If your business is not building quality backlinks, you’re not increasing prominence. And if you’re not increasing prominence, you’re missing out on one of the core criteria to rank higher in the SERPs .
According to Google, prominence is based on “information that Google has about a business, from across the web, like links, articles, and directories.”
Ultimately, any business needs high quality, authoritative, and value-driven backlinks.
Quality backlinks, in the simplest terms, are a vote of confidence from a website that tells Google your web page is a trusted resource. Essentially, the more your web page has votes of confidence, the more prominent it will appear to be.
These backlinks are achieved through ethical means instead of taking spamming routes. However, that is not as easy as people say.
You’re reading the right article if you are looking forward to starting building your white hat backlink strategy. Below, we share tested and proven strategies that work to gain backlinks and expand your SEO strategy.
But before that, let us share some important reasons – why you need quality backlinks from reliable sources.
Benefits of Creating Quality Backlinks
Backlinks are considered to be one of the most significant elements in SEO since they bring in numerous benefits for your online business. Here is a closer look at the advantages provided by backlinks:
- More referral traffic
A link to your website by another site is very much equivalent to a vote for confidence that brings in potential customers. Buying backlinks from reputable sites can expand the reach of your brand.
- Increased search rankings
Google treats backlinks like a thumbs-up from great authority sites as they perceive your website to be important with things users need. The better quality the backlinks are, the higher ranking is going to be on SERPs.
- Build reliable collaborations
Actually, backlinks can also create relationships with other web sites and industry influencers. By the co-functioning of other web sites, there can be mutually beneficial partnerships.
- Faster indexing
What’s more, your site pages can easily be discovered by search engines through backlinks and foster smooth website indexing. That means that your published contents have a great chance to appear in search results faster.
- Increased website authority
Your website credibility and authority are most likely to increase through a backlink from a high-value website. Users will tend to trust and use websites if it has a strong backlink.
- Stronger credibility
Backlinks from good authority sources will let the users of your search page know that your website is a source they can rely on. A strong profile of credible backlinks boosts the overall reputation of your website.
How to Create Backlinks from Reliable Resources?
Backlinks are basically an upvote from other websites, meaning that your content is a reliable source of information. It tells the search engines that your content is important and authoritative.
One of the most important factors of SEO strategy is to get a high-quality backlink. The following are tried and tested techniques for getting quality backlinks from trusted sources:
1. Guest blogging
Guest blogging is considered to be one of the most effective ways to get quality backlinks and bring more visibility to your website. The technique can attract new visitors to your blog/site through writing high value content on other strong websites.
You will be appearing as an authoritative source of information to big audiences and boost your search engine rankings. Now, let’s go more into the details of the process involved in guest blogging:
- Find relevant websites
Choose the website that your ideal target audience has come to visit and is related to your niche. Use websites with a high DA since they impact your website’s SEO to a larger extent. Check whether the guest posting requirements are well set up and which criteria the website demands.
- Be consistent with content quality
Conduct your research on any topic of interest you want to write about in a clear concise way which will be interesting. You can provide unique insights, give tips or even solve a problem. You can also add images, infographics, or videos to make it more visually appealing.
- Add an organic backlink
Place the backlink within the content in a way that the link is adding value to the user experience, and use relevant anchor text that would distinguish the page you’re linking out to. Never clutter the content of your website with too many backlinks as it may be bad for your SEO.
Just make sure that your content is error-free and well-structured. Use your best-performing pieces so that you can leverage better outcomes through guest blogging.
2. Utilize infographics
Infographics can certainly be one of the best attention-grabbing methods that can drive traffic to your website. You can inform and attract your audience using great looking infographics and get worthwhile backlinks.
Here are a few tips to use infographics for creating reliable backlinks:
- Choose an Appropriate Topic: With any given topic, select the one that you think your target audience may be interested in and really connects with your content strategy.
- Design Eye-Catching Infographics: Add text, images, and charts to let your infographic be eye catching yet readable.
- Make it share worthy: Design your infographic to share on social media seamlessly and also embeddable on other peoples’ websites.
- Submit to different directories: Tag your infographic to infographic directories in order to make it more visible and have a greater chance of reaped backlinks.
- Add more value: Provide supplemental data, insights, or exclusive content that will make website owners crave linking to your infographic.
Follow these steps, and you will be able to use infographics for good quality backlink development and for the engagement of your website.
3. Create in-depth guides
Building authoritative and in-depth guides can also be a great method to attract organic traffic, to acquire backlinks and get yourself established as an authority in a niche. Moreover, long-form content works better than short-form content, and hence in-depth guides can attract a lot of backlinks.
That could ensure that other sites would link to content since it solves a specific problem for your audience or provides them with valuable information.
The following are some steps for building and promoting ultimate guides:
- Research for relevant topics
Identify a specific topic within your niche that can be informative and interesting for the target audience. Perform keyword research to find relevant topics with consideration for the target audience’s pain points and questions.
