There are over one billion websites on the internet. This means your content can easily get lost or ignored if you don’t take steps to make yourself noticeable online.
Getting your website noticed is where SEO comes in. By optimizing your website to rank on search engines, you can increase the chances your ideal customers will find you. You want your website to rank on the first page of search results if possible.
75% of searchers won’t look past that first page of search results. There are many SEO practices you can use to rank higher. One of the most important steps is link building.
There are several types of linking you can use to do this link building. Some work better than others though. It’s important to understand which types of links will get you the best ranking results.
What Is Linking?
Link building involves building up links from other websites and pages to individual pages on your website. These links help you build up your SEO rankings. These links connect your content to other relevant content.
This practice helps you build authority which builds up your search engine rankings. When link building, you establish your link with anchor text. This text involves keywords you want to rank.
Why Is Link Building Important?
Google and other search engines determine your website rank based on your content. They also base this rank on the number of links that point back to your content.
It’s not just the number of links though. Search engines look at the quality of the websites that link back to you. The number and quality of websites linking to you help search engines determine the relevancy of your content.
Outside of SEO, links send referral traffic to your site. If you have a link on a high-traffic website, you have a better chance of getting more traffic, no matter where you rank.
Link building also grows brand recognition. This helps you establish authority in your industry. You need something worth linking to first though.
Types of Linking
The link type falls into two categories. These categories are inbound and outbound links. Both types of links help establish and build your website authority. This helps you move towards that coveted first page of search results.
Inbound Links
Inbound or internal links are links on your website to your own content. These internal links help visitors and search engines find your relevant content.
These internal links work in a couple of ways.
- Including links to relevant content on individual web pages.
- Including links to other content when publishing new content.
- Updating old content to link to new content.
Each of these internal link options helps you lead visitors and search engines through your pages and content. It’s important to make sure that all links lead to high-quality information that’s relevant to the page or content they are found.
You can also use social share buttons to help build traffic to this internal content. This doesn’t build SEO, but it does make it easier for visitors to put your content in front of other possible leads.
Backlinks
Backlinks are the links that appear on other websites to lead people to your content. These links establish authority by showing your content’s relevancy to others. The more of these backlinks you have, the more relevancy search engines place on your information.
How to Build Backlinks
There are several ways to build these backlinks. Each of these methods is part of your link building campaign.
Interviews
Do you know an expert in your field that you could interview? This acts as a great way to establish your authority in your industry while opening a backlink opportunity.
To make this method work, you send the link to the person you interviewed and ask if they want to share it. They will usually want to include the interview link on their news or press release pages for their own site. You now have a backlink on an expert’s website and you’ve established the beginnings of a relationship.
Guest Posts
Guest posts are another way to get links on other websites while adding value and building relationships. A guest post is a method where you write content for another site. You can include one good link back to relevant content on your site in the post.
It’s important to make sure the site you guest post for is relevant to your industry. You also want to choose a site that has plenty of traffic and established authority for the best results.
Broken Link Building
Many people use links from other websites to add value to their content. Sometimes these links get broken or the other website goes offline. When this happens the person who linked to them are left with a useless link on their website.
You can search for these types of broken links on websites relevant to your industry. When you find broken links that fit your content, you can email the owner of the website offering one of your links to replace the useless one.
Self-Created Links
Self-created links are links you add to outside websites. This type of link includes
- Links in forums
- Website directories
- Article directories
- Anchor text in press releases
- Links in guest post signatures
- Links in blog comments
These methods are easy ways to distribute links to other sites, but they’re not ideal for building authority. Google doesn’t give much value to these types of links because of people abusing these methods.
Outreach Links
Outreach links are the most common links for increasing SEO. This is an important aspect of your link building strategy.
Outreach links involve contacting blog and website owners to ask them to link to you. You contact them with a specific link in mind for them to use.
You should contact people who are relevant to your industry for this method to work. You also need to make sure you have high-quality content for them to link to, or they’ll likely ignore you.
