How To

How to Build Backlinks for Your Website

Backlinks are highly impactful tools for web users, businesses, and search engines. These online elements play a significant role in visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs) and garnering web traffic.

However, websites have minimal control over these search engine optimization (SEO) metrics. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do to influence them.

In this guide, we’ll discuss the importance of one of these SEO metrics, backlinks, and how to build backlinks to your website in a way that lends authority and credibility to your site.

What are backlinks?

Backlinks, also known as external or inbound links, are links from one website to another. Specifically, backlinks refer to instances where another website links back to yours. While you want to include links to other websites in your content, it’s also important that other pages link back to yours.

Website crawlers use backlinks to determine how your content relates to other websites and pages across the Internet. Identifying these connections through backlinks helps crawlers rank websites on SERPs as accurately as possible.

In essence, a backlink is like a vote of confidence for your content and, ultimately, your website.

When websites link back to your site, they’re telling search engines that your content is valuable, link-worthy, and trustworthy. That’s why sites with high numbers of backlinks tend to rank better for SEO on Google results pages.

Why are backlinks important?

Before we can answer the question of how to build backlinks, we have to look at why backlinks are important in the first place. In short, backlinks are incredibly valuable for SEO purposes.

The primary benefits of building backlinks include:

• Expanding your audience: When websites link to your website in their content, they effectively put your brand in front of a completely new audience, increasing the likelihood of generating new leads for you.
• Gaining authority: Backlinks from reputable industry names establish you as an authority in your niche, increasing your audience’s trust in your brand.
• Boosting rankings: When web spiders crawl your website, they factor your backlink profile into your search rankings based on your content’s quality and authoritativeness.
• Building relationships: Link building often involves organizational outreach, which can help you create beneficial, long-term relationships with key industry figures.

How to build backlinks for your website

You can earn backlinks through link building, which is the process of promoting your website through various outlets with the goal of earning more backlinks to your site. Your SERP rankings reflect the quality of your backlinks, which is why it’s important to build links to and from authoritative sources.

You can supercharge your SEO strategy and increase your online authority when you build backlinks with these tried and true link-building tactics.

1. Create valuable content
2. Reach out to influential sources
3. Write guest blog posts
4. Use the broken link-building method
5. Take to social media
6. Monitor your competitors
7. Use the Skyscraper Technique
8. Help a Reporter Out (HARO)

1. Create valuable content

One of the best ways to build backlinks is to create high-quality content that other sites will want to share.

This content can include anything from blog posts and infographics to guides and videos — anything that acts as a useful resource for readers. When other sites link to your original content, these backlinks portray you as a reputable source of information and help you gain authority in your industry.

2. Reach out to influential sources

After creating valuable content for your website, reach out to influential sources within your industry, like bloggers, reporters, and influencers, and ask if they’ll share it.

You can narrow down your options by plugging the topic you wrote about into Google and writing down the names of people who have recently covered that topic. Send outreach emails to those individuals, expressing the value your content provides.

3. Write guest blog posts

Guest blogging involves publishing articles on other people’s websites. Writing guest blog posts is an excellent way to get your name in front of a new audience and earn backlinks to your website. Plus, the website you’re writing for will gain a new resource for their site. Ultimately, it’s a win-win situation.

To get started, make a list of potential blogs and reach out to their moderators to strike up a deal. Be sure to check if each blog already has a guest posting policy featured on its website.

If so, make sure your pitch adheres to their guidelines. You should also verify whether the blog has a linking policy, which will specify how many times they’ll backlink to your site.

4. Use the broken link building method

Broken links are links that no longer work or exist due to an improper URL, a 404 error, or a changed website destination. You can take advantage of these links when you find them on other people’s websites and reach out to the owners to alert them.

Once you contact the website owner about the broken link, offer up one of your own web pages with related content to replace the broken link. Web admins are likely to accept the offer and link back to your content because you helped them fix a problem on their site.

You can easily locate broken links using various online tools and plugins, like Google Webmaster Tools.

5. Take to social media

While links on social networks don’t necessarily count as backlinks, they’re valuable tools for earning more from other reputable sites.

You can use social media to promote your website and encourage followers to share your content, building greater brand awareness. With this brand awareness comes the potential to earn new backlinks.

6. Monitor your competitors

Another great method to try when figuring out how to build backlinks is to find out what’s working for your competitors and follow suit to improve your own backlink-building strategy.

Tools like Link Explorer are ideal for monitoring backlinks to your competitors’ websites, giving you valuable insights into their link building-approach. For example, if you find that your competitors earn a lot of links from a specific site, you may be able to get backlinks from that same site.

7. Use the Skyscraper Technique

Creating skyscraper content, also known as long-form content, is another great way to get backlinks. Long-form content usually appears as thorough guides, usually around 2,000+ words, that address common questions about an industry topic.

The idea behind the Skyscraper Technique is to write content that covers all aspects of a certain topic in extensive detail — and does so better than other pages. The more comprehensive your content is, the more likely you are to generate backlinks.

8. Help a Reporter Out (HARO)

Journalists are excellent sources for backlinks, as they frequently search for authoritative sources to quote in their articles. Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is a free link-building tool that helps you get backlinks from journalists, bloggers, and news sites.

All you have to do is sign up as a source, and you can view and respond to journalists’ inquiries for information related to your industry. If they choose to use your answers, they’ll link back to your website in their content.

Earn high-quality backlinks for your site with SEO services from WebFX

You’ll earn valuable backlinks for your website when you work with the SEO experts at WebFX. We can help you improve your online content, traffic, and visibility to achieve higher SERP rankings for your site.

With over 25 years of experience in providing companies with effective digital marketing solutions, we’re the experienced firm you can trust.

Don’t wait — contact us online today to learn more about our SEO services!

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