Backlinks are the currency of the online world. Sites with a lot of backlinks are often considered authoritative sites and tend to rank high in Google. Sites without any backlinks are doomed to obscurity.
If you're just starting out in SEO, figuring out link building can be quite a challenge. When you ask how to backlink to a website, some will tell you to create great content and wait for the natural arrival of backlinks, others will insist that strategic link exploration and targeted email promotion are the key to link building, and still others will give you a mysterious smile and say only one word: PBN.
So who should you listen to?
As with many things about SEO, the right answer is: "It depends on the industry you're in." There is no single absolutely right approach when it comes to link building, and the choice of link building tactics will largely depend on your industry, the website itself, your resources, and your goals.
Seeing this, are you more confused than the original?
Do not worry. Our link building guide is designed with beginners in mind and makes sure that the recommendations in the article are actionable, and you can start implementing the link strategy in the article right away.
The Basic Knowledge Of External Link Building
Since this is a beginner's guide, let's start with the basics.
What is link building?
Link building refers to having other websites link to pages on your site to help your site rank higher in Google search results.
In general, most "white hat" backlink building strategies boil down to two simple steps.
Create something valuable (make it worthy of being linked by value)
Show these things to people who own websites (so that links can be built)
Why Is Link Building Important?
Backlinks are one of Google's three main ranking factors. So, if you want your website pages to rank high in searches, backlinks are almost certain.
Google (and other search engines) treat links from other websites as "votes" on that site. These votes help search engines determine which page deserves to be at the top of the search results among thousands of similar pages under a topic.
In general, pages with more backlinks tend to rank higher in search results. Many SEO companies have done large-scale research on this, and there has always been a positive correlation between the number of websites linking to a web page and its ranking position in Google. That is, the more backlinks, the higher the ranking.
Therefore, it is an established fact that backlinks are important. But why is it so important to artificially build backlinks?
Websites tend to link to each other naturally, right? Just like in this article, I can also link to "The Concept of White Hat SEO", or to a research report on the relationship between backlink count and website traffic.
Ideally, the most valuable pages on a topic will always get the most backlinks and rank first in Google. Low-quality, low-value pages won't get as many backlinks and rank lower.
But we don't live in an ideal world. There are two main reasons why the page with the most backlinks isn't necessarily the best:
1. The vicious cycle of SEO
If I really choose to link to the two pages mentioned above. Do you think I'll study thousands of similar web pages to pick the best one? Of course not. I would just do a quick Google search for something I wanted to refer to, open a couple of top-ranking pages, confirm that they said what I needed, and then link to the one that seemed the most appropriate.
In this way, the two top-ranking pages get a new link for themselves, which further guarantees their high ranking in Google. We call it the "vicious cycle of SEO."
At the moment of publishing, your well-designed pages are immediately at a huge disadvantage compared to those pages on the same topic that rank high on Google, and can even be said to have made a dowry for others. And if you want to break this vicious cycle, you have to be proactive in getting backlinks and trying to get it to give you backlinks too.
2. Your competitors may be building links
Let's say your page has naturally gotten a lot of backlinks (no human intervention involved in link building), and your page is now ranking number one on Google.
So, guess what? Before you appear at the top, it was someone else's page that used to rank number one, and its owner is likely looking to regain the top spot by building some quality links.
Even if it's not at the top, the same story happens in other ranking positions, and your competitors will always want him to rank higher. Even though your page may actually be ten times better than theirs, allowing you to naturally win many backlinks in the first place, your competitors can still easily outrank you if they are skilled enough in link building.
Backlinks aren't everything in rankings
From the introduction of this part, in order to rank first in Google, all we need to do is build more backlinks than the currently number one page. That's not wrong to some extent, but the ranking results are actually more nuanced than that.
In addition to the number of backlinks, search engines consider many other variables when ranking web pages. The combination of these variables determines the ranking results of a web page.
So if you've built a lot of backlinks to your page but the page still ranks poorly, don't blame this article for misleading you and look at other ranking factors that may be preventing you from ranking well.
How To Build External Links?
There are many tactics and strategies to help you get backlinks from other websites that link to your pages. In this section, you'll learn what these tactics and tactics are, the logic behind them, and how risky it can be to use them.
Conceptually, most link building tactics and strategies fall into one of five areas: add, request, buy, earn, and save.