Natural Links
Natural links are the most coveted type of link for people wanting to increase SEO. They’re also the hardest type of link building to get.
Natural links are links that another site uses to direct people to your site without you asking them. They share the content because they believe your content is valuable enough to share.
To start accessing natural links, you will likely need to establish some outreach links. This puts your content in front of more eyes so these other sites can learn of your content naturally.
Strategies to Get Your Links Noticed
To find link building opportunities, you need to build relationships with others in your industry. You want to establish yourself as part of the community. You also want to establish yourself as someone worth paying attention to.
There are several ways you can reach out to people in your industry. Remember, it’s about establishing and building relationships so you can network further.
Social Media
Social media is a great way to establish your company. Not only can you use it to connect with leads and customers, but you can also use social sites to connect with others in your industry.
By connecting with your peers and building those relationships, you have an in for contacting them down the road. Plus, you can share high-quality content to increase the chances they will see it and want to use it.
You also have the opportunity to get your content in front of others in your industry you haven’t connected with. Every time someone shares your content, you increase your chances of having it linked to other sites.
Email Website Owners
Another easy way to get your links in front of the right eyes involves emailing them to share your content. Do your research and find websites that are relevant to your industry and niche. Also, make sure they’re an established website.
Once you locate the right people, check your content and make sure it’s worth sharing. Then contact the website owners.
Tell them who you are and what you have to offer. Send them the link you want them to use and ask if they can include it on their site. It really is that simple.
Create Content that Digs Deeper
You can get more links by knowing what information is already available. Search for content relevant in your industry and see what people have already said about your industry’s topics.
You can use this information to dig deeper into a particular topic. Once you have deeper content, you can contact other site owners to ask them to link to your content in something they already have on the topic.
Participate in Expert Roundups
Expert roundups are collections of content relevant to a particular industry. One website will gather relevant content on a particular subject and post links on their website for people to find in one place.
You can look for these opportunities online, or you can create your own roundup. When you reach out to people for links to create your own roundup you create a relationship with them. It makes them more likely to consider your website next time they need a link for content on their site.
Don’t Forget Outbound Links
A link building strategy isn’t just about getting your links on other websites and pages. It’s also about linking to relevant content already available.
When you link to a high-quality site, you establish authority for your own content. Search engine crawlers will take this relevancy into consideration when they rank your site.
Your Link Building Strategy
In order to get your links noticed, you need a plan in place. This requires research and networking. You need to make certain decisions so you have a real link building strategy in place.
Do your research on the places to ask for backlinks.
- What are the best websites in your industry?
- What type of content do they link to?
- What type of content do you already have available?
- What content can you create to make them want to link to you?
Make sure you know who you want to reach out to for backlinks. Know their website so you don’t offer content they already link to. Also, know who to contact and the best way to contact them.
Evaluate Your Content
You also want to take a good look at the content you already have. Does it provide valuable information? Is it still relevant?
Go through your older content and update it to share new insights or data. Make sure it’s not sloppy. Most importantly, make sure the information actually provides value to the reader.
Look for places that you can expand on past content as well. Can you create another article to go more in-depth on something you brought up in a past article? Take the time to research and add to these past topics.
Organize Your Efforts
Make a list of the websites you’d like to work with. Determine how you want to establish the backlinks from these sites.
Make lists of people you want to guest post for or you want to contact to ask them for links. Keep up with who you’ve already contacted. Create a follow-up schedule.
Also, make sure you keep a list of backlinks you’ve already established. This includes keywords used as anchor texts. You want to make sure you’re not using the same keywords for every backlink.
You also want to track how effective these backlinks are. Put tracking tools in place to know how much traffic you get from these links. Use this information to evaluate your efforts and tweak your content as needed.
Get Started on Your Link Building Strategy
If the idea of link building seems daunting, there are some steps you can take to make it easier. The different types of linking strategies are easier to wade through once you get started.
Do you want to start building links right away? Contact us to find out how we can help you get your first backlink.