If you’re looking to get your blog to the top of Google search results, one of the best way to achieve that is through building authoritative backlinks.
Links that point back to your website from other sites help Google’s bots evaluate the potential of your website to rank on search.
The concept of link building is actually simple: The more quality sites link to yours, the higher your opportunities to climb to the top of Google.
What this means for you is that you’ll be getting more visitors (traffic) and potential sales.
Google Penguin Update
In April 2012, Google launched its Penguin Update where it would punish websites that get backlinks using spammy techniques.
Years back, a lot of SEO webmasters came up with a bunch of spun articles and posted them on sites that were relevant to their niches in hope that Google will reward them.
I’m here to tell you that this scheme doesn’t work anymore.
You should be paying more attention to where you get backlinks. What this means is that before building backlinks, you assess a domain in terms of:
- Domain authority (DA) score: 0-100
- Relevance to the niche of your website
- Likelihood to naturally link to your site
How to Get Backlinks [6 Best Tips]
In this article, I’m sharing with you 6 effective ways to generate high-quality backlinks. Try exploring the techniques below.
1. Create great content
I’m sure you’ve heard it time and again that the quality content is a timeless way to attract natural backlinks.
Every piece of content you create should be able to demonstrate your authority on a topic.
Write to solve the problems of your readers. Offer free and meaningful advice that people can apply in their day-to-day lives. Focus on quality over quantity.
Commenting on other high-quality blogs is a brilliant strategy to acquire backlinks. However, you should know that not all blogs are capable of boosting your SEO.
What you’d want to do is to look for sites that allow you to write do-follow comments. Do-follow refers to links that affect your search rankings.
Always provide insightful comments. Don’t just focus on getting backlinks, make an effort to give backlinks with real value to blog readers.
3. Guest Blogging
A lot of sites where your top competitors get backlinks from can be your target sites for guest posting.
Once you’ve found competitors that rank high for the same keyword you want to rank for, study their backlink profile using Ahrefs or Majestic.
If the sites that link to your competitors have high DA scores, email them to ask if you can contribute a high-quality article to their blog section. Leave a link to your blog in your author bio or anywhere in your article.
4. Provide Testimonials
Are you using products from websites in the same niche?
If so, contact these sites and let them know that you are happy to leave a testimonial of their product. They would definitely appreciate this to boost their social proof.
Make sure to leave a genuine and interesting review. Ideally, names on testimonials have links to their websites to prove that they are from real individuals.
5. Submit Your Blog to Niche Directories
A niche directory focuses on adding links to websites that belong to a specific niche. Niche directories are important since people visit them to discover sites they might take interest in.
AllTop happens to be one of the best directories you can list your website on to get a backlink and improve your SEO. As of today, it has a DA score of 80.
Try to aim for niche directories with a DA score of at least 40. Also, another way to know whether a directory is good is to check other sites listed on it. If they are spammy, don’t proceed!
6. Find Broken Links on the Web
Though broken link building can be a time-consuming process, it remains a great tactic to get quality backlinks.
If you are wondering what this strategy is, broken link building involves finding broken external links (links that are no longer live) on websites.
What you need to do is send a friendly email to a webmaster who links out to a resource that no longer exists. If you have a great article that’s similar to the content of the broken link, make a suggestion to the webmaster to replace it with your link.
Final Words
Building good backlinks is a solid and long-term SEO strategy to grow your online business.
If you want to be a potential site to link out to, no matter the link building strategy you use, start improving your SEO by following good practices.
Here’s a quick recap of the link building tips I just mentioned:
- Create great content
- Blog commenting
- Guest blogging
- Provide testimonials
- Submit your blog to niche directories
- Find broken links on the web
I do hope that this simple guide will boost your efforts in running a successful SEO link building campaign.
Author Bio:
Kanti Kashyap is a blogger and founder of TheLifeTech.com. She has an experience of 5+ years in digital marketing. She’s is extremely passionate about spreading knowledge among people about blogging, SEO and link building.