What Are Backlinks?
Backlinks are incoming links to a webpage from other webpages. They are a key factor in how search engines like Google determine the popularity and authority of a webpage. More backlinks from reputable, high-quality sites tend to improve a page's ranking in search results. Backlinks help search engines understand the relevance and quality of a webpage based on the sites and pages that link to it. Building backlinks is often a strategy used in search engine optimization SEO (You check out our guide on that here) to try to improve a site's visibility and traffic in organic/natural search results.
Why Are Backlinks Important?
Overall, backlinks serve as votes of confidence from other sites, helping search engines determine which pages offer valuable content on a given topic. So the more of these “votes” you have, the higher your site will rank in Google and other search engines.
What Types of Backlinks Are Valuable?
Not all backlinks are created equal. One single quality backlink can be more valuable than hundreds of low quality backlinks that don't give Google good confidence in your site and content.
Here are 3 traits of a quality backlink:
Relevance
The linking page should be topically related to the page receiving the backlink. Links from closely related sites are seen as more valuable by search engines. Google want to make sure that the two sites are related. If you're a tech blog you wouldn't want to get backlinked to a ESPN. It's not at all relevant.
Authority
Links from authoritative, reputable sites with high domain authority pass more value. You could get a backlink from Forbes or some random blog. Which would you choose? Google likes the former. If the site you're getting linked from has high authority, that authority will then be passed along to you. These links are very hard to get but so worth it if you can attain them.
Diversity
Sites that have linked to you before in the past who continually link to you and your site will not help your standing with Google in any way. Google loves seeing your site get new unique backlinks from different sites compared to 100 links from one site.
And that makes sense right? If you're getting linked to from multiple sites, that means you're diversifying and broadening your reach.
Create Linkable Assets
Linkable assets are pieces of content that are designed to attract backlinks and increase a website's authority. These assets entice other sites to link back to your content, earning valuable backlinks in the process.
These can be blog posts, videos, surveys, case studies, how-to guides, infographics, etc. The key is creating content that provides unique value, solves a problem, or offers something useful to readers.
This content should then be promoted to encourage links, such as outreach to relevant sites and influencers. High-quality linkable assets that gain popularity can continue attracting backlinks over time. The ultimate goal is earning backlinks from diverse sources to boost rankings.
Related: Internal Linking Guide For Beginners
How to Acquire Backlinks
Link Roundups
A link roundup is a post that compiles and links to multiple other resources and articles around a common topic. For example, a weekly roundup linking out to the top 10 most insightful marketing articles of the week.
Link roundups provide value to readers by curating and consolidating the best content so they don't have to search for it themselves. This makes them an effective linkable asset. The linking site gains valuable backlinks from each site featured, while also establishing themselves as an authority curating the best content on a topic.
For the sites being linked to, roundups represent an opportunity to reach an expanded audience. Think of link roundups as a win-win. The curating site earns links while sites being featured also benefit from the exposure. By consistently compiling relevant weekly or monthly link roundups, sites can continually attract quality links over time, boosting their domain authority and search visibility.
Process for Getting Link Roundups
Find Link Roundups In Your Niche:
Use search strings in Google search, like ““Keyword” + “link roundup”.
Pitch Your Resource:
Suggest that they include your linkable asset to the roundup.
If your post is a good fit for that person’s roundup, you’ll get a high-quality link. Simple as that!
There's another method which takes a little more effort and some digging to find.
First, you need to find web pages, or businesses that are outdated, rebranded or who have recently changed names.
Then, find the sites that are still linking to these outdated resources.
Lastly, you will want to email the applicable person to let them know that they’re linking to something that’s out of date.
Assuming you could get in contact with the right person, this will be a success more times than not.
Broken Link Building
Broken link building is the process of finding broken links on other websites, fixing them with your own content, and thus acquiring a backlink. It works on the premise that website owners are often eager to fix broken pages by replacing dead links with relevant working links.
This provides an opportunity to earn high-quality backlinks from authoritative sites. These sites are often more reputable than ones you'd directly request links from anyways. So, you're helping them fix a broken link and becoming the fix with your site there.
Site owners tend to be grateful for broken link reports they didn't know existed as it improves their site's user experience. So they may readily link back to your content again in the future.
Process for Acquiring a Backlink Through a Broken Link
To make it work, you need to thoroughly comb through sites for 404 errors and contact site owners about replacing the broken links with links to your content, if it's a good fit of course. Remember, relevance is still important.
There's a Chrome extension linked here that can help you find exactly what you're looking for.
Guest Posting
Guest blogging is one of the best to get links to your site. Find some high quality sites within your niche and you can write content for them which in return will get you that all too valuable backlink to your site.
Here are some tips for finding guest blogging opportunities:
- Use Google to search for phrases like "guest post guidelines", "contribute", "write for us", etc. along with keywords related to your site's niche. This can reveal sites accepting guest posts.
- Check out and engage with blogs in your industry. See if they accept guest contributions and review their guidelines. Most blogs list submission info in their "Write for Us" section.
- Identify other guest bloggers in your niche and check out more from them on Google. It's a good way to get a good list of sites that you can reach out to for a guest post.
Blogger Reviews
If you have a physical product, software, consulting service or anything else of value that you sell, you can easily turn those into high-quality backlinks.
Here’s how:
Find bloggers in your niche that might be interested in what you have to offer. Filter out how-to sites or news sites and you will have a list of bloggers that might be interested in your offer. Send them an email offering up your product or service free, but make sure you don't mention getting a review or backlink in the email. That should be for them to decide, assuming they even want what you are offering to begin with.
Link Reclamation
This process is simple. You search the internet for mentions of your name that haven't been linked back to you and you get the writer to link to you. Instead of wishing they linked to you, proactively reach out and ask them to link.
Use a tool like Mention to find out when someone writes about you. From there you just need to contact the right person and more times than not they will link back to you.
To Summarize
Link building is crucial for SEO success, but it must be done strategically. The most effective approaches focus on earning links from relevant, high-quality sites through valuable content and outreach. Tactics like broken link building, guest posting, linkable assets, and link roundups help acquire authoritative backlinks organically. But remember, low-value techniques like buying links or over-optimizing anchor text can do more harm than good. Keep your links diverse and be consistent with your outreach.
And if you want to learn more about marketing or have any questions for ushere at Open World Digital, you can contact us any time!
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