How To Get Great Backlinks And Create A Link Building Strategy
Link building strategies and securing strong backlinks are the main way to build authority for your website and a core strategy of effective Search Engine Optimisation / SEO. Generally speaking, the more you have, the stronger your site will perform in search engines.
A strong backlink profile shows that people find your content so useful that they’ll recommend it to others.
Search engines use that as a ranking signal and give you a boost as a result.
Unfortunately, not all backlinks help your website. In fact, poor backlinks can trigger a penalty from search engines which in turn damages your ranking.
That leaves new website owners with a conundrum. You need to build great links without resorting to bad tactics. This article shows you how. But first, let’s take a closer look at what backlinks are.
What to know about link building
A backlink is a link to your website from another website.
Figure 1 – https://moz.com/learn/seo/backlinks
Search engines consider these as “votes” that favour your website. High-quality backlinks coupled with relevant anchor text add weight to these “votes”.
The more “votes” you have from high-authority websites, the better your website performs in search engines.
They’re also one of Google’s main ranking signals. The websites that rank well for high-competition keywords will almost always have strong link profiles:
Figure 2 – https://backlinko.com/backlinks-guide
As you can see here, the websites that reach position number 1 on Google have an average of 35,000 or more backlinks. That number drops considerably as you get further down the list.
And that’s just for page 1 of search page results. Pages that don’t hit the top 10 tend to have far fewer than 5,000 backlinks.
That sounds intimidating for a new website owner. You don’t have any links. How are you supposed to get tens of thousands?
Everybody has to start somewhere. These techniques are a good starting point for your next link building campaign.
Link building strategies and techniques to reach the top of rankings
1. Create Skyscraper Content
Skyscraper content is content that takes advantage of popular trends and pieces of content. Your aim is to build a piece of content that follows the same theme but does it much better.
Here are the steps:
Step 1
Search for a content topic in Google. All the results on the first page show you what’s already working for that topic. Check each piece to see who’s linking to it and to find out what audience it’s trying to capture.
Step 2
Read every piece and figure out how you can create something better. You’re aiming for a piece that’s five or even 10 times better than what you can see in the results.
How do you do that?
You’re looking to deliver something similar but with a twist. You’re taking something that’s already worked once and reworking it so you can appeal to the same audience.
For example, you could create an infographic or video to give a more visual representation. Or, you could make a piece that covers even more tools/technologies. For example, let’s say that you’ve seen a piece for 50+ team building activities. You could improve on that by boosting the number, creating videos of some activities in action, or shifting the focus to new teams.
Step 3
Start promoting. If the piece mentions a tool, organisation, or person, contact them to let them know. If you’re lucky, they’ll check it out and link to it. Of course, this only works if it’s a positive piece.
You should also use tools like BuzzSumo to see who’s talking about the pieces you used as inspiration. Get in touch with those people to let them know you’ve created something that will interest them.
The promotion is the key aspect here. You’ll get links from major influencers, which boosts your ranking. Plus, their recommendations lead more people to the content, which means even more links.
You may also want to review: Content Marketing Strategies For SEO Success | 16 Content Marketing Tools For Extraordinary Results | The 7 Content Writing Steps: How To Rank And Drive More Traffic
2. Become a Resource for Journalists
If you have information that a writer would find useful, you need to tell them about it as part of your link building strategies!
There are several tools for this. Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is amongst the most popular. It’s essentially a networking tool that connects reporters and bloggers with people who want backlinks.
Just sign up as a source and you’ll receive three emails per day detailing requests from people in your industry. Pitch a response based on those requirements. If it’s accepted, you get a link from a credible source.
Figure 3 – https://www.slideshare.net/jeffzelaya/help-a-reporter-out
It gives you access to thousands of reporters plus some major news agencies.
There’s also Sourcebottle. It works in a similar way to HARO.
With Sourcebottle, you sign up to become a source. During this process, you’ll select a set of topics that you specialise in and the countries relevant to your expertise.
From there, you’ll start receiving “Drink Up” emails.