- Maintain content quality and readability
Discuss the topic in extensive detail and touch on all key aspects. Write clearly and concisely, avoiding jargon and technical terms. Break up text with images, infographics, or videos. Encourage readers to act: subscribe to your newsletter, download a resource, or reach out to you.
- Optimize for users and searches
Incorporate all the relevant keywords to the content; that is including their usage in the title and headings and within the body text itself. Write interesting meta titles and meta descriptions which are bound to get attraction of clicks in the SERPs.
Optimize images by relevant file names with the use of alt text so as to enhance search visibility. Include links to all pertinent pages of your site, and through this, one will be able to make better navigation of your site as well as search engine optimization.
- Share your content for better results
Share your guide on popular social media platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. Use the relevant hashtags while doing so. Email your subscribers about the new guide. Share your guide in relevant online communities and forums.
Do all this and above, and you’ll attract organic traffic, develop backlinks and ultimately be an authority figure in your niche with high-quality informative guides.
4. Find and fix broken links
Broken links can impact a website both from the user experience point of view and from the SEO point of view. If you can find other websites’ broken links and correct them, you are helping the owners of those websites, but at the same time, you are gaining precious backlinks to your site.
Here are some reliable steps to recognize and fix broken links:
- Find broken links
Use tools such as RanksPro or Google Search Console in order to locate where there are broken links on other websites. They can also scan the website and list pages with broken links, missing images, along with many other errors.
- Contact website owners
After determining the broken links, send an email to the website owners or webmasters explaining the problem with the precise URL of the broken link and willing to replace it with a working link to your relevant content.
- Strengthen relationships
Use this chance to make relationships with other Web page owners and bloggers, perhaps you may be able to assist them in other web page issues or content development. That way, you will be increasing chances for more opportunities of getting backlinks.
Seeking out broken links and solving them improve the internet quality while helping other web page owners earn valuable backlinks for your website.
5. Reclaim unlinked mentions
Unlinked brand mentions are just opportunities waiting to be cashed in. By detecting and responding to these mentions, you can build high-value backlinks and enhance the visibility of your website.
Here’s how to recover unlinked mentions step-by-step:
- Monitor brand mentions
Use Google Alerts to track all the mentions of your brand across the web. These tools can help you identify websites, blogs, and social media platforms where your brand is being discussed.
- Identify unlinked mentions
Analyze the mentions that have been detected and note which mentions your brand but will not direct their visitors to your website.
- Contact the sources
Email or message via social media the website owners or content creators. Introduce yourself professionally, explain how you discovered their mention of your brand. Thank them for writing about your brand and highlight the benefit your website can provide to them readers.
- Request a backlink
Clearly and briefly ask to link to your relevant website page. Give them more in return, like an additional information, exclusive content, or insights, to make them want to link to you. Send them follow-ups if no response is received after a week or so.
By acquiring and recovering unlinked mentions actively, you are bound to improve your website’s backlink profile and ranks within the search results.
6. Create link-worthy content
To attract backlinks and drive the ranking of your website higher in search results, you’ll have to create content that is not only informative but also valuable and shareable.
Some strategies on creating link-worthy content are discussed below:
- Know your audience
Try to pinpoint who you are trying to reach with your content, including their interests and their pain points. From there, you’d be able to craft content that directly speaks to your reader’s needs and yields a solution for their problems.
- Maintain quality and creativity
Research your content extensively, so that it is accurate, current, and thorough. Use clear, concise, and engaging writing. Make use of powerful headlines, subheadings, and bullet points that make it easier to read.
- Use Optimized Visuals
Break up text through the usage of images, infographics, and videos. Engage readers to take the desired action, be that to subscribe to your newsletter or share the content with others or contact you.
- Adopt the practice of ethics in SEO
Determine particular keywords, then strategically use these on the content, such as while writing for meta tags – titles and descriptions for clicking via SERPs. Also include alt text to improve search engine visibility of the images thereby boosting the clicks from SERPs.
7. Use the Skyscraper technique
The Skyscraper Technique is a powerful strategy for building high-quality backlinks. By creating exceptional content that surpasses existing content, you can attract backlinks from authoritative websites.
Here are the steps to implement the Skyscraper Technique:
- Find top-ranking content
The first step is to find and analyze top-performing and top-ranking content pieces on SERPs. Use your targeted keyword list to find these pieces or you can use a rank tracking tool like RanksPro. It will provide all the results of top-ranking results on specific keywords.
- Analyze the content
Next step is to find the scopes of improvements to make the content better. The aim is to provide fresh and all-inclusive information to the users while meeting the relevancy of the content.
- Create better content
Once you analyzed the critical areas for optimization, implement the necessary changes. This can include authentic statistics, facts or infographics that can help readers understand your content better. Structure the content well for both users and search engines to make them understand your information.
