Link building is a powerful tool for anyone that wants to improve the rankings of their website and the pages within it.
And this is the reason I want to explain precisely what link building is, why we use it, and more importantly, how you can use it effectively.
What Is Link Building?
Link building is all about getting someone to link from their website to yours. The best way to think about link building is as a voting system.
The more people that vote for your site (place link from their website to yours), the higher up the search rankings you’ll go.
This is because Google sees each vote as confirmation that the content on your site is excellent.
The backlink algorithm got introduced by Google in 1998, but at that time, the system was pretty flawed.
The reason was due to Google not taking into account the quality of the link; instead, they focused on the number of links that pointed to a page.
In the end, it resulted in people were placing spammy links anywhere they could to improve their rankings.
Thankfully times have changed, and Google now places quality before quantity.
How Does Building Backlinks Help Your Site
Building a strong profile of backlinks to your site will help to increase your search rankings. It really works best when you used it in combination with on-page SEO.
When both are used together, the results can be quite astonishing!
In essence, having backlinks to your site allows you to win, which is for a few reasons. Firstly, Google will know that the content on the website is excellent. Which will push you up the rankings.
But the other reason comes down to trust. If someone clicks on your link from a website they respect, they will automatically trust your site.
In short, if they trust the referral, they trust you!
Trust is a precious commodity. Which, when used correctly, can be very powerful for conversion.
Effective Link Building Strategies
The key to building links is by using the right strategies correctly. So to help you along here are eight of the best link building strategies:
1. Backlink Analysis
This is a fantastic way to build links, especially if you’re on a tight budget. And best of all it’s easy to achieve.
It relies on you working smarter by finding out what your competitors are doing. Quite often, they will be spending a lot of money on their link building portfolio.
All you have to do is see what they are doing and copy it, easy right?
It’s effortless to get started, and when you compare the time you spend on it, with the links you win, you’ll see it to be a very effective strategy.
All you have to do is make a list of your competitors and analyse their backlinks using AHREFS. From there, it’s a case finding the right email and pitching your content.
2. Broken Links
Winning links doesn’t get any easier than this strategy, and it works like this:
For one reason or another, websites will have hundreds of broken links dotted around their site. And what’s worse is the website owner probably won’t know anything about it.
Broken links can do three things to a page:
- Ruin SEO
- Wreck user experience
- Devalue your reputation
If you find a broken link on a site you’d like a referral from, you’ve found your perfect opportunity.
It gives you the chance to build a relationship, add value to them, but what’s more important is you get a link to your site.
3. Testimonial Links
This strategy is an excellent way of gaining some relevant links to your homepage, and best of all, it’s super easy to do.
It involves you sending out testimonials for products and services you’ve used for a Homepage link. The first step is to generate a list of sites that:
- Have testimonial pages
- Have products and services you use
- Be relevant to your niche
From there, all you to do is find the right person to email and send them a pitch.
4. Round-Up Pages
Round-pages are a great way of scoring a link. They’re a page that rounds up a load of great content in a specific niche. But the real beauty is they are usually done weekly or monthly.
You’ll have no trouble finding them for any niche, and it only requires some basic Google searches. Once you’ve found the pages, it’s about making the right pitch.
The pitch part is the hardest part of this strategy; you have to remember hundreds of people will be sending messages asking for the same thing. You need to make sure you stand out from the rest.
5. Resource Pages
Many websites will have a resource page that points to all the tools guides and articles they used to help them out. This can be a great place to score a link when done correctly.
First, you have to find resource pages that fit in with your niche. This can be done by searching Google using the term- “keyword” + Useful Resouces.
From there, it’s all about making the right pitch for them to link to your site.
6. Social Media Links
In the world of SEO, social media links are often unlooked or described as a waste of time. This is mainly due to them being no-follow links.
But here’s the thing:
Most real businesses will use details like this to register the company for Google indexing. So Google must find these factors valuable. Building social media links could be:
- Adding a link to your page button
- Adding a link to a picture description
- Add links in the about page
- Add a link to any social media page
One of the other benefits of this technique is you can get traffic going to your page that may not have seen it without a friend sharing it on their page.
7. Internal Links
I love internal linking, it’s one of the only link building strategies you have full control over. What makes it better is:
- It’s free
- It’s easy
- There’s no risk of being penalised
Because we have total control over internal links, it means we can place the links where we want, and with whatever anchor text we find best.
I guess the real question is; why are internal links so powerful. To start with, internal links make it far easier to discover new content.
They also do things like helping Google rank and understand your content, direct traffic to money pages, and controls Google Spiders.
8. Crowdfunding
It’s probably the most unheard-of tactics for building links on this list. It involves searching for new businesses that are looking for small donations to get started.
All you have to do is find these people and make a small donation in exchange for a link. If you’re not sure where to get started or how to find these pages, a great place to start is Indiegogo. They have thousands of businesses looking for a hand.
Round-Up
Link building is extremely powerful for ranking a page but needs to be used in conjunction with on-page SEO. When done together, you’ll have no problems ranking some of the most obscure websites.
It’s not hard to get started but does take a lot of time and patience to win the links. Your best bet is to follow the strategies above and see which ones work the best for you. My personal favourite is backlink analysis.
You’ll be surprised by how many links you’ll win for the time invested in it.
Author Bio:
Matthew Woodward has been an SEO fanatic for over 20 years and channels his passion through detailed tutorials, case studies and reviews on his blog. Since 2012, he has been able to help thousands of business owners build and grow their websites with great success!