Each of these presents you with some “call outs”. If you find something that interests you, just click the link and offer your services.
Unfortunately, you’ll only see each “call out” once. They expire after 24 hours, so you’re under a bit of pressure as soon as you get the link.
Tip #3 – Ask for Mentions to Become Links
There may be times when someone writes about your brand or product without linking to it.
Sometimes, link building strategies are as simple as asking the writer to add a link into such content.
Use Google to search for your brand or products. Search for blogs and websites that have pieces that mention you. Finally, shoot an email across to ask the publisher or writer to link to your website from the piece.
There are two keys to this:
- Make the email as personal as you can. Don’t just spam the same message out to everybody on your list. Start a conversation with the recipient.
- Remember that you need to offer something of value at all times. You’re only making a small request. However, you still need to let the recipient know why there’s a point to giving you a link.
Here’s an example:
Hi <Name>
I’m a huge fan of your blog and really enjoy the work you put into your posts. I actually noticed that you featured one of our products in one of your recent pieces.
Thank you so much for the kind words!
I was wondering if you’d like to discuss what we do in a little more detail. Perhaps we can provide more insight or products for you to take a look at.
Hope to hear from you soon,
<Name>
You’re not asking for the link directly here. Instead, you’re opening up a conversation that will hopefully lead to you being able to ask for the link.
It’s not unnatural as you haven’t solicited the piece in the first place. If anything, you’re just making it easier for people to find you from the content that gets written about you.
Tip #4 – Create Great Gated Content
Gated content is any content that requires the reader to take action before they can access it. For example, the user may have to fill out a form before reading.
Typically, these are white papers or other highly valuable pieces of content.
Your gated content needs to be a link magnet that’s worth sharing.
It needs to be so good that people:
- Want to read it
- Want to link to it
Examples of great types of gated content include:
- Ultimate and Definitive guides to a subject.
- The Skyscraper pieces mentioned in Tip #1.
- Interactive tools such as quizzes and calculators
Here’s an example:
Figure 4 – https://instapage.com/blog/what-is-gated-content
In short, they are big pieces that have a lot of value. Create something awesome and put it behind a gate. You’ll create a link magnet that improves your backlink profile and supports your link building strategies.
Tip #5 – Pitch to Link Roundup Articles
A link roundup article is exactly what it says on the tin. It’s an article that contains a lot of useful links that have relevance to a particular niche.
Figure 5 – https://ninjaoutreach.com/ultimate-guide-to-link-roundup-posts/
You can pitch useful content to the link roundup writers to get another backlink.
Here’s how you do it:
- Use Google to find some relevant link roundup articles. Search strings like “keyword” + link roundup and “keyword” + best of work well.
- Send an email to the article writer that pitches your piece. Explain why you think it would be a good fit for the roundup and ask if they’d like to link to it. The key here is to be polite. They’re under no obligation to link to you, no matter how well the article fits. Just ask the question and have no hard feelings if they refuse.
That’s it. Assuming you’re successful, your piece gets added to the roundup. You may even get lucky and find that the writer also shares your link on social media.
Tip #6 – Use Credible Guest Posting
Guest posting has become a dirty phrase in SEO. When people hear it, they think of people sending out hundreds of shoddy articles to different article websites in an attempt to build links.
That’s not what you’re doing here -its actually a great piece of strong and holistic link building strategies
You’re aiming to add your voice to someone else’s site in a helpful and valuable way.
You want to guest post as much as possible in the early days. The key is that you only post to authoritative sites within your niche. That means getting a little choosy with your guest posting. A post about content creation isn’t going to fly on a website dedicated to dieting, for example.
It’s not enough for a site to accept the post. You need to ensure that site offers enough relevance and credibility to make a link from it worthwhile.
Here are a couple of quick steps to help you find great sites to guest blog on:
- Find potential guest posting websites. Google is your friend here. Use different search strings related to your niche to find other people’s blogs and content. If they’re providing something of value to readers, they’re a good choice. You can add to their voice and get a solid link from them.