- Find and implement link opportunities
Outreach other websites and authors to link your content as you have updated the information. Communicate with them and convey that you have a better piece of information as compared to others.
The skyscraper technique can help you build a high number of backlinks, which can increase your site’s overall authority and visibility in Google rankings.
8. Target authority resource pages
Targeting authority resource pages can be the most promising strategy to get quality backlinks and increase traffic to your site.
Use the following steps to successfully implement this tactic:
- Identify Relevant Resource Pages
Make use of relevant keywords and phrases to find high-ranking pages for your target keywords and look for resource pages popping up on the result pages.
- Manual Research
Investigate for resource pages in your niche by manual search. Typically, industry directories, forums, and other communities where you find lists of resources.
- Outreach to authors and other sites
Write tailored emails to the site proprietors or content developers. Explain how your site will allow them to offer more value to people reading their blog posts, perhaps with some new perspectives, resources, or data points.
- Offer value
Supply unique content or insights not otherwise accessible elsewhere, supported by data-driven insights and statistics. Include images and videos as necessary to enhance your pitch.
Targeting authority resource pages increases chances of getting the valuable backlinks and, ultimately, increases the authority of your website by offering high value to the target pages.
9. Use HARO (Helping a reporter out) technique
HARO, which is short for Helping a Reporter Out, is a super useful resource for building quality backlinks and media coverage. You can get published in reputable media outlets with your name and your website by responding to queries from journalists with relevant information.
Here are the steps you should implement to use HARO for getting quality backlinks:
- Signup to HARO websites
Sign up for a free account at the HARO websites. Choose categories that you’re an expert in, say, technology, business, health, or finance.
- Reply promptly
The sooner you respond to relevant queries, the more likely you are to get selected. Quick responses convey interest and commitment.
- Be relevant and concise
Only respond if you have something worthwhile and insightful to say. Answers should be brief with major takeaways.
- Provide credentials to establish trust
Provide your name, job title, contact details and professional photograph. State what you have done to ensure that others know of your expertise.
- Add value
Unique insight, statistics, and anecdotes, which are necessary to create a point beyond just the question.
- Share the work links
Now add links to your website, blog, or portfolio to show them off. Choose relevant links that correspond with the journalist’s question.
- Highlight media experience
If you have appeared in important media outlets highlight it in your bio. It will hike your score and chances to get selected.
- Plan your HARO workflow
Organize the HARO emails in a specific folder using Gmail filters. That will keep you organized and allow you to prioritize your responses.
- Target top websites
Check the domain authority and traffic of the websites that have submitted queries using tools such as RanksPro’s site audit tool. Prioritize responses to queries from reputable publications.
Actively participating in HARO can make you more visible, increase relationships with journalists, and help generate high-quality backlinks to your website.
10. Leverage user-generated content
This user-generated content can contribute positively towards backlink development and enhancement of website ranking. This is because you will develop a culture for your brand to ensure quality content generation, which naturally attracts links and drives organic traffic.
Here are certain ways UGC can promote building of backlinks:
- Shared contents on social media sites
Run contests and promotions for the users to share brand-related content on social media. Define specific content pieces or pages on your website where users can share their experiences, photographs, or videos.
- Influencer partnerships
Partner with the influencers to make UGC that they may share with their followers. Reward the users for creating quality content such as reviews, testimonials, or blog posts.
- Create and encourage community
Create online forums or communities about topics related to your brand. Run contests for user-generated content and help establish a sense of community.
- Be responsive everywhere
Respond to comments/questions on social media from your audience. Employ strategies such as using hashtags to encourage the creation and sharing of content surrounding your brand.
- Boost local SEO
Encourage happy customers to leave reviews on Google My Business and other relevant platforms. Be proactive about reading and responding to reviews in order to create trust and credibility.
Through user-generated content, you’re building valuable backlinks but also improving your brand reputation and increasing your online presence overall.
Track Backlinks with RanksPro
Implementing reliable and ethical backlink creation practices can help you build a strong backlink profile. It will not only boost traffic but also foster search ranking improvements on SERPs.
However, you should also keep monitoring your backlink profile along with those of competitors. And that’s where RanksPro comes in!
RanksPro is your all-in-one SEO platform that provides a backlink checker tool. It will help you with:
- Monitoring backlink profiles: Know how many referring domains are pointing backlinks and how the anchor text is getting distributed.
- Identify toxic and broken links: Your toxic links would be discovered so that you can disavow them and save yourself from bad influence on your SEO.
- Keep track on growth: Keep track of how backlinks are growing over time and where you have chances of better improvement.
- Analyze competitor backlinks: Spy on the backlink profile of your competitor for new backlink opportunities.
With the help of the RanksPro backlink checker, you can make data-driven decisions to improve your website’s SEO and drive organic traffic. Start a free trial today!