Backlinks are one of the quality signals Google uses to rank content.
When a site has many high-quality backlinks, it indicates that other sites find its content valuable and reliable, thus boosting its credibility in the eyes of search engines. Hence, websites with high-quality backlinks are likely to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) than those without.
But attracting high-quality backlinks isn’t easy. You could end up with a lot of spammy links that attract penalties, such as a drop in rankings or being removed from search engine indexes altogether, known as de-indexing.
In this article, we’ll show you nine link building strategies for earning backlinks from trustworthy websites.
What is Backlink Building?
Backlink building, or link building, means acquiring hyperlinks from other websites to your own. It’s crucial for SEO because search engines like Google consider backlinks as votes of confidence. The more reputable and relevant websites link to yours, the higher your site will likely rank in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Think of backlink building like networking at a professional conference. Each person you meet and connect with represents a backlink. The more respected and influential the person (or website) endorsing you, the more credibility and visibility you gain in your field. Just like in networking, it’s not about how many connections you have but the quality and relevance of those connections that truly matter.
How to Build Quality Backlinks
Now that you know why backlinks are important, here are nine trusted strategies for acquiring quality links from other websites.
1. Publish Guest Posts
Guest blogging involves writing articles or posts for other websites within your industry or niche, typically with a byline that includes a link to your site — like what we’ve done here.
Many websites have guest posting programs that allow you to pitch and publish vetted content on their blogs. The important thing here is to choose a website that’s relevant to your niche. For example, if you’re a digital marketing agency, you can publish guest posts on SEO and keyword rank tracker websites.
Before publishing guest posts, use third-party signals like domain authority to vet the website’s trustworthiness and credibility in the SERPs. Domain Authority (DA) is a metric developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine results pages (SERPs). It’s scored on a scale from 1 to 100, with higher scores indicating a greater chance of ranking.
2. Engage in Resource Link Building
Many websites maintain resource pages or lists of recommended tools, websites, or resources within a particular industry or niche. Identifying the ones relevant to your content or offerings can provide valuable backlink opportunities.
Reach out to the website owner or content manager, introducing yourself and your website, and politely suggest adding your site as a valuable resource to their page. Highlight how your content or offerings align with their audience’s interests and needs, making it more likely for them to oblige your request.
3. Build Links With the Skyscraper Technique
The skyscraper technique is a content marketing strategy that involves identifying high-performing content in your industry, creating something even better, and then reaching out to websites that linked to the original content to suggest they link to yours instead.
Start by conducting thorough research to identify popular and highly-linked content within your niche. Then, create an improved version of that content, whether it’s more comprehensive, up-to-date, or visually appealing. Finally, reach out to the websites that linked to the original content, highlighting the value and improvements of your version and politely asking them to consider linking to your content instead.
4. Collaborate With Influencers
Partnering with influencers or industry experts can boost your content’s reach and engagement and increase the likelihood of earning backlinks. Identify influencers or thought leaders within your industry with a significant social media following and engage with your target audience.
Reach out to them with a personalized pitch, highlighting how collaborating with you can benefit their audience and add value to their content strategy. You can co-create website content with them, host joint webinars or events, or ask them to promote your article to their audience.
5. Engage in Broken Link Building
Broken link building is a tactic that involves finding broken or dead links on other websites and offering your content as a replacement.
Use Seobility’s backlink checker to analyze relevant websites within your niche and identify broken links pointing to outdated or removed content. Once you’ve identified these opportunities, contact the website owner or webmaster, inform them of the broken link and suggest your content as a suitable replacement.
6. Create Infographics
Infographics are visually appealing and highly shareable content that clearly and concisely presents complex information.
Creating informative and visually engaging infographics can attract other websites and bloggers looking for compelling content to share with their audience. Include embed codes with your infographics to make it easy for others to share them on their websites while ensuring proper attribution and a backlink to your site.
7. Share Subject Matter Expertise
With Google’s latest EEAT guidelines, many websites are looking for subject matter experts to contribute to their content and boost their credibility. In return, they’ll reward your website with a do-follow link.
You can sign up on PR sourcing websites like HARO, Qwoted, and HelpAB2B Writer to find these SME requests. Identify the ones that match your expertise and guarantee backlinks from high-authority websites. Then, send a tailored pitch sharing genuinely helpful information, highlighting your unique experience with the subject matter.
8. Create Link-Worthy Assets
Link-worthy assets are content or resources on a website that are valuable and compelling enough to attract backlinks from other websites. These assets are typically high-quality, unique, and provide significant value to the target audience.
Examples include:
- Comprehensive Guides and Tutorials: In-depth guides or tutorials that offer valuable information, insights, or solutions to common problems in your industry can attract backlinks from other websites looking to reference authoritative content. For example, as an SEO agency, you can publish a guide to help in-house marketers understand the impact on AI overviews on search results.
- Original Research and Studies: Conduct and publish original research or studies within your niche to establish your website as a trusted source of information and attract backlinks from other researchers, journalists, and industry experts.
- Interactive Tools and Calculators: Develop interactive tools, calculators, or quizzes that provide value to your audience to encourage other websites to link to your site as a valuable resource for visitors.
- Roundup posts: Gather relevant statistics from various sources, such as research studies, industry reports, surveys, or government data, and present them in a consolidated format that other publishers can reference and link to.
9. Monitoring Brand Mentions and Unlinked References
Sometimes, other websites mention your brand name or product without linking to your website. While these mentions are valuable for brand awareness, they also present an opportunity to convert them into backlinks to improve your website’s SEO and visibility.
Use services like Google Alerts or Mention to monitor online mentions of your company, goods, or content. Find examples of places that reference your brand but do not link to your website. Then, contact the writers or owners of those websites to request a backlink.
Provide specific linking suggestions to make it easy for website owners or content creators to add backlinks to their mentions. Offer anchor text suggestions or direct links to relevant pages on your website that would enhance the reader’s experience.
Stay Ahead of the Curve With Effective Backlink Building Tactics
Once you’ve diligently implemented your backlink building strategies, the next crucial step is to monitor how these efforts affect your website’s rankings.
This is where a reliable rank tracker like Keyword.com comes in. It will help you monitor how specific web pages rank in local search results for relevant keywords. That way, you can monitor the impact of your link-building efforts to determine what’s working and what needs to be improved.
Try Keyword.com for free for 14 days.
About the author
When speaking fails, Nadiah writes. If she’s not writing, she’s either searching for novels to read, psychological thrillers to watch, or inline skating tricks to learn.