- Prepare your idea and pitch it to the blog. Don’t just come up with one idea and pitch it to multiple people. Check the blog and figure out what audience it’s trying to appeal to. Design your pitch around how your piece can help the blogger to appeal to their audience.
- Assuming the blogger accepts your pitch, you write the post. Here’s the key point. Don’t knock out a quick piece and call it a day. Most decent bloggers and site owners won’t be happy with that. Plus, the piece is a reflection of your brand. If it’s no good, it’s not going to encourage people to check you out. Give the piece the same care and attention that you’d give a piece on your own site.
Follow those steps and you’ll build some solid links through guest blogging.
Tip #7 – Get Links from Testimonials
You want people talking about your brand as much as possible. Testimonials tell readers that real people have tried your service and loved it.
However, you’re looking to flip the script when it comes to link building strategies.
Instead of soliciting testimonials, start creating them. Write a testimonial for any brand or service that you use and have good things to say about. Send it across to the company and they’ll usually want to put it on their site.
Now, here’s why this helps.
These companies want to show that the testimonials comes from a real person or company. To do that, they’ll link to your website to show readers that you exist.
Figure 6 – https://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-long/seeking-new-link-building_b_5669354.html
They get positive word of mouth and you get a new backlink.
Tip #8 – Collaborate With Influencers
Every industry has influencers. They’re the people who have tons of followers on LinkedIn or who have popular blogs that talk about industry topics.
They’re also a great source of backlinks if you can collaborate with them.
This works particularly well if you have a product that an influencer can review. Send them a free sample and ask them to provide an honest review. More often than not, they’ll link to your product as part of the review, though it’s always important to clarify.
Be upfront, honest and helpful while negotiating what they’re offering in exchange for your products or services.
You can also collaborate with influencers to create guest posts. This assumes you have something worthwhile to say to the influencer’s audience.
Check the influencer’s content to find out what both they and their audience want. From there, figure out what you can offer for a piece of content that serves that need.
Tip #9 – Check Where Your Competitors Get Links From
For this tip, you’ll need a backlink checking tool. Majestic SEO is a great example.
Pop a competitor’s URL into the tool and you’ll get something like this:
Figure 7 – https://blog.majestic.com/development/chrome/
That’s a list of all of the backlinks that your competitors have. Scour that list to find credible websites that aren’t already linking to you. Each one provides you with an opportunity to build another backlink.
There are plenty of backlink checking tools out there that you can use to do this. Run your competitor’s URLs through all of them to create as detailed a link profile as possible. Then, look for the opportunities in those profiles.
Tip #10 – Follow an Influencer’s Example
The influencers that you identify in your industry aren’t just a potential source of backlinks.
They can also reveal guest posting opportunities.
When an influencer posts on another website, they usually provide a bio. This bio often contains an image that the website will use to lend further credibility to the post.
A Google Image Search for the influencer’s name should reveal a bunch of places that host that influencer’s work. These are all websites that are open to having links placed on them.
Create a list of every website you find and then start sending emails. Offer up quality guest posts and you can start using those websites to build great links.
Guide To eCommerce Link Building Strategies
eCommerce link building strategies are as much an art as they are a science. And for online stores, it’s more important than ever for several reasons.
In the traditional sense, link building is what it has always been for marketing – a means to generate awareness and sell products. However, link building for ecommerce also is a means to break the usual mold that advertising costs money.
When approaching ecommerce link building tactics, it pays to plan ahead and conceptualise your strategies, just as you would with a traditional print or TV campaign.
After all, having the perfect ecommerce site will all be for nothing if you’re invisible online. Building links is one element of making sure customers can find that perfect product page. So, your link building efforts are as crucial as the site itself in building an effective ecommerce website.
With this in mind, lets explore 10 ways companies can capitalise on ecommerce link building as an avenue for growth.
1. Blogging As Part Of Your Link Building Strategies
No matter what other issues we cover, blogging is arguably one of the most important aspects a company should prioritise. Google heavily prioritises companies that have live content.
By that, we mean companies that publish content on a regular basis, related to their field of expertise, will always rank higher on Google as a source of authority within their niche.
