Link building is one of the most successful strategies in SEO since it affects search rankings. Site owners use this method to acquire hyperlinks from other websites to increase trust and organic traffic regarding competitive niches. It helps them to create a solid digital presence when another business refers users to them for quality information. However, using spammy link-building techniques can negatively affect your web page. Search engines will notice such malpractices penalizing your site, affecting your rankings.
So, using the proper link building techniques to boost traffic to your webpage without violating search engine principles is essential. In fact, according to Google’s webmaster guidelines, links used to manipulate a page ranking might be considered a violation which may adversely affect its position.
With that said, if you have been planning to earn a good link or links that can take your brand to the next level and want to know how to do link-building. Here is a comprehensive guide to a successful link-building campaign that contains this common practice’s dos and don’ts.
The Dos of SEO link building strategies
Create Quality Content
One of the simplest ways of acquiring quality backlinks is by providing link-worthy content. It includes publishing information that offers value to the users by ensuring it is relevant. For your content to rank well, search engines crawl your website and check how valuable the information is to searchers. For this reason, it is best to focus on quality rather than quantity when you want more backlinks.
For example, writing well-researched and original content will earn you high-quality links to blog posts. More related web pages will be comfortable with hyperlinking content that directs users to your content. This can increase your visibility hence generating more revenue through qualified leads.
Some of the articles that are likely to get you natural links include; tutorials, guides, case studies, interviews, and infographics relating to your niche.
Try Guest posts
Have you ever heard of guest blogging? If you haven’t, it is a common link-building strategy for writing and publishing content for other sites. It will help you attract links and build a strong relationship that could benefit both sites in terms of traffic and authority. However, guest blogging needs you to pick sites that perfectly align with your industry to attract the right crowd.
So, after identifying a web page that aligns with your ideas, contact the owner and let them know you would like to make a guest blog post in exchange for inbound links. The good thing is that the best practice for guest blogging and link building is providing original and deep researched content that will attract qualified leads to your websites looking for more information. And with a guest post, you can link these articles to several web pages helping you focus on providing quality rather than quantity.
Use Social Media Channels
According to research, social media has become an integral part of organizations. It has provided a platform for businesses to increase their global visibility with fewer resources. Also, it offers more qualified leads since you can tailor your social media ad based on your prospective customers’ age, demographic, and interests.
On the same note, brands can use social media platforms to build relevant links from their audience by being more active and engaging. They can do this by creating relevant content that might spike the followers’ interest in learning more about their content. Therefore, it is best to include every post with a clickable link that directs them to your web page to get more links.
Moreover, being active on various social media networks might also attract other companies that can offer more backlinks for your website. Some platforms you should consider using as part of your link-building tactics include; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
Pursue Links from Authoritative Sites
In the olden days, site owners used every available technique to acquire links to their web pages by focusing on quantity. But nowadays, prospects trust you more when you use quality backlinks from authoritative sites. This is because not all links pointing to your webpage are beneficial and can convert to a successful sale.
Pursuing outreach opportunities from reputable organizations, educational websites, news, and other reputable industry publications is best. It is also vital to consider websites with low domain authority since they can easily hyperlink your content and benefit your web page in the long run.
Using Broken link building strategies
Another proper SEO link-building strategy a site owner can use it to find broken links and replace them with a working link you have created. It is one of the oldest methods, and all you need to do is contact the webmaster to request to hyperlink your newly created content.
In short, broken link building will help you acquire more links and assist the other party in cleaning up their web page. Also, you can adapt the link reclamation process, which is finding and replacing old links that do not bring value to your web page. However, it is crucial to note that this tactic can be time-consuming since you must visit various websites and follow links to determine if they are broken or dead links. Consequently, it is best to be patient and send those requests until your link-building efforts bore fruit.
Use Linkable Assets to Build Links
Every site owner strives to improve their search rankings by boosting their backlink profile. But since this is a competitive niche, you need to offer better content to acquire high-quality links. Therefore, with this link-building strategy, also known as The Skyscraper Technique, you need to locate top-performing content using the keyword research process and write higher-ranking content than the said piece.
In addition, The Skyscraper Technique has resulted in a high success rate of link building compared to other strategies. The founder of this method attained an 11 percent success rate, which is a favorable conversion rate for site linking.
Image Link building strategy
Most sites concentrate on creating content for their sites, but they forget images are also essential in search engine optimization. High-quality visuals help readers understand complicated subjects and make websites more appealing. Besides, research shows that searchers pay attention to photos that have relevant information.
So, you can create images that other site owners can use to build your backlink profile. Furthermore, you will be able to appear on high-quality sites that may feature your visual content bringing more traffic, which can lead to sales. But, not all images are ideal for building links; specific images are used for this purpose. They include; infographics, maps, graphs, product photos, logos, banners, and badges.
