Today, if you are running a website and not ranking high on Google (the most common search engine everybody uses), in the coming month or year, then it will be too expensive to survive without SEO. And the most efficient way to do it is via link building. But what is link building, and how do you build creative links? This post will help walk you through the process in layman’s terms.
What Is Link Building?
Link building or Link development is the technique of getting hyperlinks from different sites to your site. These are popularly known as “links” and they function like bridges that link other websites together. Whenever a website references your site–this is like giving your site a thumbs up by search engines, meaning that it sees value in the information and believes you are trustworthy.
Link building is essential as it helps to increase your website rankings.
Search engines such as Google use links as a major ranking signal ( one of approx 200 ranking factors). The higher the number of high-quality backlinks your site boasts, well there are our chances for ranking in search results. Reaching the first page on Google when someone searches for related topics: Higher ranking in search engine results pages means more people will find your website, driving increased traffic and even customers to it and encouraging success within business.
The Basics of Link Building
To get your feet wet here and establish protocol, you should learn the fundamentals of link building before jumping into more creative than ever ideas on how you would reach.
- Always remember: Not all links are created equal,falsenofollow anchors high quality over quantity. Fewer links from poor-quality sites are better than tons of low-quality outlets.
- Organic Links: The most helpful links are that are booked but are taken actually by the reviewed. Provided when other websites link back to content on your website, but not in exchange for money or favor.
- Relevance Matters: Other things remaining equal, links from websites that are relevant to your industry or niche have more value. For example, if you run a fitness blog, a link from a health or sports website is more valuable than one from an unrelated website.
Moreover, link building is not just about placing a link for visitors but is also about search engine optimization, so it works as a ranking signal. So if your gym’s site is getting a link from a governmental health organization’s website, what can be a better ranking signal than this proves that you are a health organization.
Creative & Smart Outreach Strategies
Now that you have learned the basics, let’s look at some creative and smart link-building ideas
1. Understand Your Audience
Before you start linking building, you need to know who your audience is. Knowing your audience will help you identify the websites you want to be on and which ones you should avoid.
Consider the following:
- Who is visiting my site?
- What issues are they having that my content can help them with?
- What other sites are they visiting?
By understanding this, you can find websites that have an audience nearly the same as yours.
2. Create Valuable Content
Content is king when it comes to link building. To get other websites to link to your site, you need to offer something valuable that they would want to share with their audience. Here are some types of content that tend to attract links:
- How-To Guides: Detailed guides that explain how to do something are always popular.
- Infographics: Visual content like infographics is easy to share and can generate many links.
- Original Research: If you can provide unique data or insights, other websites may link to your research.
- Lists: People love lists, such as “Top 10 Tips for…” or “The Best Tools for…”. Lists are often shared and linked to.
Make sure your content is original, engaging, and relevant to your audience.
3. Build Relationships First.
Build Relationships with Influencers in Your Niche (Unquestionably one of the best ways to get links) Here’s how you can do it:
- Follow Them on Social Media: Begin by following them off Twitter, Linked or Instagram.
- Content Interaction: Leave meaningful comments on their blog posts, spread the word through social media, and converse with them.
- Help them out: If there is a place for you to help them like share their content or give advice; do it.
Asking for a link is much easier once you’ve established some sort of relationship.
4. Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is when you write an article for someone else’s blog. In old-fashioned, they often let you link to your site in the content or author bio section. Where guest blogging allows you to get legit links and reach a new audience.
- Make guest blogging work for you: You can choose relevant blogs that belong to your industry.
- High-Quality Content: For the love of all things holy, please don’t provide guest posts for sites that are better than your own {?} ☺
- – Follow-Up: Finally, after you are featured, follow up with the blog owner and say thank you but also mention how much fun it was to collaborate – this creates more opportunities for working together.
5. Use Social Media for Outreach
Sites like Facebook and Instagram are great for building links. Here’s how you can use them:
- Share Your Content: share your articles, videos, and infographics on social media channels. It may seem obvious, but the more traffic your site gets and the better quality that content is then, generally speaking, more people will link to your stuff.
- Tag influencers: When you mention an influencer or site in your content, tag them when sharing on social media. This will raise the possibility of their seeing it and re-posting it for lovers.
- Get Involved in the Community: Find and take part in specific Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, or other online communities of your field. Publish your content and interact with other members there.
6. Create Shareable Infographics
Visual infographics are great for links because they look nice and can be easily understood. 7 Ways You Can Get The Most Out of Infographics
- Pick a Topic That Resonates with Your Audience: A good topic might deal with impact, naturally; but it will be easily quantified and visualized. Keep this in mind when considering your topics!
- free contact bloggers or websites that deal with related issues, and provide them your infographic free of charge in return for a link to the correct website;
- Give It to Other Websites: Contact bloggers or websites that deal with related issues, and provide them your infographic free of charge in return for a link to the correct website;
Thanks to their sharability, infographics can create plenty of inbound links.
7. Offer Free Tools or Resources
One effective link-building strategy here is to create a free tool or resource. Here are some ideas:
- Calculator Tools: If your business revolves around specific calculations (finance, health & fitness) then you might want to develop a free calculator tool.
- Templates: Downloadable templates for anything people can incorporate into their work like resume layouts, budget spreadsheets, and design mockups.
- Ebooks or Guides: Write a detailed guide on something your followers care about & give it away for FREE!
People love freebies, and if your tool/resource is useful enough, they will link to it.
8. Be Persistent and Polite
You will not have a 100% success rate in every website agreeing to link back to your content and that is okay. Because nobody bats an average of 1 when it comes to asking for links! Try again, but always be polite about it. Here are some tips:
- Follow Up: If Someone Does Not Reply To Your Outreach Email, It Is Completely Fine To Send Them One Or Two More Emails A Week Apart. Emails can oftentimes be lost or forgotten.
- Acknowledge Their No: If the asker declines, just say thanks and leave it. There are so many other things that you can do!
- Record your outreach: Keep track of who you contacted when and what happened in a spreadsheet or CRM tool.
While yes, persistence does pay off—if that individual decides to publish your piece someday because of it, you do not want their first thought to be about the time when Pitch Number Three and Four came through in one day (I have never done industry).
Conclusion
Working on the backlinks is a crucial thing to rise in search engines and bring credibility among web owners. Employ your wits and smarter outreach, to earn quality links above in the search engine rankings of Google.
After all, the bedrock upon which successful link building is built is quality content, relationships with online markets and influencers in your industry, and a little old-fashioned—guess what—hard work.PERSISTENCE. If you are patient and a little creative, your website will go big. Be the digital king!
Well, if you want to embark on link building, start with your audience in mind and great content for them, then talk to others in the industry. All the best for your link-building journey!