So, it benefits any business that wishes to rank well in search engines to keep a regularly updated blog. Do not think any random content will suffice, however. Google will look for relevancy. So, speak to what you know and what your business is known for. Google has a tendency to rank content higher than products. So, blogging should stay informational. For example, if your business sells pet products, focus on crafting blog posts on issues such as pet training and pet health.
This begs the question of how to move traffic from your blog to your product pages. Focus on proper website tools, such as ready access to navigation tools and/or a site map to shift potential customers from blog content to product pages. Also, where appropriate, you can incorporate product links into the blog itself.
Consider the example of the pet website. If you post a blog on obedience training, you can incorporate links to training collars or any books you may sell with additional training information.
So long as you’re building links that are organic and relevant, this is a positive sign to Google.
In summary, remember to post content regularly as part of your link building strategies. But make sure the content is relevant, interesting, useful and central to your brand.
2. Video Marketing
Written content isn’t the only way to make an impact. While this may is the central focus of a lot of marketing you should keep in mind that streaming and video content is the common trend now for a lot of businesses.
Whether it be Facebook, Tik Tok, YouTube, or Instagram, you should make sure your company has a multimedia presence. Consider what might trend or go viral. Also, take care that whatever content you disseminate is inoffensive. While multimedia sites are excellent sources of brand marketing, making a social faux pas can prove dangerous and near impossible to take back (everything lives on the internet forever).
You need only consider companies that have tried to market around the COVID-19 outbreak and run afoul of both consumers and regulators for their marketing material.
Importantly, properly crafted video content is advertising minus the cost of actually promoting it. The benefits of a well-crafted video gone viral is immeasurable.
To focus on viral content, identify what your audience might like and share. If you have a popular, catchy product page that you can highlight at your ecommerce store, then do so. If not, you’ll need to create something that people will remember, like, and share. Humour is normally a good way of building interest and getting your links distributed.
For example, let’s consider our hypothetical pet supply store. It’s easy to highlight your promotion and the products you have for sale and your link might actually get a few hits. But what it won’t be is interesting enough content for someone to share, which should remain your target.
By contrast, you might post a montage of funny dog and cat video clips. Does it even mention your products? No. What it does do, if properly branded, helps associate your name with something enjoyable and memorable. And, it gives viewers a reason to send it to friends.
In short, you don’t necessarily have to sell a product in a video. Brand identity and shareability are crucial. Some of the best viral campaigns on the internet may have little more than a “contact us” mentioned at the end or a link to visit the ecommerce site.
Properly done, your link building can grow exponentially as viewers start doing the link building for you.
3. Social Influencers / Brand Ambassadors
One potential avenue for marketing is social influencers. If you can win over popular social media people, the potential for cheaper marketing is limitless. However, you need to find influencers that are relevant to your product and who have an audience that will want to purchase what you have to sell.
If your product is unknown, this can actually benefit you. If you find the right influencer, your product can seem exclusive and a find, which can boost sales. Let’s once again consider our hypothetical pet supply store.
The first step will be identifying influential people on the platform we choose – let’s say YouTube first. We can start with keyword searches for appropriate influencers. We might start with “dog obedience training”.
From that generated list we can examine different channels to identify someone with a good-sized audience and content relevant to your product lines. From there, you can follow contact instructions to try and establish a relationship with the influencer.
Some influencers may sell actual advertising or sponsorship packages, while others may enter some form of relationship with your company pro bono. It may help, with smaller influencers, to offer free products.
Offering a free sample of a product can be ridiculously cheaper to the bottom line than paying for advertising. As always, you need to identify influencers that make sense for your online digital marketing campaign.
Another way to sell your brand is to foster brand ambassadors. Consider what your product is and who your consumers are and look for people that have an interest in promoting that product. Obviously, social influencers are your first line of promotors. But average social media users can also prove key to success. Consider it a numbers game. A hundred brand ambassadors can cumulatively reach as many people as one, more well-known social influencer.
