11 Jan 14 tips for creating valuable backlinks
Backlinks are links on other websites linked to yours. The more valuable backlinks you acquire, the higher your authority becomes.
The bigger your authority, the higher your ranking factor in the search results.
The most important ranking factor is still backlinks
Before the arrival of Google, search engines worked very differently from how we know them now.
At that time, keyword density was the only way to determine how high a webpage ranked. You can imagine how easy it was to abuse this.
If you knew that specific keywords had a high search volume, you just added them to your website, and you would generate tons of visitors.
For the visitors themselves, it was a different story. They would search, for example, for where to buy the best running shoes.
Instead of finding a page full of running shoes in the first search results, they would end up on a website that offered land mowers.
Because the site for land mowers knew there was a high search volume on the term ‘running shoes,’ they would stuff their website with this keyword.
At that time, you still had to dial in to go on the internet and pay per minute. You can imagine that search engine users got frustrated from entering a website that did not offer what they were looking for.
PageRank
In 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin wanted to figure out another way to determine which websites rank high in the search results.
A method that was less likely to get abused and gave the search engine users a higher quality search experience. PageRank was born.
PageRank provides a rough estimate of the importance or value of a web page.
By calculating the number of incoming links and their quality, PageRank determines how important a webpage is. The more quality backlinks a webpage has, the higher the ranking.
Even though Google doesn’t use PageRank like it did in the old days or use its name. The algorithm behind PageRank is still significant.
PageRank is not the only ranking factor.
After the introduction of PageRank, Google developed many more ranking factors.
The system of showing pages only by how many incoming links they offered was sensitive to manipulation, and Google had to devise other ways to give the best search experience possible.
With backlinks being one of the most important, at this time, there are over 200 factors involved in ranking a page.
Backlinks on your website are such a big deal because they have a massive impact on your ranking. If you look at the top 50 results in Google for keywords with a lot of competition, you will only find websites with several high-quality backlinks.
It is, therefore, as good as impossible to have a good ranking without backlinks, even if you have the most amazing content on your website.
But how do you get backlinks that also have high quality? In this article, we will give you 14 tips on how to acquire backlinks naturally.
Before we start with tip number one, we would like to make sure you know the following:
Google punishes
The biggest battle Google is fighting is against websites that try to manipulate their ranking in the search results.
You will be punished when Google finds out you are manipulating the search results.
By punishing, it doesn’t mean that when Google finds out you are manipulating the search results, you can expect a fine.
It means that Google will obliterate your website from the search results or put you somewhere in the back.
For example, on page 582. Since Google has a market share of over 95%, this will cost your website almost all visitors.
Some websites that rely on their ranking and play tricks to ‘improve’ their ranking will sometimes lose their company.
Buying your way in
Buying backlinks is a way to get a lot of backlinks to your website quickly. Google is, to say the least, not happy with these practices.
Buying backlinks is, therefore, in violation of the Google Guidelines for webmasters.
When websites buy backlinks, they buy their ‘importance’ instead of earning it.
If the website had been really important, they would not have had to buy backlinks. Then they would have naturally obtained their backlinks.
An example of natural authority
Wikipedia ranks high in Google for many keywords. This is because Wikipedia is a very important website with about 150 million backlinks.
Wikipedia did not purchase these backlinks. People have placed a link to Wikipedia on their own initiative because it offers valuable information.
Besides people linking to Wikipedia, the website has a very strong internal link profile.
By linking every page several times to other pages, you increase the amount of time people spend on your website. This is another important ranking factor.
The Google Penguin algorithm
Because Google can’t see if you have bought backlinks, it developed an algorithm that detects purchased links. It is called Penguin. Penguin is only concerned about link quality.
Sites that have purchased links or obtained low-quality links through places such as low-quality directories, alleged blogs, link badges, and infographics may find that their sites are no longer found on the search terms you want.
Google will never share how the Penguin algorithm works precisely. Luckily for us, search gurus always test different ways to figure it out.
We can’t know for sure, but we think the algorithm looks for the following to determent if links are bought or not:
- Using words such as ‘advertisement,’ ‘ads,’ or something like ‘sponsored’ around the backlink
- Attracting a large number of backlinks in a short time from websites that have no owner.
