Backlinking has always been a profitable strategy for building a credible presence for your business online. Sadly, very few business owners know about it or even implement this fantastic strategy on their websites. Well, that’s about to change, thanks to this guide. We will be discussing everything there is to know about backlink building and the best practices for getting them on your website. But first, let’s start from the top.

 

Introduction to Backlinks

What Are Backlinks?

These are also known as one-way links, incoming links, and inbound links. Backlinks are exactly how they sound: linking from one website to another. Backlinks build more credibility on your website, and it all has to do with how search engines, especially Google, rank pages. Most pages with more backlinks have higher organic Google rankings. For example, if you were to have a link on a top-notch website like Forbes that takes visitors to your business page with a click, this will increase your page ranking. This is what backlinks are all about.

 

What’s so important about backlinks?

The more backlinks you have on the internet, the more these pages tell Google that you have useful, credible, and valuable content. This will make your site rank high on several search engines, especially Google. Of course, having too many irrelevant backlinks won’t be suitable for your websites. Google knows when pages are just trying to stuff it all in there, and it will only take your website to the bottom of the pile. Over the years, Google has made a lot of changes to its algorithm, but the foundation of backlinks being a significant ranking signal remains the same.

 

So, what can you do to rank higher in SERPs? All you have to do is focus on having quality backlinks. You’ll benefit a lot more from one quality backlink than thousands of backlinks with low quality. Here are the major features of high-quality backlinks.

 

1. They are from authority websites

The quality of websites with your backlinks matters a lot. Choose one: backlinks from a random blog or one from Harvard? Your choice is quite obvious. Everyone will pick a backlink from Harvard, and that’s exactly how Google feels. In search engine terminology, this is known as Domain Authority. Websites with more domain authority can pass this on to your site with top-notch links. You can find out the domain authority of different websites using Ahrefs. There, we have authoritative websites like Forbes, TechCrunch, and Harvard. The more domain authority a website has, the more weight Google will put on a link coming from that site. Imagine how much a link from TechCrunch could boost organic search engine traffic to your business page. Yes, these links are hard to get, but they are a hundred percent worth it.

 

2. They have your target keyword

When it comes to backlinks, you’re not just using any phrase in the link’s anchor text. The anchor text is the word that is linked to your website. This is the visible text instead of the link itself. Quality backlinks should have your target keyword as their anchor text. However, many people tend to go overboard with making anchor texts keyword-rich. Don’t do that. Google will use a filter known as Google Penguin to filter out websites that do this. It is known as black hat link building and not profitable for the kind of results you would want to get at the end of the day.

 

3. The page is related to contents on your business website

If your business deals exclusively on the sale of fitness equipment, it would be a great idea to have your backlinks on pages that talk about workouts, marathons, and fitness. When your link pops up on websites that talk about unrelated topics like fishing, shoes, or even jewelry, Google won’t put as much weight on those links. This means that your backlinks must be on websites relevant to your business goals or focus. You don’t want to just put your links on random pages online.

 

4. Dofollow Link and not NoFollow link

How can you tell the difference between a do-follow link and a nofollow link? It depends on the source of your links. Google sees backlinks from paid advertisements, press releases, and blog comments as nofollow. They are not precisely valuable, and most search engines will ignore these links. If you look closely, you will realize that they are not exactly relevant for proper SEO strategies. Most of the other links online are do-follow links, so it won’t be challenging to get in on them.

 

5. You haven’t been linked to the domain before

Google loves uniqueness, and it also applies to your SEO strategy. If one website links to your business page once, Google and other search engines will see this as a strong link. But when this becomes repeated, even as much as ten times, their strength decreases with every backlink. We have said this earlier, but it is worth repeating. You’ll gain so much more from have 50 links from 50 different websites than a thousand links from the same website.

 

Methods for building backlinks

Building backlinks is more than just having your links sent to various websites. You must have something valuable that these links will be built on. These could be links to your website's resources like a research study, blog post, or graphics. It could even be the homepage of your website, and this is quite common. However, before you start your link-building campaign, these assets must be ready. Backlink building becomes so much easier when you have something useful and valuable for your audience.

 

Valuable contents for backlinks include an image gallery, videos, how-to guides, white papers, and infographics. These should be written so that people would find them informative, engaging, and relevant, including those that you would want to have these links on their websites. After a while, you should be able to send your content out to a few key influencers in your niche, and they will spread it as far as possible. With unique content and dedication, this is achievable.

