Backlinks Lesson 2: Getting Creative

Backlinks are incoming links to your website from other websites. These kinds of links play an important role in search engine optimization (SEO) because the number of backlinks a page has indicates its relevance, authority, and popularity to search engines. Each backlink is like a vote of confidence in your content from another source on the internet. The more backlinks a page has, the more trustworthy it appears to search engines, which will help it rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Not only do backlinks help search engines rank web pages, but they also provide an easy way for actual users to navigate between websites. When another site links to one of your pages, it creates a direct pipeline for that site’s users to discover your content. 

In other words, backlinks are essential for helping your website get more traffic from new users — which is why the most successful sites have a ton of them. Some of the top-ranking pages for highly competitive keywords have hundreds of thousands of backlinks from other sites.

However, you shouldn’t let other sites’ head starts to deter you from gearing up for your own backlink-building journey. While many new site owners try to close the gap by pursuing black hat SEO techniques that are designed to “trick” search engine algorithms, these misguided attempts will ultimately hurt your site’s rankings rather than help them. Focusing on white hat SEO techniques like securing legitimate, high-quality backlinks will help your content rise to the top of the SERPs much more quickly.

Fortunately, there are plenty of creative ways to get high-quality backlinks for your site (even if you don’t yet have a single one) without resorting to shady tactics. Let’s dive right in and explore four of the best ways to get quality backlinks for your website:

1. Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is a type of content marketing strategy in which an individual or organization creates content (such as a blog post) for another website. The goal of guest blogging is to add value to the site hosting the guest content and boost the visibility of the organization providing the guest content.

Benefits of Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is an excellent way to demonstrate your expertise in a particular subject or industry. By providing quality content, you can establish yourself as a thought leader and build credibility with readers, helping to attract new customers.

Guest blogging also provides the opportunity to reach new audiences that may not be familiar with your organization. By seeking guest blogging spots with other organizations within your niche, you can tap into relevant, established audiences.

And, of course, guest blogging also gives you a chance to acquire more backlinks. By including links to your own site in the content you write for other sites, you can increase your site’s authority and improve its search engine rankings over time.

Tips for Successful Guest Blogging

Before you start guest blogging, it is important to research and finds websites that are relevant to your topic or industry. Make sure the websites you choose have good reputations and are relevant to your industry. Once you have identified potential websites to host your guest blogs, craft a pitch that outlines why your content would be valuable for their users.

When writing a guest blog post, make sure it’s high-quality, original content that will provide value for the host site’s readers. Consider adding visuals like images, videos, or infographics to enhance readers’ experience with your post. 

Always include a bio section at the end of your guest posts with information about yourself or your organization, as well as a link back to your website. This is where you benefit from the guest post — with organic traffic to your site via the backlink as well as a boost to your site’s authority in the eyes of search engines.

2. Infographics

An infographic is a visual representation of data or information that is designed to make complex topics easier to understand. It typically consists of images, charts, and text that are used together to explain a concept or tell a story. Infographics are often used in digital marketing as they can quickly convey large amounts of information in an easily digestible format.

Benefits of Infographics

Incorporating infographics into your content marketing strategy can be a great way to engage users and widen your reach. Infographics are more visually appealing than many other kinds of content, which makes them more shareable. Users are more likely to share a concise and interesting infographic than a long-form article or blog post, increasing your potential for social media exposure.

Most importantly, infographics provide backlink opportunities by encouraging other websites to link back to your website when they use your infographic on their own page, boosting traffic and search engine rankings for your site in the process.

Tips for Creating Successful Infographics

When creating an infographic, the first step is to choose a topic that’s interesting and relevant to your target audience. Research your chosen topic thoroughly and ensure that an infographic that contains information about that topic will be valuable to your users.

Infographics are visual representations of data, so the quality of your visual design elements is of the utmost importance. Choose colors wisely and make sure all text is legible at various scales. In order to resonate with readers, your infographic should be aesthetically pleasing while also conveying a clear message with immediately obvious relevance to your audience.

