Have you ever wondered why search engines rank some pages lower than others despite having better content? The answer is Backlinks.
When an external website links to your domain, your site is said to have received a backlink from that external website.
Over a period of several decades, search engines have been optimized to rank the websites in a fair manner. And as such, Backlinks have evolved to be a crucial indicator in deciding where your domain will fit in the plethora of so many other domains.
Now why Backlinks? The reason is that Backlinks are like a seal of approval from others. No one would link to your website, unless they know that you offer a quality content or a substance of value. So, the more people trust and link to your website, the more favorably Google looks at it, and the higher it ranks it among the other webpages.
Another point to keep in mind is the quality of backlinks you receive. The reliable websites that link to you, the better the traffic and rankings you will get. What that means is basically, if a website that is trusted by Google links to your site, that will give your site more credibility than the one which is not trusted. Or in other words, the higher the domain authority of the website linking to yours, the more it will increase your domain authority.
Now that we understand building backlinks are key to organic traffic. The next question then becomes, how to build backlinks? Here, I will discuss some amazing tips to do exactly that and increase your traffic and ranking.
Building backlinks through guest posting
Guest posts are one of the best ways to get backlinks. If you publish your article on other sites, you will get more exposure and gain organic traffic. The great thing with guest posting is that, along with an increase in backlinks, you will also experience an increase in online reputation and your social media following. In my opinion, Guest posts are one of the most effective ways to expand your audience and increase your domain authority.
The thing that some people struggle with is, how to find a website that is accepting guest posts? You cannot spend hours surfing websites to see if they allow guest posting. So, I will show you a shortcut for that. What you can do is, you can go to Google and search for one of the following terms:
- your keyword + inurl: write-for-us
- your keyword + guest-post
- your keyword + become a contributor
- your keyword + submit an article
This will list all the websites associated with your keyword that are accepting gust posts. Again, as mentioned before, guest posting in a website of higher domain authority will affect your rankings more favorably than guest posting in a lower domain authority website.
Another way is the classic social media method, you can also use social media such as Twitter to search for websites that accept guest posts.
Once you find the website, you can create a nice content for them as per their guidelines and get a seal of approval from them to your website!
Replacing broken links with yours
Replacing broken links with your link is another amazing way to build backlinks. The first thing to keep in mind is that, of course, you would want to search for broken links in websites that are related to your niche.
Once you spot broken links, you can then contact the webmaster and report her/his broken links. We all know that it is not a good practice to just identify problems. When you identify a problem, you should always provide a solution for it. And BAM! When you report a broken link to them, you can suggest your website as an alternative. And most probably, they will be open to using your link as a token of appreciation for your help.
So, the question is, how to find broken links on websites? Again, there is a shortcut for that too. Try searching one of the following on Google.
· Your keyword(s) + links
· Your keyword(s) + resources
· Your keyword(s) inurl: links
Now you can sit and surf all the links manually. But what I would suggest is to use some wonderful Chrome extensions called ‘Check My Links” or Link Analyzer. You can easily find lots of broken links using these plugins.
If you have spotted some broken links, then it’s time to reach out to the website’s owner. You need to report him/her the exact location of broken links. Do not forget to give them your link as an alternative!
Building backlinks through infographics
If you ask experts, what is the fastest way to build backlinks? Their answer will most probably be Infographics. In the present visual universe, infographics certainly are the best way to earn valuable traffic to your website.
The reason why Infographics are so famous is because people have very short attention spans. So, what the Infographics do is that they summarize pages of content in a very crisp and visual graphic. And we all know, people prefer visual information over textual ones. So that is like icing on the top. You can see a sample Infographic below.
So how to build backlinks through this? The trick is to opt for articles that are research driven. When you convey research data visually, people tend to be very interested. Once others see your infographic, they will use it in their website and as a result, you will receive a backlink. Just like I have used the Infographic below!
