Almost half of the SEO experts find link-building the most challenging part of search engine optimization. If you’re around SEO marketers and strategists, you’ve probably heard “building backlinks” here and there on end. This is because building backlinks or link-building is essential. Here are some of the reasons why:
- It builds your website’s credibility. Backlinks are like points of confidence from relevant websites that link back to your site, as if saying, “this site is credible; you should check it out.”
- It increases site traffic. The backlinks from other sites add more users coming to your site.
- It can increase your site’s performance. Powerful link-building can also improve your site’s domain authority (DA), organic impressions, and keyword positions, among other things.
- It can forge good relationships. Partnering with other sites can help you establish good relationships with business owners and bloggers in the industry.
- It can increase revenue. When integrated with lead generation, backlinks can help drive more sales and available revenue opportunities.
The above are just a few reasons why link-building is essential in SEO. Now, how do you up your link-building campaign at a time when everyone’s doing it well, if not better? Here are a few tips.
Make your content share-worthy
How do you do this? Here are a few ways:
Gather info and statistics
Bloggers and website owners like to link to content that can support the points they make in their articles. So, your content should include surveys, statistics, industry reports, lists, and trends, among others. Although a bit time-consuming, doing surveys and creating reports can do wonders for your content.
Post listicles
Listicles — or articles containing lists — are easier to digest as they are divided into smaller information sections. This is why they get more backlinks and traffic. Post blog articles with titles such as “X Ways To Do XX More Efficiently.”
Create infographics
Research a topic relevant to your niche, create an infographic and publish it on your website. Include an embed code so that other sites can easily share your infographic. You can also proactively promote your infographic on your social media channels and even be more proactive by sending emails to high authority sites and asking them to share your infographic.
Up your guest posting game
Guest posting remains the most popular and effective way to build backlinks. However, your approach should be a lot better at this point. There has to be more authenticity and strategy to it, meaning you can’t just send an unrelated, just-okay article and hope to get a backlink from them. If you want guest posting to work to your advantage, you should do the following:
- Craft an efficient way to sort out websites relevant to your niche. Make sure that they have high DAs.
- Pitch topics and article titles that are relevant to the site you wish to partner with and make sure that the topics haven’t been covered in their blog yet.
- Write unique content that can really help their audience. Focus more on adding value to their website rather than building links. The writing will reflect that.
- Include links related to the topic and ensure they add value to the content.
Reach out to bloggers and publishers
Find websites or people that are likely to link to your site. You can start off by simply googling your target keywords. Then, copy the URL of the sites at the top results and, using a link analysis tool, find out which sites are linking back to it. Now, you have a list of prospects. Find their email addresses, and reach out to them. Here’s a sample of an outreach email.
“Hi, [Name]!
I stumbled upon your post, “[article title with the link],” when I was searching for information on [topic]. Excellent article, by the way!
I’ve also written something about it recently. It’s called “[article title with the link].” I’m sure your audience will find it helpful. Let me know what you think.
[Your Name]”
Reclaim broken links
You can help sites repair broken links instead of asking them to link to you. Some links become broken over time due to many reasons. One way to build more links is to stay on top of your competitor’s backlink profiles and check for broken links. After which, you can reach out to the site editor and offer to fix it for them by replacing the links with your own relevant links. At the same time, you should also watch out for your site’s broken links, as your competitor might also be out to replace them.
Final Thoughts
The list above may be less exhaustive. Still, these tips can elevate your link-building campaign and get you started building more relevant links from high DA sites, and in turn, help you drive more traffic to your site and create a solid link profile.