 

1. Ego Bait

This is the first on our list because it has a high success rate. Just as the name suggests, your content will be playing on the ego of those who would be featured in your post. Here’s a better explanation. If someone reached out to you to include a link to a particular post on your website and you realize that you have more than a few paragraphs dedicated to talking about what you do, what would you do? You will be more inclined to include this link on your website because it also attracts people’s attention to what you do. This is what we call ego bait in the SEO community. You would feel better about sharing this link, and there are hundreds of examples of this online.

 

Your content could talk about a list of top blogs in your niche, and you can reach out to each of them to include this link on their websites. It’s a great way of getting high-quality traffic to your website, and the volume depends on the kind of blogs or people you target in your content. So, how do you do this?

 

1. Research

Of course, the first stage is to carry out your detailed research. At this point, you know the concept you would want to use in your content and how it relates to the theme of your website. Your topics don’t have to be complicated. In fact, simple is usually better. When you have decided on your topic, your research will focus on those you want to feature. Keep in mind that the blogs should be active with recent posts, have an adequate level of followers, and you can easily access the contact information of the bloggers. Of course, if you’re writing a list, this should include people that deserve to be there and not just people that will be willing to share your link. If they are not worth being on the list, it will be evident that you’re only trying to bait readers.

 

1. Outreach

When you’re done with your research, the next stage is to create your content, of course. This should be as detailed as possible with proper proofreading and relevant information. You can also include links to the website of the people that will be featured in there, a screenshot of their website, or a picture of the bloggers themselves. The final important step is to reach out to these websites using a simple email message. Go straight to the point, talking about how you have featured them in a blog post because of the quality of their posts, flatter them with a simple statement that they do deserve recognition for that quality, and then put forward your request for link sharing. Keeping it simple is great for getting their attention as these people could be quite busy. No one has time for numerous pleasantries. You can then follow up with them as many times as necessary.

 

2. Backlink building using broken links

Broken links are numerous on the internet, and you can take advantage of this. With a decent amount of research, you will find high-quality pages with a lot of broken links. You can help them fix these broken links by providing a better alternative, which would be your website in this scenario. Finding broken links is quite easy. Carry out your research, create relevant content and then reach out to the owners of these pages. For example, if you run a shoemaking company and want to build links to your research on this process, you can find university websites with old pages on these. They will have some broken links that you can point out to the website owners and suggest your helpful replacement. Repeat this over and over again, and your backlink building strategy is well on its way to propelling your website to the top.

 

Benefits of backlinks for your business

Link building using backlinks is more than increasing the ranking of your website. Yes, this is important, but there are tons of other benefits attached to building backlinks for your business.

 

1. Building long-term relationships through outreach

One significant aspect of backlink building is the outreach. It usually involves reaching out to relevant blogs and websites in your industry. This can be frequent depending on how many times you need to promote your content or infographic. When you carry out outreach, the goal is usually to get a link, which can help build long-term relationships with these top influencers in your industry. Relationships like this can increase the relevance of your business, especially trust. This is quite valuable for your target audience as you are organically building genuine advocates for your business.

 

2. More traffic for your website

Any feature that brings sustainable traffic to your website is a win, and backlinks are one of the significant ways to get that referral traffic you need. When you have useful links on websites with a high number of daily visitors, this could automatically translate to more traffic for your website too. Relevant websites will always bring relevant traffic, and you may see the result in increased sales for your business. Remember that building backlinks is not just about your SEO strategy but also about getting more customers. You could be exposed to a large audience that is only mere visitors or a smaller audience passionate about purchasing your products and services. The difference is in how you effect your link-building strategy. However, people will pay more attention to links from websites that have built credibility over the years.

 

3. Build your brand

Business owners have a lot to gain from backlink building, and one of them is establishing their business as an authority in your industry. With good link-building techniques, especially quality content creation, you are on your way to building your brand and showing the world the level of expertise they can gain from your company. Creating content based on your industry data can give you a better reputation in your niche. With links out there, you are spreading the word about your brand, which will increase your popularity in this sphere.

 

Backlink building is a profitable SEO strategy for small to medium-sized business owners who would like to grow their business online. With these, you can get started and harness the power of backlinks.