Backlink building should be one of the cornerstones of any search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. This is the process of acquiring hyperlinks from other highly authoritative websites in your field. When this happens, Google takes it as a vote of confidence in your work, giving you a boost on the search engine results pages (SERPs). In this article, we’re going to outline how you can build more high-quality backlinks from high authority websites to your site.
Check out this article from ThemeREX for more information on why SEO is important for business or contact professionals at Chilli Fruit Web Consulting.
Let’s get started!
Guest Post for Quality Websites in Your Niche
Writing guest posts for other websites in your niche has multiple benefits — not only will you be able to get a high-quality link back to your website, but it also shows your expertise, authority, and trustworthiness, or E-A-T. This is something that Google has been paying a lot more attention to since 2018! Search engines want to send their users to quality websites that offer valuable and accurate information. By writing guest posts for other reputable websites, you can show that you are a reliable source.
To secure more guest posts, you’re going to need to reach out to the editors of relevant websites. Check to see if you have any social media connections with them, like on LinkedIn or Twitter. If so, you could reach out to them there to see if they are open to guest post submissions. Alternatively, check through the website’s blog — they may have an open call out for guest post submissions with any requirements.
You can use email outreach to secure guest posts, as well — send a professional email asking whether you can send across some topics for their consideration. It’s likely to be well-received.
Search for Online Mentions of Your Business
One of the easiest and most effective ways to collect more backlinks is to look for instances where you’ve already been mentioned online. Reach out to any websites that have already mentioned you, your website, or your work and ask if they could add a link back to your site.
This is a great way to build hyperlinks because it doesn’t require much work from the publisher and will drive more traffic to your blog or website. Not only is this good for backlink building, but it’s a good way to build relationships in your industry — an email like this could potentially score you other link building opportunities in the future.
Publish Shareable and Link-Worthy Content on Your Site
Content marketing is a major part of running an online business today. And publishing high-quality content that people will want to share and link to is one of the most effective ways to attract organic links to your website. Let’s break down some of the types of content that tend to receive the most backlinks.
Original Research
Original research is a great way to get backlinks to your website. Think about it: if you provide your audience with new research that they can’t find anywhere else, they’ll have to cite you as an original source when discussing the topic. When coming up with ideas for original research, consider surveying your customers or readers to ask them questions about your industry, for instance.
Here is an example of a business that uses original research well.
HubSpot, a digital marketing expert, has an annually updated article on the state of content marketing. They surveyed hundreds of marketers in order to determine what the most important stats and trends are for the year. This is an extremely useful tool for anyone running their own website or an online business. Digital marketers, online business magazines, and more all are likely to want to link to this article in order to share its helpful information with their audience. On your website, consider surveying your audience or peers and publish the information — original research like this is helpful to the reader and can increase your backlinks.
Ultimate Guides
Ultimate guides tell a reader everything they would need to know about a given topic. If you create an ultimate guide on something you’re an expert on, people will want to cite it as a source of information. Think about what it is in your industry that you know better than anyone else. Then, write a complete guide to the subject and people will want to link back to it.
Let’s take a look at an example of a business that uses this strategy well.
Backlinko, a digital marketing expert, has an ultimate guide to SEO in 2021. The guide covers beginner’s SEO tips, core web vitals, domain authority, and more.
No matter how well-versed you are in SEO, there is something you can take from this guide! That’s what makes this guide so shareable. Anyone with an audience of website owners will want to share it as a helpful resource. On your website, think about what different subjects in your industry you know about, inside and out — writing about them in an ultimate guide is a great way to get backlinks.
Buying Guides or Comparison Pieces
Buying guides and comparison pieces are also great forms of link-building content. Buying guides outline everything someone would need to know about a product or service before making a purchase — comparison pieces, as the name suggests, compare these products or services directly. These are great backlink-builders, as people will want to share them with their audience to help them make a buying decision.
Let’s take a look at an example for inspiration.
