As a blogger, you are constantly trying to rank for keywords and writing articles targeting various long tail keywords and doing all the optimizations to make sure it ranks. In this process, one of the most difficult aspects of ranking an article is building relevant links to it.
When it comes to link value, if the in coming link is coming from an authority site on the same niche as yours and the link is from within a relevant piece of content then that link is fairly strong. However, building only one kind of link is always bad for your link portfolio. The best aproach is to keep a diverse back link profile.
Here, in this article, we will cover several methods to get back links for your websites and blogs.
1. Profile Links: Surely, profile links aren’t in the trend as it once was. But it still carries weight and for the little effort it requires, it is always worth it. The best way to build profile links is to research your competitors and see from where they are getting their profile links. Other than that, there are several popular sites that allows you to signup and add a link to your website in the profile section. Most of these will be nofollow but still you will be able to find some dofollow gems if you research hard.
2. Web Directories: Both free and pay to get included web directories are good places to get backlinks. Against popular belief, directories aren’t as bad and if you test it on your niche blogs you will see that the directory links, if done at a smaller scale, bring a lot of ranking value.
3. Forums: There are several ways to build links from online forums. If the forum is relevant, the content of the forum matches that of your blog and you have built up a fairly good profile on the forum, then you can post some relevant links along with your replies in the forum. Some forums allow signature links which is another easy way to build links. There is a profile section in most forums and it is often dofollow. If you come across such forums, make sure to fill up the link field of your forum profile with your website’s link.
4. Make Infographics: Infographics acts as a link magnet. If you are good with designs or you have some funds to hire a graphic designer, then try getting some high quality infographics created. However, having the infographic is only half the battle. One needs to actively contact and outreach other bloggers to publish your infographics and in return provide a source backlink.
5. On Line Calculators: Online tools and calculators that can be embeded in a web page is a great idea to let others post your tools and calculators and display your branding link somewhere on the same page. These tools are easy to create and they are helpful too. The more blogs and websites embed your tool, the viral effect will let others do the same.
6. Research and Surveys: While writing an article, almost all authors and writers search the internet for citing sources. If you are able to outreach and collect data and then present it in the form of charts and diagrams, people will link to your content and use your research for making their content stronger.
7. Feedback and Testimonials: Have you ever bought something online. Chances are, most people have and so you are able to provide a review for your purchase. But if this review goes to an ecommerce site then you will simply get recognition for your review, not a backlinks. However, if you look up the websites of the items you have bought, and email them your review and testimonial then chances are that you will earn a proper backlink from the brand’s testimonial section.
8. Start a linking culture: Most bloggers are good with retaliating. That means, when you comment on other people’s posts, they do the same in return, when you share someone’s post, they share your content. In the same way when you start linking to other bloggers, they link back to your posts in return. If you continue working towards linking other people’s content from your posts, soon you will develop a linking culture in your blogging network.
9. Write Press Release: At one time, this form of marketing was heavily used to the point of even being misused for the purpose of marketing. Even now, press release does work and if some of the niche sites or media sites catch you press release then very soon your website will start attracting some very strong backlinks.
10. Keep an eye out for brand mentions: Sometime brands get mentioned on various sites and blogs. Often these mentions are simply text, not links. However, if you reach out to them and ask them to change the mentioned text to a hyperlink then it will become a backlink. Depending on how important the incoming link can be, one can do some additional work and write a piece of content which is relevant and worth getting linked from the mentioned text.
11. Check for broken links: Broken links are often excellent ways to get back your backlink. Monitor for broken links and when you find some, ask the webmaster to fix the link. It is pretty simple and this way you can quickly earn a backlink.
12. Look for your competitor’s backlink: Every business has several competitors and the backlinks built and earned by your competitors are always some of the best and most relevant links available. Start doing a competitor analysis and check how many backlinks they have. See if those backlinks can be easily achieved or if not then look into the efforts it might require to get a similar link.
Links will always be one of the most important ranking factor for search engines as it is one of the hardest to manipulate ranking signals. In time, the value of links will keep rising and thus it is considered as one of the most valuable digital asset.