Brand ambassadors are any people who will promote your brand on a voluntary basis. Read that to mean – for free. Whether you entice them with free samples, or they just have the loyalty necessary to champion your brand without payment, many ambassadors will promote your brand without any expectation of reimbursement.
You may, for example, run a Twitter campaign with a link for a special product offer. If you run an email list, consider trading a sample product if they get people to sign-up for your newsletter. Also, consider, for people with their own followers, they may also be seeking the prestige to be aligned with your company as an ambassador, which makes it an organically mutually beneficial arrangement.
Learn About Our Social Media Advertising and Marketing Services
4. Press Releases
Another excellent tool for ecommerce link building is to put out press releases. Identify any new products or features people might like and find interesting and craft proper press releases.
A good press release can produce multiple benefits. You can post links to an ecommerce site while also strategically placing a “contact us” style link and any other information you’d like to make available to audiences.
If you search for links to press releases regarding companies in your field, you can find free places to post information and updates about your ecommerce site. You can also approach journalists from online news outlets. Try not to make your press release too promotional and avoid common mistakes.
If you’re unsure how to write a press release, there are plenty of examples freely available online. Or, if you like, you can outsource to a professional company to enhance your release and help convert your links into customers.
If you’re brainstorming for ideas, let’s consider again our pet product store. You could put out a release when a new training book hits the market. Or, perhaps a new line of pet vitamins is being offered. Think of what your customers would genuinely like to hear about.
As with other types of ecommerce link building, it is important to place your press releases somewhere appropriate and relevant to your business. Google will like to see your links to your website on an authoritative site. Also, keep in mind that the number of links in your press release should be kept to a reasonable number. If it looks like a link-laden advertisement, it might be pulled down by the operator of the site you posted it on.
If the website has posting rules, ensure you read them, follow the website rules, and limit links if necessary. It only takes one effective link back to motivate a user to click and get to your product pages. So be discerning in your link building strategy.
Sometimes, less is more.
Read Our Guide To Creating Compelling PR For Quality Backlinks
5. Industry and Local Directories
Depending on your core business and region, many industries have directories on which you can register. Identifying an industry or local directory website is an easy way to place high-value links to your website and is an important part of your ecommerce link building. Further, getting a link placed on such a site means anyone that intentionally goes to the website in the first place is far more likely to be a potential customer.
Also, Google tends to consider such industry directories as containing higher value links, as opposed to general directories which have been downgraded in recent years. So a link in the directory will also potentially help increase your exposure in search engine results. Granted, there is no magic bullet here. A couple of directory links won’t show a massive impact on your relevance to search engines. But a solid link building strategy is a composite of different techniques and strategies and each piece will play a part in making your links more easily findable.
Consider other approaches such as local suppliers, chamber of commerce, associations / organisations and partners that can also strategically help you improve your klout in your niche, whilst earning a link at the same time.
To get on an industry directory, search the relevant “contact us” or follow any rules or instructions written on the website for getting a link added to the directory.
6. Offer Discounts
On of the more effective link building strategies is the inclusion of discounts to encourage people to follow a link. When you build a link to your site, include a discount code in the link that customers can use for exclusive offers. Program in a discount code area in your online checkout system where customers can redeem these codes on your website.
As an added bonus, many sites on the web track online discounts, which means they will build links for you. Such dynamic link building tactics mean you will get links with no effort of your own aside from posting your initial discount offer.
Consider our hypothetical pet product website. You can either offer a discount on merchandise or, if you have something like in-house written ebooks, discounts to something that literally costs you nothing to produce.
7. Paid Advertising
While not directly an ecommerce link build building strategy, paid Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is still an excellent method of reaching a large audience and getting feedback on commercial terms you can focus on for your improving you website rank and SEO efforts.
Moreover, you can engineer online advertising campaigns to reach a specific audience.
Unlike print or television ads, you can tailor your strategy based on criteria like keyword searches. By carefully tailoring your ad placement, you can focus on finding motivated buyers to your ecommerce website.