1. Add backlinks
If you can go to a website that you don't belong to and manually place your link there, it's called "adding" backlinks. The most common methods that fall into this category are:
l Submit a business directory.
l Create a social profile.
l Blog comments.
l Post on forums, communities, and Q&A sites.
l Create a job search list.
It's very easy to build backlinks through these methods, and for this reason, such backlinks are of very low value in Google's eyes and may even be flagged as spammy in some cases.
On top of that, these backlinks don't give you any competitive advantage. If you can go into a website and manually place your link there, your competitors can do the same.
However, you shouldn't completely ignore this link building strategy. Aside from being able to capture the number of backlinks, each of them is actually quite beneficial to your business.
Submit your website to the vendor directory
Instead of submitting your site to a random industry directory site, focus on directories of well-known suppliers that have traffic and are likely to bring actual visitors to your site, such as local trade association websites in your target market.
For example, if you are a small business owner and you have learned about a supplier directory for your target market, buyers will look for suitable suppliers in the supplier directory, you should definitely list your business there. Such a link may give you more "SEO value" than submitting your website to a generic business directory you find on a random SEO forum.
Create a social profile for your business
It's a good practice to declare your brand name on all major social media sites (Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and similar) as soon as possible. Otherwise, once your brand enters the eyes of competitors and poses a threat to them, they may use your business profile such as avatar and name to register social media accounts. This is the same as trademark squatting.
Blog comments
Leaving meaningful comments on someone else's article is a great way to get into the article's writer's field of vision and connect with them (which can lead to all sorts of unexpected gains). However, if the sole purpose of your comment is to stuff your website link there, it will only cause resentment to the blogger.
Also, links from blog comments are usually "nofollowed" (i.e., no authority is passed). Therefore, if you leave a comment for someone just to add your link there, we recommend that you not. Hopefully, these three examples will give you a good idea of how to add backlinks to other websites without being flagged as "spammy" by search engines.
2. Request a link
This is when you reach out to website owners and give them a compelling reason to ask them to give you a backlink. This "compelling reason" is an absolute must. The website owners you reach out to don't care about you and your site unless you're some sort of celebrity and they have zero motivation to help you. So before you want them to link with you, ask yourself. How is this good for them?
Here are some specific ways to fall into this category of backlink strategies, along with their simple "compelling reasons."
1. Guest Blog: Create useful content for their website.
2. Skyscraper technology: Show them better resources than the sites they link to.
3. Link insertion: Show them an outreach resource about something they briefly mentioned.
4. Self-induction: Start by mentioning them or their work in a positive way in your own content.
5. Reviews and case studies: Give positive feedback on their products or services.
6. Link exchange: If they agree to link to you, you give them a link too.
7. Link to resource pages: Show them great resources that fit into their existing list.
8. Build broken links: Help them fix dead links on their pages.
9. Image link building: Require backlinks when using your images.
10. Unlinked mentions: Require that mentions of your brand be "clickable"; "
11. Link move: Requires modifications to existing links.
All of these tactics look exciting. But when you send your first email request, you're likely faced with the harsh reality that your "compelling reason" isn't convincing enough that you won't receive any responses. Your guest post is not good enough. Your resources are not unique enough. Your skyscraper is not tall enough. Wait a minute. You see, in order for these backlink building strategies to be effective, we still need to create a really good page that people will naturally want to link to.
Given the difficulty of convincing people to add backlinks to a website, many SEOs start looking for some quick ways to add backlinks, namely exchange:
1. Share content from each other's websites on Twitter and Facebook.
2. Indicates that their content will be promoted in email newsletters.
3. Provide free products or services.
4. Provide a link in exchange.
5. Offer money.
However, when offering these types of additional benefits, we also enter the gray area of SEO, which, according to Google's official statement, can hurt our rankings.
It's brutal, but that's the way it is. The legal way to get backlinks has a fairly low success rate, but as soon as you try to sugar-coat backlinks, you're in Google's minefield.
Having said that, I seem to be trying to dissuade you from using the tactics and tactics listed in this group. I didn't. I just wanted to set a correct expectation so you don't give up after sending the 10th email without getting a response. It really takes a lot of effort to get links with these tactics without violating Google's guidelines.
3. Buy backlinks
We don't recommend buying backlinks. In the best-case scenario, you could waste a lot of money on backlinks that have no impact on your rankings; In the worst-case scenario, your site could be penalized by Google for buying backlinks.
