Perhaps you’ve heard about link building before and been wondering if it could help your business but since you don’t know much about it, you have forgotten about it over time. Just like you, a lot of people tend to overlook link building and we’re here to help you understand why it should be part of your marketing arsenal.
If you want to promote your business online, acquiring relevant and authoritative backlinks is one of the great ways to improve your organic website traffic and keyword rankings. The methods used in carrying out this process may have changed over time but they all produce the same results.
Today, we will be sharing to you what you need to know about link building and the methods you can use to significantly boost your online presence.
Now that you are aware of the importance of backlinks, you might be wondering how or where do you start. First, you should determine how many websites are already mentioning or linking to your website. This can be carried out using tools like SEO auditing or SEO backlink checker. These tools will help you find websites that are willing to link back to you and which of your web pages have the best chances of gaining relevant backlinks.
Furthermore, you can take a look at your competitors. Find out what keywords and marketing strategies they are using. Additionally, take a closer look at your existing backlinks and the links that your competitors are using. This will help you gain ideas on what strategies are working well for your specific target audience, niche or industry. What works for them will probably work for you.
As we have mentioned earlier, there are many ways on how you can carry out link building. Here are a few techniques and tips that you can use to get started.
Local Link Building. This is the process of using locally stationed links to establish your business and help it gain the highest possible rank of geo-targeted keywords. This technique has a high chance of conversion on your end.
This technique is accomplished by encouraging other businesses in your area to link back to your website. Although it sounds very simple, executing this process might be quite challenging, especially if there are limited opportunities available in your area. Although this would mean linking to authentic and relevant businesses in your town or region with low domain authority, this leverage can help you gain more organic visitors.
Another strategy for local link building is persuading local news websites and directories to share your meaningful content. For instance, you can ask the local chamber of commerce, local business directory (a legitimate one), or local government to feature your products or services on their website. This potential for brand exposure may come for free or at a cost.
The best way to catch the attention of other webmasters and gain backlinks is to publish content in various forms such as videos, infographics, assessments, quizzes, 360-degree tours, surveys and pools, calculators and more. Just make sure your linkable assets are genuinely helpful, evergreen, useful, non-promotional, in-depth and top-of-funnel. Your ultimate goal is to become a comprehensive guide to whatever industry you specialise with.
Find Unlinked Brand Mentions. This might surprise you but there is a possibility that many websites are already mentioning you in their content but are not linking to your website. This is a great opportunity for link building. All you need to do is contact the website and ask them to link back their content to your website.
How will you determine which websites are already mentioning you? You can use the search engine and use the search command “your brand name” -site:yoursite.com. Narrow down your research by concentrating on content that is fresh and relevant. For instance, you would want to stick to news and content that has mentioned you in the past year. As soon as you get a list of websites mentioning you, double check if they are linking back to you or not.
If you want to be notified whenever your name is mentioned in the internet, you can set up your Google alerts to do so.
Guest blogging. If you have the time, you can reach out to other websites or publications and write high-quality content for them. In return for your time and resources, the third-party websites will allow your blog to link back to your own website. This technique will also help establish you as a thought leader in your own field or industry.
Aside from using the 4 techniques we have mentioned earlier, you suggest that you implement a systematic approach to your goal.
First, create a strategy that will help you hit your goals.
Second, find the right SEO tools to do the job. You can stick to tried-and-tested competitor analysis tools, backlink checkers, marketing toolkits like SEMrush, Majestic, Moz or Ahrefs.
Third, keep an eye on your success rate. Monitor the number of websites you have reached out to, the number of replies that you have received, and determine the Trust Flow or Domain Authority of the websites you have earned a link with. This will help you determine which of your tactics are effective or not.
Lastly, just allow the process to go through and wait for the results. It may take time to get the results that you desire but as long as you stick to the techniques that are working for you, your efforts will be worth it.
As we have mentioned earlier, link building is one of the effective ways to boost your online presence. Although search engines are constantly changing the algorithms, link building is one of the techniques that is tried-and-tested when it comes to improving your website’s SEO performance.
Search engines now view high-quality links as votes of confidence to your website and the more links you have, the better your SEO rank will be.
Do you want your website to gain more organic traffic? Do you want to increase your brand recognition? Do you want to build lasting relationships with other websites in the same industry as you are? Talk to the digital marketing experts of Smarter Media today and they will help you get started!