If ads are paid on a per-view basis, it will benefit you to strategise for maximum conversions. Spend time identifying keywords that might attract a likely customer of your ecommerce store. If you make sure to target ads carefully, you are much more likely to convert visitors to sales.
There are two elements that a paid ad has to achieve. It has to make someone click on your link. Then your site has to convert that visitor into a customer. If both of these things don’t happen, your ad money is wasted. Alternatively, your combined blogging and paid advertisement efforts to help increase its reach can increase the likelihood of others linking back to those informational or product pages.
One effective method of improving your campaign effectiveness is by A/B testing for your paid links. Craft different ads with different messaging, run them concurrently and collect data on how often each ad leads to a sales conversion.
One of the advantages of Google & Social Ads is that you can specify monetary limits on how many ads you’ll pay for. So, you can do small batch runs for A/B testing just to gather enough data to find which ads are working best for you.
Read Our In-depth Guide To What Search Engine Marketing / SEM Is Vs. SEO
8. Develop Useful Tools or Widgets
When developing your link building strategies, one way is to offer tools people will find useful. People often search Google for links to widgets that perform a useful task they might like to have performed. Ready examples are services like online calculators, weights and measure conversion, or services such as Google Translate.
Once a user follows a link and arrives at your site, you have ample time to present your products. As long as the tool has something to do with your product or services, you will attract high-value users. Again, let us consider our pet supply store.
There are numerous simple apps to develop that users might like to use. You may build an app to calculate a dog’s age in equivalent human years. Or, a simple app that can calculate flea medication dosage based on an animal’s type and weight. Neither would be programmatically difficult to make.
So, they are inexpensive options to attract people to follow your links. If you’ve done effective internal link building, they should have an easy path to navigate to your product pages from the app.
9. Build a Community
Developing an online forum is a way to continually grow your website and content without having to do so yourself. There is an initial effort involved in setting up a forum and there may be some minimal administration necessary once it is up and running.
However, day to day posting becomes the responsibility of visitors instead of your staff.
That means more content is being discovered by Google on a regular basis and every post in another link to your domain. Moreover, users can discuss different topics that will widen the scope of information you offer, often in ways, you hadn’t even thought of.
For our pet store example, you can create various help sections about dog grooming, health, obedience training, and sections on individual breed types that customers can post questions on.
This keeps a user base at your ecommerce site on a regular basis which keeps visitors both loyal and aware of your brand while putting you in a position to market new products or services directly to in the forum pages.
10. Create a podcast
Similar to video marketing, podcasts are an excellent way to reach consumers and assist in link building. Podcasts can be about anything for which your website has some authority and something useful to share. Podcast format is typically less formal and more conversational in style. So, it need not have an extravagant budget.
In our pet product example, you may simply put out a short guide on house training your new dog. As the information contained within is key, it clearly needs no expensive budget. If done well and it proves useful, it not only creates brand recognition but also encourages viewers to follow links back to your website and to your product pages.
Due to the ease of production and ready availability of podcasts, they make an excellent part of your larger overall link building strategies.
Have Comprehensive Link Building Strategies
Success starts with a plan. That’s why we recommend building comprehensive link building strategies from the beginning. Focus on a coordinated outreach across all channels to establish your brand identity. Proper research will save you from painful mistakes that can waste your efforts or, worse, even do damage to your business’ reputation or visibility.
That being said, ecommerce link building is essential for modern businesses seeking to conduct ecommerce. Because if no one knows you’re there, it won’t matter how good your website is.
Ready to reach a flood of new customers? We’re here to help take a lot of the mystery out of ECommerce Marketing – that’s why we’ve developed this free guide to all things Ecommerce SEO for your online store.
The Final Word on Link Building Strategies
These are ten tips that will help you to build links for your new website. Each falls within search engine guidelines and will result in high-quality and credible links back to your website.
Research and promotion of your work is as important as creating the content in the first place. Use these tips to create great content and find people that want to link to it.
Of course, link building is only part of your SEO strategy. You may need help to build a more comprehensive strategy, which is where Online Marketing Gurus, Australia’s top SEO services agency comes in.
