You’re a whiz with keywords, but are links leaving you stressed?
You’re not alone. Even 41 percent of marketers find link building to be the most challenging aspect of SEO.
Despite the difficulties, links are crucial ranking factors for Google’s algorithm.
Let’s dig more into ranking factors and develop a link-building campaign that drives results.
Google has over 200 ranking factors, with more than 45 for backlinks alone.
A backlink is any external URL linking back to your site. Internal links direct to other web pages on your site. Internal link building helps search algorithms understand your domain, providing clarity for ranking.
Backlinks hold even more SEO power. Ranking factors include:
There are more ranking factors, but the above criteria are the most important for beginners to know.
Use these factors as a checklist for assessing backlink quality. This process is also called backlink auditing. An SEO expert can audit for advanced factors, like TrustRank and positive link velocity.
A backlink audit is a nice way to kick off a link building campaign. You get a clearer picture of your link profile. Plus, you can identify spammy backlinks.
The good news is that Google algorithms are better at recognizing and ignoring spammy links. You don’t have to worry about these links hurting your site. However, you can still disavow them in your search console.
Are you ready for something a little more challenging?
You know what quality backlinks look like, but locking them in requires a multifaceted approach. Backlinks can drop off over time too. Like content creation, link building is an ongoing strategy.
Below are six strategies for generating backlinks:
There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s focus on content creation first.
Content marketing and link building go hand-in-hand. It’s simple: craft stellar content and attract mentions from quality sites.
While you can’t control which sites link out, exceptional content is more likely to attract quality backlinks.
However, some content formats draw more backlinks than others. For example, long-form guides generate more engagement than short write-ups. Listicles get more attention than sparse about pages.
Other popular content types include:
You can publish these content formats on your blog. Long-form guides work as pillar content too, which you can promote in your navigation menu.
Of course, you have to publish content marketing on social media.
First, automate social media promotion in your CMS platform. Sharing content to Facebook and Twitter generates reshares, which increase ranking signals. However, quality social media accounts have higher ranking power.
Users receive a lot of content in their feeds. You may have to share the same content more than once to get traction. Try adjusting tweets and captions to attract more engagement.
Guest posts are an extension of content marketing. Instead of creating content through your website, you’re guest posting on another site.
There’s no guaranteed time frame with content marketing. You have to publish quality content and wait for a backlink. Guest posting speeds up the process, providing a backlink as soon as the post is published.
Writing a guest post is half the battle. The real challenge is acquiring guest post opportunities.
Opportunities won’t come to you. You must seek them out through cold outreach. However, many publications do have guest post submission forms on their websites.
Remember to read the fine print before submitting a post. Some websites don’t allow backlinks in guest posts, which defeats the purpose of your link building campaign.
Plus, you need a dofollow link, not a nofollow link. Google doesn’t count nofollow backlinks in search rankings.
Guest post outreach takes a lot of time. Plus, frequent rejection isn’t for the faint of heart. Thankfully, guest posting services do the leg work for you.
Try out different services to learn more. Many providers offer discounts to new clients too. For example, this page highlights various promos for guest posting credits: http://seojet.net/seo-discount.php.
This next tip is pretty clever but also involves cold outreach.
There are billions of websites online. Thus, plenty of broken links to go around.
These links are little backlink goldmines. Plus, many website owners don’t even know they’re there.
First, make sure your site is relevant to the other website. Next, kindly email the owner asking to replace the broken link with your URL.
The owner might appreciate the tip, rewarding you with a backlink.
You can also replace broken links on Wikipedia with your URLs. However, editors are on the lookout for irrelevant content. Your link must add value to the article.
There are three wiki link building strategies:
The first method takes the longest. Plus, the article must be impeccably sourced and relevant. If it doesn’t pass muster, Wikipedia editors will delete the article.
You can also edit an existing article and use your link as a source. Again, your edit and link must be relevant to the content.
This link building strategy works best for online publications.
Are you feeling more confident about link building?
Use this guide as a checklist for your link building campaign. Consider ranking factors, content, guest posts, and broken links when crafting your strategy.
Always be ready for what’s next. Share this post on Linkedin and stay tuned for more.
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