- Using commercial anchor texts
- Backlinks that are suddenly included in old content without any changes to the content
You don’t have to be afraid you will get punished by Google when you meet a few of these points. The algorithm works when there is a particular input of variables.
It needs several characteristics to determine the actual value of a link.
A natural backlink profile
If you want to make money via your website, having a natural backlink profile must be at the top of your list.
To make sure Google doesn’t think your links are bought and (wrongly) punishes you, it follows what we call a natural backlink profile.
If you want a natural backlink profile, it is possible to do nothing at all about your backlink profile. All the links you will receive like this will be 100% natural.
Letting it run its own course is only for some. Some websites rely on the revenue from visitors visiting their sites.
Therefore action needs to be taken to speed things up.
Take note before you start: Google says you have to provide a natural backlink profile and not have to provide a backlink profile that looks natural.
Tip 1: Create a blog
If you want other websites to link to yours, you must give them a reason. By creating blogs about relevant subjects, you provide them with that reason.
Creating backlinks takes a lot of work, but the ones you get are more valuable.
For instance, if you have a physical store that sells kitchen essentials. You have a website, but the only thing mentioned on this site is where people can find your store and the opening hours.
This can be very valuable for people looking for your store (people who already know you), but it doesn’t have any interesting content to share on other websites.
Creating a blog about different ways to use some of your kitchen essentials gives other websites a reason to share your content if this is relevant to them.
Writing content does not guarantee backlinks directly. But you are working on making your website more interesting for other websites to link to.
After writing blogs, you need to share them with the people to who it is relevant. You can send e-mails to websites to point them to your content.
Tip 2: Check your competition
How to get backlinks with the least effort? By using Link Intersect Tool from ahrefs.
Although this service is paid, it is the best tool to find possibilities for finding sites that will link to your content. There is no (good) free tool.
The tool shows websites from which your competition has got links. If they would link to your competition, why wouldn’t they link to you?
After you have done your research on where your competition has earned their links, you can email these websites with relevant content for them to link to.
Tip 3: Guest blogs
Guest Blogging involves accepting links from other bloggers in their content or the other way around.
Guest blogs have existed for as long as blogs exist but have become popular in recent years as a link-building method as part of the SEO strategy.
Google caused an increase in contextual links (links processed in text) as they are considered more valuable than links from a directory without any content.
With guest blogging, you strike two birds with one stone: you get a relevant backlink, and it will also give you direct visitors from that blog.
It shows that your expertise is valuable when sharing information about subjects you specialize in.
To return to the example we gave in a previous tip: the store that sells kitchen essentials. If they would have a cook write about different recipes while using the kitchen supplies from the store, they show that other people than themselves believe in the products too.
This will give them leverage when selling their goods. It’s always better for others to say that you are extraordinary than you telling everyone you are.
To find guest bloggers, you can search for blogs in your branch that are looking for guest bloggers (many blogs prefer to write their own content).
You can do this by searching in Google for ‘guest blog industry/subject.’
When getting backlinks that are very relevant to what you offer on your website Google will mark this as very valuable. And increase your ranking.
Tip 4: Profile backlinks
Some websites will allow you to add your website when you make a profile. First, you need to check if the page where you want to place your link has a ‘do-follow’ tag.
This means that when you place your link, Google will value the link. When there is a ‘no-follow’ tag, Google won’t give it any value.
A natural backlink profile must consist of a mix of “dofollow” and “nofollow” links. By creating links that are “nofollow,” you will ensure a natural backlink profile.
Several large websites on which you can create a profile with a valuable dofollow link:
Tip 5: Create an internal link profile
After a while, when working on your link profile, you will see that you have some pages with backlinks and some that don’t have any.
Those with backlinks are the ones Google will give a higher value. The pages that don’t have any backlinks (yet) will not benefit from the importance given to the other pages.
Unless you link them internally, you will pass on the link juice, as it’s called, to different pages on your site and ultimately give your complete site a higher ranking value.
Tip 6: Press releases
Writing and distributing press releases is a common way to share news about your company with others.
Traditionally, press releases are shared to share news about a company, but a press release is also good for your SEO strategy.
