Backlinks are links that direct users from other websites to your site. They confer trust and credibility in the eyes of search engines like Google.
The more quality and relevant backlinks you acquire, your search engine rankings will increase.
There are two ways to get backlinks: inbound and outbound link strategy.
Inbound involves businesses linking to you naturally; outbound is when you reach out to businesses with a link-building offer.
We’ll discuss these backlink strategies in this post, and if you apply them diligently, your backlink graph will follow an upward trend soon enough.
How to Get Backlinks for SEO
Building links requires much work and resilience unless you’re a big-name brand. Here are some link-building strategies that have been proven to work repeatedly.
Be a Source to Journalists and Bloggers
One surefire way to build high-quality backlinks is by being a source to journalists and bloggers on platforms like Connectively (formally HARO), Featured, and Help a B2B Writer.
These content-sourcing platforms connect journalists and bloggers to subject matter experts to obtain credible quotes and insights on a topic.
Here’s how it works:
- Sign up on the platform and fill in your details
- Choose the topics or industries in which you have expertise in
- Then you’ll receive a bunch of email queries every day
- Give an in-depth and concise answer to queries and follow their instructions
If a journalist liked your pitch, they would include your quote in their article and probably link it to your site. The best part about this strategy is that authority news sites and publications use these platforms.
Top publications and businesses like Entrepreneur.com, Mailmodo, ClickUp, Wired, and U.S. News & World Report can be found. So, getting a backlink from them will significantly enhance your SEO efforts because they have a high domain rating.
Conversely, getting backlinks from authority publications is difficult because you compete with hundreds of other businesses. So, you must send at least three or more emails or pitches daily. Learn more about digital PR in SEO and how to build links with it.
Create Original One-of-a-Kind Content
You heard that right—original content, something that can’t be easily replicated by your competitors or, in fact, any other business. That’s a guaranteed way of earning natural links consistently over time.
How do you do that? Well, here are some ways:
- Interview SMEs and create thought leadership content
- Carry out an in-depth survey for data-based or statistical content with charts and graphs
- Design valuable and attractive infographics
- Do a scientific study or research on popular topics in your niche
- Create industry reports
- Craft content about a branded strategy
It might take a lot of time and resources to produce this type of content, but you’ll reap the rewards in the long term. If you promote your resource well enough, it won’t take long before writers and journalists start referencing your research or content.
A single piece of content can earn you a lot of backlinks, hundreds of them. Then what if you had 20 original content? You can do the numbers, probably a few thousand.
Write Valuable Long-form Content
Google and other search engines prefer long-form content because it is more in-depth and covers everything about a topic. However, it’s not about word count but about how valuable the content is.
Two types of linkable content fit into this category: skyscraper content and ultimate guides.
Follow these steps to create a skyscraper content:
- First, do keyword research to find popular topics earning backlinks. Alternatively, look up your competitor’s backlink profile for their best-performing content.
- Then, enter the keyword on Google and weigh the competitors in the search results and search intent. Do this repeatedly and come up with 10 or 20 possible topics.
- After that, look for content gaps and ways to make your content better than the content ranking for the keyword. For example, if they listed 10 tips, you’ll list 15-25 strategies and break them into chapters with visually appealing graphics.
This tactic also works for ultimate guides, but it’s shorter. Think of ultimate guides as a tutorial or crash course that explains everything about a topic or shows practical ways of achieving a goal.
Still, you have to create unique and helpful content for bloggers to reference your resource as a go-to content to learn about a topic.
A bonus content you can create is statistical listicle content. They might not always be long-form, but they can earn you backlinks because writers search for statistics and data to make their content more credible.
Claim Links from Brand Mentions
Some site owners may mention the name of your business in their posts without placing an outbound link. They could also list your product or service in a “best list” post without an external link so their audience can learn more about your business.
In short, your job is to send them a warm and friendly email requesting a link to your site. Most of the time, you’d get a positive response because they would likely be admirers of your business.
Remember, don’t push them to reference you properly; instead, appreciate them for mentioning your website and gently suggest they link to it.
However, keeping up with brand mentions can be an uphill task, so you’d need a tool like Google Alerts to monitor your brand mentions and claim those free links.
Replace Broken Links with Your Content
Some sites in your niche are linking to outdated resources, broken links, content that has been moved to a new URL, or pages that no longer exist.
You can find these sites with a quick Google search, plug their URL into an SEO tool, and dig up the broken links in their backlink profile. You can contact them if you have similar content that would be a good or even better replacement.
Be respectful in your email; fill them in on the broken link before offering your content as a replacement. There is a 50-50 chance of them placing your link on the broken page, but if your content is top-notch, they will link to your resource. Learn how to find and fix broken links easily.
Examine your Competitor Backlink Profile
Grab an SEO tool like Niche Empire and enter your competitor’s URL. Navigate to the referring domains(not the number of links) because a website can link multiple times to another website.
Now, go through the list and search for backlink opportunities. Repeat this for several other competitors, and you’ll have a massive list of websites to contact. Export the data to a spreadsheet to make your outreach email campaign organized and trackable.
Next, research each business and decide on a value proposition to tie to your offer. You can pitch a guest post, ultimate guide, or skyscraper content.
But first, get on their radar by sending them a warm-up pitch. Praise them on their wins and highlight a few things they can improve. Note that your email should be unique and not some copy-and-paste AI template.