If you do not possess graphic skills; it does not block you from producing Infographics. By appearing on Dribble or Fiverr programs, you can readily find decent high-quality designers that may create your Infographics. Do not attempt to go cheap, though; you still desire some fantastic quality to increase the viral potential and get much more backlinks.
Building backlinks through infographics
Like everything in life, if you want to be the best – you must keep an eye on your competition. You need to see their network, search for their link-building techniques, etc.
One of the important things that you have to do is, you have to look at their backlinks. See who is linking to their website. You should use websites like Moz, Ahrefs, etc. to track the backlinks of your competitors. You can then contact the people who are providing them backlinks, and try to guest post at their website so you can get some links as well.
You can also to create Google alerts for keywords “site: yourcompetitor.com.” This is one of the smartest approaches to come up to their new content. Also, subscribe to their email newsletter on follow them on social media.
This method will help you to understand better what techniques they are implementing to promote their website. If they are receiving links through guest blogging, then make an effort to become a guest author on the same sites.
Building backlinks through roundup pages
One of the ways to build backlinks is by promoting your content in Round up posts. Round ups are basically posts that amass the opinions of the best experts in a certain niche and place them in a single page.
So, in order to boost your content, you need to contact the website owners and provide them with an instant introduction to your site. Together with your message, you can send link to your finest guides or tutorials. You will have a good chance that they will link back to you in their next round up because these writers are continuously looking for the excellent content material.
And then finally, how do you find roundup pages? Easy, you can use Google for that purpose. Search “keyword(s) + roundup” and then from the dropdown menu choose “Previous week” or “Previous month” for just recent outcomes. And once you find something, you can go ahead with contacting them.
Some people even go as far as creating their own roundup pages. As a matter of fact, it is a great for search engine optimization as well as outreach. So, I will leave it up to you to decide how would you go about this.
Building Backlinks through social bookmarking is one of the most popular off-page techniques.. Social bookmarking helps you to improve the SEO of the site. When you send a link to some website to your friends, you are using Social Bookmarking.
Social Bookmarking is basically writing content or answering queries related to your niche in social sites like Twitter, Pinterest, Digg, and Reddit. As a result, you will get a backlink from these sites. Many of these sites may even give Do-follow backlinks and help to improve your site’s domain authority.
But I must warn you though, Social Bookmarking is a gray hat technique i.e. it is borderline between legal and illegal. In other words, it may or may not get your website penalized as some people spam the social sites to get links.
So, if you want to live on the edge, you can do a controlled amount of social bookmarking. It is one of the fastest ways to get backlinks and helps your website get indexed faster. It also helps you gain a good amount of organic traffic. At some point, the bulk of your traffic may even come from social bookmarking.
Too long didn’t read (TL;DR)
When someone links to your website, you receive a backlink from them. Backlinks are very important in SEO and help in getting your website rank higher in search engines.
Getting quality backlinks can be a tedious process, but there are some tips and tools that can bring you up to speed. Some of the backlink strategies include guest posts at other websites in your niche. You provide great content to them and receive a backlink in return. Similarly, another way is to identify broken links in people’s websites and send your link as an alternative.
You can also use infographics that summarize lots of content in a crisp visual graphic and receive backlinks through that. Another way is to keep an eye on your competition, see who is linking to them, and trying to receive a backlink from them. You can also contact writers of roundup posts or create your roundup page.
Another way is to create infographics. Keep this thing in mind that maintaining your backlinks is equally rather crucial as establishing them. By implementing at least one of those ideas mentioned above, you will see an increase in backlinks. More backlinks will gradually end in search site visitors along with a gain in traffic visitors.
Finally, you can use social bookmarking sites like Twitter, Pinterest, Digg, etc. to write about your website. That will help your website in getting indexed faster, and receive backlinks from those websites (and others, if they like your content).
About the author
Fahim Ahmadi is an entrepreneur, blogger and marketer. Follow Fahim at fahimahmadi.com as he writes about making money online, emerging software and technologies, and his journey as an affiliate marketer
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