Best Value Schools, for instance, has a series of comparison pieces about different schools in a range of categories. One article, for instance, outlines some of the best online universities in 2021.
Because it can help prospective students make a decision, it’s very shareable, particularly among audiences in higher education or parenting, for instance. On your website, consider recommending a series of products or services in a comparison guide — it’s a great way to get backlinks without being too promotional.
How-to Guides
How-to guides are a great way to build backlinks while showing customers that you understand their pain points. Check-in with your customer service team and see if there are any questions they get frequently.
Basing how-to guides on these questions will help you boost your SEO, as you’ll be creating content people are searching for. Plus, if you create high-quality and genuinely useful tutorials, other sites will want to share them, building your backlink profile in the process.
Let’s look at an example of a business that does a great job of publishing how-to guides that are likely to attract a lot of links.
BetterHelp, an online therapy service, has a how-to guide to self-care for beginners. The article covers fighting guilt, setting boundaries, taking breaks, and more.
The guide covers a lot of different topics and strategies for self-care — after all, different people have different stress responses and require different self-care methods as a result. Because the suggestions are so varied, it’s an excellent how-to guide. Therapists, lifestyle sites, colleges, and more would be likely to link to this type of article in their own content.
On your website, consider what types of how-to guides you could create that is helpful to a wide variety of audiences.
Monitor Your Competitors’ Backlink Profiles (and Use Them as Inspiration)
Looking at your competitors’ backlink profiles can help you build your own strategy! So, study your competition and see where you can get ahead.
To start, make a list of different websites in your niche that have the same target audience as you do. Next, head to your favorite backlink analysis tool (Moz, SEMRush, and Ahrefs all have one) and plug in your competitor’s websites. These tools can provide you with a list of different websites that are directly linking to your competitor’s content or homepages. More than likely, many of the websites you come across will be interested in your content, as well. Reach out to these websites and ask for a backlink or a guest posting opportunity.
This is a great way to boost your SEO and get more backlinks. As an added bonus, you’ll be building more relationships with others in your industry.
Create Free Tools Other Sites Will Want to Share
One way your business can offer target customers a lot of value is with free tools or services. It gives you a chance to show off what you can do, and hopefully build loyalty with people that will want to spend money with you in the future. Additionally, free tools and resources are great for building backlinks — if they’re helpful, people will want to share them with their audiences.
Let’s look at a few examples of businesses that implement free tools into their website well.
FreshBooks, an online accounting software company, offers free invoice templates to anyone that comes to their website. Their audience is full of small business owners and freelancers, who likely do their own invoicing and accounting. Offering free templates to these people is a great way to build free backlinks. Financial service providers, marketers, and small business advice sites will all want to share this as a helpful resource for their audience.
On your website, think about what templates you could create that your target audience would want to use over and over again to make a process easier or streamlined. Offering them for free is a great way to build your backlinks.
On the other hand, Looka, an online logo maker, lets anyone who comes to their website try out their service for free.
Looka’s AI-powered software gives potential customers an idea of what their logo and branding would look like — they don’t have to pay unless they’re happy with the product. Digital marketers, website designers, and artists all might link to this website, as it would be a helpful resource for their audience. On your website, think about what it is that you can offer to your target audience as a free sample. Giving them an idea of what they can expect from your products or services is a great way to build backlinks.
Lastly, ThemeREX does something similar with their free WordPress themes. Anyone who comes to ThemeREX can use these themes on their own website. Digital marketers, online magazines, and publishers are just a few examples of groups that would want to share these as helpful resources. This will help boost ThemeREX’s backlink profile.
When offering something for free on your website, keep publishers and complementary businesses in mind — think about what you can offer that they will want to share with their own viewers as a resource, as this will boost your backlink profile.
Summary
Backlink building is one of the cornerstones of digital marketing and SEO. In this article, we outlined how you can build backlinks to your website, including through guest posts, free tools, and more. No matter where you are on your eCommerce journey, there are always ways for you to improve. Get to work!
