT) that can help you out to find such backlinks.
Posting industry-specific E-books and product or service tutorials can help you to get backlinks too.
Search for such websites or you can share them on your social media pages too. It will bring back users to your website if the content is offering useful information to your users.
You have some useful information in the form of images such as infographics or illustrations and diagrams on your website.
You just came to know that there are websites using these images without permission.
Approach them and ask for a backlink. They will not disappoint you.
However, the image should be yours only and not of someone else’s property.
Link building is here to stay for a long time and you need to come up with a unique strategy to reap fruits from this highly potential SEO technique.
Driving traffic to your website is the first goal of your SEO strategy when you are going organic. Link building offers it perfectly.
