How to Get High-Quality Backlinks
High-quality backlinks are an invaluable part of SEO and understanding how to get them can make all the difference for your website’s online visibility.
In this guide, we’ll unravel the mystery of backlink creation as we delve into eight unique strategies that will empower you to build those sought-after high-quality backlinks.
Create Linkable Assets and High-Quality Content That Attracts Backlinks
Building high-quality backlinks starts with the creation of valuable, rich, and link-friendly assets.
Your content must offer something unique, either in the form of brand-new insights or the latest information that cannot be easily found elsewhere. This can greatly help you establish credibility and authority in your industry, giving other websites a green flag that they should link to your content.
To start:
- Create resources that provide immense value to your audience. Think thoroughly researched white papers, eBooks, or case studies. These long-form content pieces are brimming with information, actionable insights, and data, making them highly attractive to readers and linkers alike.
- Come up with how-to guides, tutorials, or educational articles on topics your audience has shown an interest in. You can even push the envelope further by turning these resources into visual formats like infographics, diagrams, or videos which can enhance user understanding and engagement, making them more likely to be shared and linked to.
- Create evergreen content. Timeless and consistently relevant materials are powerful link magnets. They provide long-term value and there’s a fair chance they won’t become obsolete.
- Include original research and data. If you write a piece of content that is based on your own research, others in your industry will see you as a credible source, increasing your chances of earning a backlink.
Tap into Guest Blogging
When writing a valuable post for other blogs or websites in your industry, you get to link back to your site within the content or in the author bio. If you’re wondering why you should go through the trouble, think of this: quality guest posts on relevant sites can increase blog traffic by up to 20%.
Follow these steps to witness this boost in traffic:
- Understand the host’s audience. Not all content you write for your website will be relevant and valuable for—nor will it resonate with—the host blog’s readers. Only if your content benefits their readers will the host blog agree to offer you a backlink.
- Select high-ranking websites. The quality of your backlink is determined largely by the authority of the website linking to you. Websites with a high Domain Authority (DA) are considered more trustworthy and carry more weight in terms of SEO.
- Write high-quality content. No reputable site will want to host your content if your content is mediocre. Invest time in crafting high-quality, unique, and informative content.
- Follow their guidelines. Most high-authority websites have guest post guidelines and sticking to them shows respect and increases your chances of securing that sought-after backlink.
See What Your Competitors Are Doing and Replicate it
Following the example of other competitors can have a very positive effect on one’s own backlink strategy. Here’s how you can do it effectively:
- List your main competitors and isolate the highest-performing companies within your industry that target similar audiences.
- Analyze your competitors’ backlink profiles through backlink audit with the help of tools such as Semrush or Moz.
- Pay attention to the linked content and check what type of content gets the most links.
- Pinpoint linking patterns—is there a particular domain on which your competitors take the lion’s share of links?
Once you understand their linking strategies, you can follow suit. But copying what they’re doing to a T won’t get you far. Instead, gather conclusions from their practices and apply them to your strategy.
Showcase Your Services/Products via Big Brands and Influencers
Big brands and influencers typically have large, engaged audiences and high domain authority and you can use them to your advantage for creating effective backlinks.
Offer your services or products for reviews or even work together with them on projects, but always be sure that your partnership is mutually beneficial.
For brands, you could consider becoming an event sponsor or offering up your products. Many companies have a resource or event recap page on their website, featuring sponsors and partners. This can translate into a quality backlink for you. For influencers, you could provide a product for review or sponsor a piece of content. They’ll probably include a link to your site in their content.
Claim Unlinked Mentions
If you continually publish good content, other websites will naturally mention your brand name, products, or services. However, they may not always link to your site—this gives you a chance to contact these sites and request they include your link.
To effectively claim unlinked mentions:
- Establish a mechanism for finding these references. In addition to Google Alerts and Mention, rely on more robust platforms such as Buzzsumo or Ahrefs which can discover even broader online mentions. You can set these services to monitor your brand name and also your branded products or other distinctive company trademarks.
- Reach out to the website owners. Approach them with a respectful tone in your communication and don’t forget to express gratitude for the mention. Once you’ve set the stage, politely ask if they’d consider including a link to your website.
- Organize your outreach efforts. Keep track of your requests, follow-ups, and the mentions you’ve successfully claimed.
Find Broken Links
One of the best ways to secure high-quality backlinks is by reaching out to website owners and informing them about broken links on their pages. In exchange for this valuable information, you can propose a link to your site as a replacement for the broken link.
This strategy is often successful as it provides a solution for an existing problem, while simultaneously providing a traffic source for your website. To be successful with this strategy, you will need relevant content that offers significant value to the referring site’s audience.
However, finding broken links can be quite a task as it requires meticulous digging through websites. Check out our step-by-step guide to ensure it goes as smoothly as possible:
- Use specific SEO tools designed to sniff out broken links such as Google’s Search Console, Ahrefs, or Screaming Frog. These tools can crawl websites to identify pages with 404 errors or broken links.
- Insert the URL you want to examine into your tool of choice and navigate to the broken links report.
- Organize these broken links into a digestible and actionable format, such as a spreadsheet. This allows you to keep track of the website owners you need to contact and the corresponding broken links on their sites.
- Reach out to website owners and maintain a collegial, non-intrusive approach. Highlight the broken link you found, and suggest your webpage as an ideal replacement. If your content genuinely adds value to their audience, then your chance of gaining a backlink is greatly enhanced.
Update Dated Content
Google loves fresh content. Updating, refreshing, optimizing, and republishing old content with new copy or pictures can be a great way to get more organic traffic. Aside from this, you get to make your articles and blogs more linkable.
If you’re changing your copy, these approaches can help you:
- Make improvements beyond simple grammar and spelling fixes
- Include new insights you have discovered since the post was published
- Share current best practices from within the industry
- Promote updated content as if it were brand new
These changes go a long way in making your content more link-worthy. Don’t forget to reach out to websites that have already linked to the post to inform them about the changes. Encourage them to link again and rekindle their interest.
Publish Big Guides
Creating thorough guides provides immense value to your audience and also bolsters your status as an authoritative figure in your industry. This, in turn, invites other bloggers, businesses, and website owners to link your guides in their content.
The attracting power of big guides lies in several key factors:
- Extensive coverage. Big guides usually cover all the vital aspects of a topic. This makes them one-stop resources and as such, they’re highly linkable.
- Evergreen nature. Comprehensive guides often contain timeless information. Their relevance spans across time, making them a preferred choice for backlinks long after they’ve been published.
- Authority and expertise. Exploring a topic in-depth showcases your expertise and positions you as an authority in your field. This builds trust and other site owners will be more willing to link to your content.
- Higher Search Engine Results Page (SERP) rankings. Detailed guides increase the time spent on your website and improve user engagement metrics. These factors can improve your SERP rankings, making your content more visible and increasing the chance of acquiring backlinks.
- Social sharing. Users are more likely to share comprehensive, useful content. When shared on social media and other forums, your guide gets more exposure, resulting in potential backlink opportunities.
How To Get High-Quality Backlinks: Key Takeaway
Executing these strategies effectively can work wonders for your digital footprint. By creating valuable content, leveraging the power of existing connections, and being proactive in your outreach, you can attract high-quality backlinks that boost your search engine visibility and drive organic traffic to your site.