Yet many people in the SEO industry "buy" links in various ways and manage to get away with them will put you at a disadvantage. That said, we're not going to teach you how to buy links safely, but rather educate you about some of the most dangerous ways.
Private blog network
Also known as PBNs (Private Blog Networks), these sites are built and maintained for one purpose: to be a source of backlinks.
Links from PBNs are still valid in certain niches. But over the past few years, we've seen a number of vocal PBN advocates abandon their use. It's too risky to risk for the masses. So if someone offers you to buy backlinks from a PBN (or set up a private PBN for you), you'd better say no.
Fiverr
Hundreds of people on Fiverr say they can provide "natural, authoritative, white hat" backlinks. They'll give you all kinds of guarantees that the links are legitimate, and these backlinks will push your site to the top of Google in a short period of time.
Try to avoid them. Even if your friend says he tried them personally and it worked. Remember: the best link-building agencies don't sell their services on Fiverr.
Spam for selling backlinks
If your website lists your email address, sooner or later you will receive an email offering to purchase backlinks. If you care about the health and performance of your website, don't buy links from these people. Just mark these emails as spam.
Of course. You may also receive development emails from legitimate link builders that only use secure white hat tactics to build links. But I believe you can tell a legitimate SEO agency from a spammy seller.
All in all, buying backlinks is fairly common in SEO, and the amount of purchases depends mainly on your industry. But even if your competitors are paying for backlinks, you don't necessarily have to follow suit. You don't need to violate Google's guidelines to get good rankings and search traffic.
4. Earn backlinks
You earn backlinks when others unsolicited links to pages on your site, which doesn't require you to ask them to do so. But unless you have something of real value, other sites won't want to mention your content on their sites either.
Plus, it's impossible for people to link to things they don't know or see. Therefore, no matter how great your page is, you need to invest in promoting it. The more people who see your page, the better the chances that some of them will link to your page.
Here are some specific ways to fall into this category:
l Linkable assets such as data research, infographics, industry surveys.
l Podcasts/Interviews/Expert Roundups.
l Content promotion.
l Wait a minute.
Earning backlinks is arguably the easiest and most effective way to get backlinks.
You may think that only authoritative, professional, or large websites can easily earn backlinks with quality content. Because those sites have:
l A large amount of proprietary data that they can use for research investigations.
l A team of skilled professionals who can help them create valuable resources.
l A trusted brand whose customer base automatically provides credibility to all their work.
l A sizeable audience that can promote their content.
These things do help a lot, but none of them are prerequisites for earning backlinks. Anyone can create valuable content and earn links, as long as they are passionate about a topic and have a little bit of determination.
In this case, it's worth taking the time to investigate your industry and refine your industry knowledge to better understand what might pique interest from other sites. Don't waste your time looking for effective link-building strategies to build links to boring content, which doesn't have value.
5. Protect backlinks
As the name suggests, this last group of policies revolves around protecting all your hard-earned backlinks. One could argue that restoring lost backlinks cannot be classified as "link building." But as they say, "a dollar saved is a dollar earned."
There are only two ways to protect backlinks.
l Link reengineering.
l Fix 404 pages on your site that have backlinks.
Let's discuss these two methods briefly.
Link reengineering
Backlinks are not guaranteed to last forever. Which pages that previously backlinked you may be updated or deleted. As a result, the backlinks that the page gives you may no longer exist.
Therefore, we should pay attention to our backlink data so that we can even be aware of the decrease in the number of backlinks. This allows us to contact the owner of the website and try to get our backlinks backlinks back.
Fix 404 pages on your site that have backlinks
In addition to other people's pages, pages on your own website can also disappear. Whatever the reason, some of your pages may be deleted and become 404 pages. And since backlinks to 404 pages won't bring any SEO value to your site, we need to fix 404 pages with backlinks on your site.
To find the link to the 404 page on your website, you can enter the domain name >Best by link> filter site >explorer in the SEO tool Ahref: 404 not found.
From here, all you need to do is restore these 404 pages or redirect them 301 to the most relevant page on your site.
Important
There is some evidence that Google may continue to pass on a certain amount of link value to a page even after a link has ceased to exist. This phenomenon is known as "link echo" or "link ghost" and it fundamentally discourages people from monitoring their lost links.
Our stance on this issue is that if you lose an important backlink that effectively drives visitors to your site, you should definitely try to recover it. But in most other cases, you're better off spending your time getting new backlinks than fighting to restore and keep old ones.