A “backlink” is created when another website links to yours.
Want to grab some quality back-links and boost the SEO ranking of your site?
There you go. Here are 5 proven link building strategies that will help to boost your site’s google ranking.
Let’s get started.
1. Double Down on Effective Content Formats
When it comes to creating content that will attract quality links you should not rely on guesswork.
There are a number of proven content formats that people LOVE to link to:
- List Posts
- Quizzes
- “Why” Posts
- “How to” Posts
- Infographics
- Videos
But one thing that you must not forget is, every industry is different. In your space videos might work best. And for others, it’s list posts.
So we recommend trying out a few different formats and seeing what works best for you.
Then, double down on those formats.
Sometimes you can just combine two or more of these formats into one piece. For example, A “How To” post in list format, or a “Why” post with an infographic or video would do the trick.
2. Resource Page Link Building
What’s the purpose of a resource page? To link out to other useful pages!
And that’s a link builders dream.
All you have to do is:
- Find them.
- Make sure you have something that’s worthy of a link.
- Reach out.
Let us tell you something, finding them is probably the hardest part. So here are 10 advanced Google searches that will help:
- “{your keyword}” + inurl:resources
- “{your keyword}” + inurl:links
- “{your keyword}” + inurl:recommended
- “{your keyword}” + “top websites”
- “{your keyword}” + “top sites”
- “{your keyword}” + “recommended websites”
- “{your keyword}” + “recommended resources”
- “{your keyword}” + “further reading”
- “{your keyword}” + “recommended reading”
- “{your keyword}” + “useful sites”
Flipping this round, a well-curated, super helpful resource page on your own site can be great for picking up quality links. You can even try reaching out to OTHER resource pages to suggest they link to YOUR resource page. It sounds a bit like Inceptionbut it works!
3. Unlinked Brand Mentions
If someone mentions your brand in an article, but doesn’t include a link, that’s a HUGE opportunity.
All you gotta do is reach out and 9 times out 10 you’ll get a link.
In fact you can set up an alert for your brand name.
That way you’ll get a notification any time your business is mentioned on the web.
4. Make sure your content stands out
You can use Skyscraper technique.
skyscraper content helps a lot in building high-quality links.
The best part? This approach is simple. In fact, it’s so simple, it can be expressed in 3 steps:
- Find a popular piece of content in your niche. Hint: popular = lots of backlinks.
- Make something even better.
- Promote the heck out of it!
With that, here are a few extra tips to help you scale this strategy.
Find Popular Content
Your first point of call is Google. Search a popular keyword in your niche, and it’s a safe bet that the page ranking at #1 will have backlinks powering that #1 ranking.
But say you’re not sure which topic is going to be best for attracting links. Is there a way to take out the guesswork?
Yup.
(note: you’ll need an Ahrefs, Majestic or Moz account for this)
Ahrefs and other link analysis tools have a report called “Best by links”. This will show you the most linked-to pages on any site.
So plug-in a competitor’s site, find their most popular pages, and you’re set. Easy peasy.
Make Something Better
Found a page to skyscraper? Great. Your next step is to create something even better.
But making your page “a little” better isn’t going to cut it.
If you REALLY want to pull in those links you’re going to have to make something a LOT better.
How to do it?
Easy. Work out on what’s missing. Then, fill in those gaps.
Here are a few tips:
- Does the ranking page go in-depth on the topic? If not, make sure you cover EVERYTHING it skipped.
- Is the ranking page text heavy? If so, include TONS of high-quality images in your post to make it more visually appealing.
- Does the ranking page include video? If not add one to yours.
- Does the ranking page include 10 tips? Then try including 20. Doubling is a good starting point.
- Does the ranking page include links to related resources? If not, make sure yours does.
Promote It
Reaching out to people you featured in your content is a good place to start with content promotion.
Besides that, here are some other tips:
- Reach out to people who linked to your competitor’s page.
- Reach out to people who commented on your competitor’s page.
- Reach out to people who shared your competitor’s page on social.
- Reach out to people who linked to other pages in the top 10.
Build a big prospect list and there you go.
5. Podcast Link Building
Podcasts have gone from relative obscurity less than a decade ago to one of the fastest-growing marketing channels available today.
Currently podcast is becoming one of the growing marketing channel in Bangladesh as well. Which means it’s a potential channel for you to explore and make the best out of it.
The power of podcasts isn’t limited to reaching people who are listening.
When properly leveraged, podcasts can have a powerful impact on organic search, too.
There are two main reasons for this.
- Podcasts can drive people to search for a person’s or company’s name. This type of branded search can send positive signals to Google that can influence search suggestions, as well as improve ranking overall.
- Most podcasts are also available outside of aggregators like iTunes and Stitcher – most often, on someone’s website.
This typically leads to links in both directions.
The website hosting the podcast will usually link to their guest’s website from the post for that episode.
The guest, and in some cases, their fans, will link to that episode on the podcast website.
In other words, both having a podcast and being a guest on other podcasts can be an effective way to earn quality links.
Often, these links will also drive valuable referral traffic, too.
The process can be explained in brief like this:
Timeframe: This is a fairly simple and straightforward process – compile a list of relevant podcasts and pitch them on you (or your client) being a guest. This could take as little as an hour depending on the niche and how many podcasts you want to pitch. Some niches may have only a few
Results detected: You could begin earning links within a few weeks, but some podcasts are booked out months in advance, so it may take a lot longer. They may begin impacting ranking just as quickly, depending on the topics you want to rank for, and the authority and relevance of the websites the links are on, but in most cases, you should expect to see a lag time of several months.
Average links sent per month: This will depend entirely on how many podcasts are in your niche, and how many you can fit into your schedule. After all, there are only so many hours in the day and you can’t spend them all being interviewed on podcasts. Most niches will have at least a dozen or so podcasts, but certain niches, like business or digital marketing, could have hundreds.
Tools needed:
Benefits: This can be an effective way to earn the kind of high-quality, relevant links that can dramatically improve ranking. Often, these are links that your competitors may not have considered, giving you an advantage over them in search.
Podcasts tend to have highly-engaged audiences, which means that these links are more likely to generate referral traffic.
This tactic goes beyond SEO by creating positive publicity. And as more people hear about your brand, the branded search will also increase, which can be a positive signal to Google.
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