Acquire Resource Page a Links
Some authority sites include sections for further reading that list quality content for their audience to explore.
If you can create better content than the ones they are linking to or find content on your website that would be a good addition, then reach out to the website and suggest that your content would be a valuable resource for their audience.
To find these sites, enter the following searches on Google:
- (keyword) inurl:blog intext: “Recommended articles”
- (keyword) inurl:blog intext: “Helpful resources”
- inurl:blog in(keyword) inurl:blog intext: “further reading”
- (keyword) inurl:blog intext: “Recommended reading”
- (keyword) inurl:blog intext: “helpful resources”
- (keyword) inurl:blog intext: “useful resources”
- (keyword) inurl:blog intext: “additional resource”
- (keyword) inurl:blog intext: “Read more”
Leverage Business Partnerships
You probably have a few business partners not linked to your website. So you could reach out to them and provide content for them to link to. They will naturally link to your business depending on how long you’ve been working with them.
Also, you can build relationships with website owners in your niche by engaging with them on social media and their websites. It’ll be easier to link to your newly published content when they’ve come to know and like your business.
Write Testimonials or Case Studies for other Businesses
Businesses will gladly link to your honest testimonial or case study about their products or services because you’re doing them a favor and helping them acquire more customers.
For example, you can write a case study of how a software product helped double your income in 4 months. Please don’t make up a fake story here because it can damage your website’s reputation when the truth comes out.
The business will proudly link to your site in its reviews section, and if your case study is extremely good, you can make it to their home page.
Partner with Influencers
Influencer partnerships can prove to be rewarding if you have the right offer. For example, you can find an influencer or industry expert with the same or similar audience as your business. Then, give them your product or service for free in exchange for a review.
They could write blog posts about your product or service and link to your site. Note that some influencers may ask for payment while others may require a unique offer, like an affiliate link, to get them to review your product and share it with their audience.
It’s a double win for you because you get backlinks to your website and access to a large audience.
Join Online Directories
Online directories or listings are a must-have for every business that operates locally. These listings will get you backlinks and help you attract leads and acquire long-term customers.
Here are some examples of listings you can join: Google Business Profile, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Apple Maps, and Yellow Pages. There are more niche-focused listings you can join.
However, links from online directories don’t carry much weight because they are no-follow links, but they can drive traffic to your website and boost your local SEO. Find top SEO directories to list your business.
Build a Free Tool to Earn Free Links
Everyone loves free tools; they are one of the best ways to build quality backlinks naturally. You’ve probably come across or used free blog idea generators, keyword research tools, and AI tools. Businesses link to free tools as a source for their audience to do tasks or get work done.
Before investing in free tools, research your niche and competitors to find the free tools that have earned the most backlinks. Then, pick a tool that suits your audience and remodel it with unique features that set it apart from what is already out there.
After that, you must promote the free tool to your network and watch your backlink profile soar. You can do the same for templates, even if they are primarily used as lead magnets.
Read More:
- What are SEO Links?
- What are Outbound Links in SEO?
- How to Build Quality Backlinks
- How to Build Local SEO Links
- How to Build Backlinks with Cloud Stacking
- How to Find and Fix Broken Links on Your Site
- What is Digital PR and How to Earn Links with it?
- What are Outbound Links?
Wrapping Up: How to Build Backlink for Online Visibility
As you’ve learned today, there are two ways of acquiring white hat links: inbound and outbound strategy. Any other tactics that involve buying links or linking to a bunch of low-quality crappy sites will only get you in trouble.
Inbound link-building strategies are the most difficult to pull off, but they can bring in a lot of link juice with time. In comparison, outbound strategies require personalized messaging paired with an irresistible offer.
People won’t just link to you because you went through hell to write your skyscraper content or ultimate guide. You have to show them what’s in it for them.
That’s it for now; I hope you enjoyed this post. Don’t forget to share this post with your friends and network on social media.
FAQs
- How do I create an SEO backlink?
You can create SEO backlinks by producing high-quality linkable assets like industry reports, then reach out to relevant websites and ask them to link to your resource. You can also find broken links on other sites, suggest your content as a replacement, or earn backlinks by answering journalists’ queries on platforms like Connectively (formally HARO).
- How to build backlinks for free?
You can build backlinks for free by:
- Writing guest posts for authoritative blogs
- Offer to replace broken links on other sites with your content
- Sharing your content on forums, communities, and social media
- Collaborating with influencers or using platforms like Connectively(formally HARO) to contribute expert quotes
- Repurposing content into infographics or videos to attract links naturally
- Reach out to businesses linking to your competitors
- What is the best strategy for SEO backlinks?
The best SEO strategy for SEO backlinks is creating original content like thought-leadership articles and data studies. Then, promote it on your website, social media pages, and email newsletter.
- Is it illegal to buy backlinks?
It’s against Google’s Spam Policy to buy links, yet the vast majority of SEOs buy links to rank their website or client websites. When you buy links, try to get them only from reputable sites with a high domain authority to reduce the chances of link spam manual penalty.
- Can you do SEO without backlinks?
You can do SEO without backlinks by focusing on on-page optimization, technical SEO, and creating high-value content resources. But without backlinks, you’ll find it difficult to rank for competitive keywords.
