4 Backlink Building Techniques that Work

“Backlink” is a major SEO buzzword, pretty much from the moment you first heard about SEO the word backlink probably followed rapidly. 

Rightly so. 

They are incredibly important to SEO; therefore you must be aware of the best backlink-building techniques.

As an SEO strategist, if you want to increase organic traffic to your website then you should concentrate on link-building strategies. My four innovative but White Hat methods can be used for building backlinks.

Advantages Of Backlink Building

Chances are that you’re here because you want your site to rank highly and have heard that backlinking is an important part of SEO, but there’s more to it than just that. Backlinking provides:

• Traffic - people come to your site from other sites.
• Credibility - if that site is linking to you, you must be legit.
• Performance - they boost your domain authority and more.
• Rankings - what we’re all here for, if enough credible sources are linking to you Google looks on this favourably.
• Partnerships - building genuine relationships with other website owners is always a strong move business-wise.

Types Of Links

We’ll be discussing several different link types in the following article. It’s well worth getting to grips with the different types before diving into the rest.

1. Broken links: Links that used to point to a page, but that page (for whatever reason) no longer exists and so that link has been broken. Most of the time this will result in the user being sent to a 404 page. Not a good user experience.
2. Dofollow links: The type of backlink that you’re looking for. These links are coded such that they pass authority from the linking website to the end source (your site). If you’re getting links on high domain authority (DA) sites you want them to be Dofollow links.
3. Nofollow links: The opposite of a dofollow link, lots of sites (especially competitors) will only give out nofollow links as they don’t want to pass on their authority to a competing website. Often used in comparison articles where a brand compares itself to competitors.
4. External links: Links from one website to another. These can either be set as dofollow or nofollow links.
5. Editorial links: Google’s favourite type of backlinks. The organic kind where you’ve created such a valuable piece of content that other websites are naturally linking to it. Usually obtained through having high-ranking content or a successful social media campaign.

4 Backlink Building Techniques that Work 

Understanding the types of backlinks that exist is one thing but developing a sustainable and reliable set of techniques to acquire them is another. This is where the real work begins. Strategy is everything here, you might find that certain techniques work well for you but won’t for another type of blog or niche. Test what works and then adapt accordingly.

When you find a technique that works well for you, make sure that you take the time to nurture the relationships that it’s built on. These relationships could make further backlink acquisition considerably easier in the future. Chances are they already have good connections with other providers.

1. Guest Blogging

Arguably the most popular backlink technique, and one that still works perfectly. Times used to be that all you needed to do was write any old article, submit it, include a link, and away you’d go. Google has gotten wise to this nowadays and looks into the backlinks that you’re acquiring and how relevant they are. This is to combat people fudging the rankings with mediocre websites and content.

To get what Google sees as a decent backlink that will work well for your site, driving it towards those coveted page 1 listings, you’ll need to:

• Only submit guest posts to relevant sites - this might seem obvious but in a world where the number of backlinks used to be the only thing that matters, it’s more prevalent than before. The sites you’re working with need to be in your niche and hold a high domain authority.
• Consider the audience of the website - if you’re already doing the above then this goes hand in hand, the topic should be new, interesting, and engaging for the base website’s audience. No posts about fashion on a sport’s blog. No matter how high the DA.
• Deliver value - your guest post should be valuable to the readers, give them something that engages and makes it worth their time.
• Only link to something worth linking to - the resource (emphasis on the resource) that you’re linking to on your site should be useful and build on the user’s experience, not simply serve as a backlink

2. Directory Submissions

There are hundreds of directories for all types of niches around the world. The trick here is relevance. It’s easy to submit your site to directories but they must be ones where the intended readers (users of the directory) would find your link useful. Be wary of the trashy directories that are just looking for ad revenue, check their domain authority as an indication of legitimacy.

3. Reclaim Lost and Broken Links

This is great because you’re not just gaining a backlink, but you’re also helping the owner of a site who is linking to a 404. That’s bad for their SEO, so you’re doing them a favour. Search around on your target blogs and see if there are any broken links. You can also use a tool such as SEMRush or ahRefs for this.

Once you’ve found some broken links, reach out to the blog’s owner and offer your link as a replacement. Be sure that it remains contextual and doesn’t interrupt the flow of the piece. Offering some small niche edits can make obtaining the link a lot easier.

It’s also worth keeping an eye on your links, if you spot that some are being lost, look into where they were lost, reach out and see if you can reclaim them.

4. HARO

HARO stands for Help a Reporter Out. It’s a website where journalists post up requests for expert sources to deliver sound bites that fit into a piece that they’re writing. Almost all these requests offer to link back to your site in exchange for your expert opinion. The key here is that you are, legitimately, an expert and authority. If you are then you’ll lap up opportunities at HARO.

Key Takeaways

If you’re serious about building an SEO strategy for your site then developing your backlink building techniques should be an area you invest time in. Work out the technique that best suits your brand and website and build from there.

• Be sure to check the type of link you’ll achieve - is it dofollow or nofollow?
• Don’t forget that backlink building isn’t just about SEO and numbers, it builds credibility too.