Optimize your Website to Rank it on the Search Engines
Website optimization is a crucial aspect that may earn you backlinks from high-quality sites. This is because no web admin is willing to hyperlink a user-unfriendly page that takes forever to load. With that said, some of the On-page SEO practices that ensure your website is well-optimized are by making sure;
- 1. It is mobile-friendly.
2. The site offers an excellent user experience.
3. It contains quality content.
4. It consists of optimized headlines, images, and HTML tags.
What are link-building mistakes?
Buying links
Several sites in the market sell backlinks to manipulate PageRank. While such link-building strategies might sound enticing, it is against Google’s webmaster guidelines since it is one of the black hat search engine optimization tactics. This could earn you a Google penalty, meaning searchers cannot find your website through organic results.
Furthermore, websites that sell links may already be on google scrutiny, thus adding your site as part of the dodgy domains. Also, such backlinks are of low quality and don’t bring qualified leads for your brand. Your web page will rank highly on search results that don’t convert to sales. Therefore, it is best to avoid buying links and use white hat SEO link-building strategies to acquire quality links from relevant sites.
Trading Links
Trading links is another black hat SEO strategy that can land you in trouble with search engines. It involves battering backlinks between two sites leading to a specific pattern that Google can detect.
For instance, site S will link to site T, and T will link back to site S, which is an easy routine that will not last long before your website is flagged.
Additionally, site owners have become more tactful by offering link building for agencies and creating a pool of sites for trading links. They will link to you, and then you link to their friend; the other guy will link back to you. By participating in these link schemes, google will label your websites as spammy, affecting your ranking position.
Cloaking
Cloaking is among the common link-building strategies in black hat SEO. It refers to when site owners present different content or URL to search engines than what is on their web pages. While it might rank your page on organic search results, it violates Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and may lead to penalization.
Use of Unnatural Anchor Text to Build Links
An anchor text is the clickable blue text that directs users to your page. Choosing the right word to highlight might be challenging, making people force the term unnaturally and confusing the readers. Also, site owners suggest a particular anchor text for all their content to web admins leading to keyword stuffing. It can pose your site with a high risk of getting penalized by google, negatively affecting your ranking results.
For this reason, it is crucial to allow writers, editors, and web admins to pick the correct anchor text to use when linking their site to your page. It is said that some search engines, such as Google, may promote sites that allow healthy placement of anchor texts.
Injecting Link-building
Injecting links is hacking into another site and inserting a link that leads to your page. Yes, you can quickly build your backlink profile, but it can damage your brand’s reputation. Furthermore, injecting links also jeopardizes the security of the other site, which might not even be related to your niche.
Hidden Text Link-Building Tactic
The hidden text technique is another black hat method to earn external links. It involves trying to hide keywords by either using white texts on a white background or behind visual content.
Don’t Allow Toxic Backlinks
As your website gains a high ranking on various search engines, you will receive toxic backlinks from websites created to offer black hat SEO tactics. They come from malicious web admins who are either your competitors or people trying to charge a fee to get them removed.
So, it would be best if you avoided such spammy link-building techniques by removing them from your site. You can use the Google Disavow tool to remedy keeping your website safe from such malpractices.
Using the Wrong Tools to Build Links
There are plenty of link-building tools in the market, and each promises to offer backlinks using white hat SEO tactics. But, some of these free tools violate search engine guidelines and might do more harm than good. So, it is crucial to do due diligence when choosing a linking tool to increase traffic to your website while still following the laid-out rules.
Don’t Build Backlinks to the Site Homepage Only
When building a backlink profile, every site owner wants it to look as natural as it can get. And when sites link to your page, it’s because it has quality content, such as blog posts, earning you natural links. However, some people direct their backlinks to their homepage without pointing to any specific content on the website. This may lead to Google penalization, thus affecting your site’s ranking on the search results.
Conclusion
Building your site backlink profile is not easy. It needs patience, effort, and following due diligence when looking to acquire more links due to the desperation of some site owners to rank high on various search engines. They fall into the temptation of using black hat SEO strategies to get fast results, putting in any effort. This tactic may bring in more traffic, but it might be the wrong crowd that is not interested in your niche.
Moreover, using frowned link-building techniques will make Google penalize your site, adversely affecting your ranking on search engines. With these advanced link-building tips, you choose your favorite link-building methods and take your site to the next level.
References
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guidelines/webmaster-guidelines
https://search.google.com/search-console/disavow-links
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/photos-as-web-content/
https://backlinko.com/skyscraper-technique