After you’ve created your infographic, share it on social media in order to maximize its reach. You can also reach out to relevant websites in your industry directly and suggest that your infographic might be a relevant resource for their content.

3. Broken Link Building

Broken link building is an SEO tactic that involves finding broken links on other websites and alerting the site owner to the issue. This provides you with the opportunity to ask for a backlink in a couple of different ways: 

If your content would be an effective replacement for the broken link, you can suggest the site owner replaces the broken link with a link to your content. 

If you have content that’s relevant to the topic in the site owner’s post but not necessarily a suitable replacement for the particular link that’s broken, you can point out that a link to your content might make a nice addition to the post. Since you’ve done the site owner a favor by letting them know they have a broken link that needs fixing (and that you enjoyed their content), they’ll probably be more receptive to your request for a backlink.

Benefits of Broken Link Building

Broken link building is such an effective technique for building backlinks because it creates win-win scenarios. It provides value to the website owners you contact because they can quickly and easily replace their posts’ broken links with working ones, improving their sites’ SEO and user experiences. At the same time, it creates prime opportunities for you to ask these other site owners to give you backlinks since you just helped them out.

Tips for Successful Broken Link Building

Use link-checking tools like Check My Links to find broken links on relevant websites. Once you’ve identified a potential broken link-building opportunity, create high-quality content on the same topic as the original link. Make sure your content is well-written and contains valuable information so the owner of the website with the broken link will be willing to link to your content instead.

Next, reach out directly to the owner of that site via email, introduce yourself, and explain why they should consider replacing their content’s broken link with yours instead. Include details about how a link to your content would add value to their post, and be sure to express a personal interest in or appreciation for their post while you’re at it.

4. Resource Pages

A resource page is a web page that provides links to other websites, documents, and other resources related to a particular topic. Resources pages are typically used as reference guides for people looking for more information on a subject. Resource pages might include links to articles, videos, podcasts, ebooks, and any other types of useful materials on the topic.

Benefits of Resource Pages

Resource pages are one of the best ways to connect site visitors with valuable information quickly, which helps them find what they need without having to search through multiple websites.

Resource pages also present perfect opportunities for other website owners to get backlinks. When another site owner links to your content in one of their resource pages, it opens the door to engagement with a whole new audience.

Tips for Using Resource Pages to Get Backlinks

Identify a topic in your industry or niche that other organizations might be interested in featuring on their resources pages. Since you’re creating content specifically to serve as an informational resource, the topic you choose should be specific enough to allow you to go into great detail.

Once you’ve identified a potential topic, create comprehensive, high-quality content on that subject. Make sure your content is well-researched, up-to-date, and offers information that’s both valuable and actionable. Include images or videos if possible to make the content more engaging. 

Reach out with personalized email pitches to the owners of websites with relevant resource pages. Introduce yourself and your organization, explain the value of your content and point out why it would make a strong addition.

The Importance of White Hat Techniques for Building Backlinks

As you start building backlinks for your website, it’s crucial to keep your efforts firmly within the realm of white hat SEO. Black hat SEO is a type of SEO technique that focuses on manipulating search engine algorithms into ranking their content higher using unethical tactics like keyword stuffing or link buying.

This is not just a moral plea to prospective SEO marketers — even though they seem like shortcuts, black hat SEO techniques will only hurt your site’s rankings in the long run because search engine algorithms are getting better at detecting and penalizing content that engages in black hat SEO.

Final Thoughts on Building Backlinks

Backlink building is one of the most essential aspects of SEO. Increasing the number of backlinks your content has not only boosts your website’s visibility in search engine results but also introduces your content to new audiences through other websites. The strategies outlined in this article are all great ways to start building quality backlinks for your web pages. With the right link-building approach and an unwavering dedication to creating quality content, you can develop a strong network of backlinks that will drive traffic to your site.