Describing your product or service can be helpful, but it is not a subject for a press release. It will only be posted if your press release has news value.
The launch of a new product or the opening of a new office are examples of newsworthy events.
After you write about your newsworthy events, you need to distribute them, and you can send them to (online) media.
Don’t forget a clearly shown link to your website; don’t make it longer than one page. When shared on highly authoritative websites, Google will mark this as very valuable.
Tip 7: Directories
A directory is an ‘index’ or ‘table of contents for something. On the internet, this means a website or platform that other websites have gathered around a particular theme or in a specific branch.
The collected websites are usually subdivided into categories and subcategories within the website so that visitors simply click through to what they are looking for.
Major directories are yelp.com and bing.com.
Because it is so easy to get links like this, the directories that are operating at the moment are being spammed for life with different websites.
This means that if you want to add your website to a particular directory, there is a big chance you’ll get rejected, even when the directory is a perfect fit.
Basically, about 10% of your link requests will be honored.
Tip 8: Article marketing
This form of internet marketing is often part of an SEO campaign.
By using article websites, you get (usually for free) a link to your website in an article that you have written. You can add your article to many places.
These websites receive content on subjects they do not know about, and you get a link return in exchange.
These websites desire uniquely written articles from you; a previously published article will be seen as duplicate content and harmful to their ranking, ultimately yours.
Tip 9: Broken links
Broken link building is a way to build links to your website by detecting dead links on other websites, letting the webmaster know, and offering replacement content (your content).
The internet is full of broken links. You can find them using tools like broken link check or Xenu Link Sleuth. These websites give you a rapport of all the broken links on a specific website or page.
When you find broken links, you can approach the web page owner and point out to them that there is a link that no longer works and that they can replace it with a link to a webpage on your domain.
A web page on your domain that treats the same topic that the broken link referred to.
Many web admins will honor your request to adjust the link. In the end, you helped them.
You have pointed them out to a link that no longer works, and you give them an alternative without having to make any effort and research themselves.
Tip 10: Blog comments
Another way to get backlinks is by sharing links to your content in comments on sites with blogs about what you are doing or questions asked about where you know everything about.
When you post your link in a comment, check what kind of ‘follow’ tag the page has. The most valuable links are placed on pages with a ‘do-follow’ tag.
Be careful with the placements of your links. If you place links on irrelevant pages, Google might see them as spamming and punish you.
Blog comments are part of a natural backlink profile, which is a quick way to get backlinks. In addition, you create interaction with other webmasters from your industry.
Tip 11: Ask for backlinks
When you find websites that talk about you or different blogs you wrote, you can ask them to link to your website.
This will work best when you have a big website. Even if you don’t, it is worth trying.
Tip 12: Give something away in exchange for a review
If you want others to write about you, it is good to incentivize them to do this. If you sell physical goods, you can give this away in exchange for a review.
If you deliver a service, you can give people an exclusive new feature to use the first in exchange for an honest review.
When reviewing what you offer, ask them to add a link to where others can find the product or service on your website.
Tip 13: The Linkbait
You can wait for others to link to you spontaneously, but that takes a lot of time, and the chance of success is manageable.
Fortunately, you can give web admins a helping hand with Linkbait. A linkbait is a piece of content (photo, video, infographic, etc.) that makes you attract a lot of links.
Creating a good linkbait is (usually) a considerable investment in time (or money). And the outcome is very uncertain.
It is unsure if it will give you any backlinks. However, there are examples of link baits that provided millions of backlinks and were shared millions of times on Social Media.
A good linkbait gets a snowball effect. However, you can subtly bring your linkbait to the attention via social media, forums, and websites.
Tip 14: Request a link from people you know
You can always ask people around you for links. You may have friends, family, or business relations with a website where they can add a link to yours.
You can even trade links with them. People you know are more likely to honor your request.
You can also try via social media. When sharing your content, you can ask people to link to the blog if relevant.
You may find websites from friends and family that you did not know of but are a perfect fit with what you are doing.
Get started with link building for your website
With the ever-changing algorithm of search engines and potential penalties for using specific link-building techniques, outsourcing link-building can also provide peace of mind that you are using ethical and legitimate practices. Want to get started with cranking up your ranking? Let’s talk about what we can do for you.
