If you are a novice in digital marketing, it is very natural to have your website’s online presence hindered by ineffective link building strategies. You might only be getting to know how to build backlinks or the significance of high-quality, relevant links. Backlinks are undisputedly one of the best methods to rank well on Google. Each backlink that links to your website is a genuine vote that shouts out your relevance to search Engines. Therefore, the greater the number of backlinks you have, the better is your Search Engine Result Page (SERP) rank and visibility.
What Are Backlinks? Why Are They Important?
A backlink is a one-way link to your website from another website. In other words, backlink strategies are indirect ways for websites or content creators to vouch for your website. Prior to the Penguin update, Google tended to favor websites that had a greater number of backlinks, irrespective of their quality. The system was flexible to an extent where websites sans quality content could employ underhand techniques and emerge at the top of Google’s search results successfully. Penguin update was Google’s arsenal to retort to this drop in quality, which now acts as a filter of spammy links.
This makes an effective backlink strategy all the more important to a digital marketer now. A backlink from Forbes or Times would mean more to Google than a link from an unknown blogger with a very low Domain Authority. The beauty of backlinks is exactly this: the value of the link changes according to the website that links to you. A single backlink from a relevant website with high authority is worth far more than the link from an irrelevant website with low authority. Also, the links are governed by Domain Authority (DA), a proprietary metric developed by Moz, and it indicates how valuable the link will be; a higher DA score denotes a more valuable link.
Let us look at some of the different types of backlinks that can help you rank well on SERPs.
- Editorial Backlinks
Editorial backlinks are one of the best SEO backlinks that are the result of well-concocted market plans and well-written content. These links are contextual and placed within a quality article which cites your website as a source of additional information. Links from quality, high DA websites are hard to obtain, of course. But these links have higher value in the eyes of Google. Editorial links flow to your site from other websites that genuinely want to link to you for your quality. Unlike other links, these are not acquired, requested or paid for.
- Directory Links
If you are pondering over how to build backlinks easily, directory submission is the method you are looking for. Submitting your sites on quality general, niche, and local directories are guaranteed methods of building backlinks for your site. Good directories help you diversify your link profile, increase your DA, and most importantly, do not leave a dent on your wallet. Directory submission has always been the fastest answer to the question of ‘how to build backlinks’ for businesses online.
- Backlinks through Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is a powerful link building technique that is forged on fruitful relationships with other content creators in order to broaden the reach of your content. In this method, you contribute a quality article to a blog and are rewarded with a backlink from within the same. This method exposes you to a whole new stream of audiences, increases your domain authority, and most importantly helps you strengthen your link profile. While reaching out to bloggers to pitch topics, it is important to keep in mind the domain authority and content gaps of the blog on which you are going to post your article and its. Experts say that you should not guest blog for the sake of links but to share your material thoughts on a certain topic that interests you. Also, the practise of keyword stuffing within the article is highly condemned.
- Comment Backlinks
This is one of the easiest methods to gain backlinks by exploiting the comment sections of blogs that are relevant to your niche. Search for an article that is relevant to your audience. A short and sweet comment that adds value to the article, as well as the discussion, is deemed as a quality comment. Posting an irrelevant comment is just a spammy technique to gain a backlink. Almost all blogs ask you to submit your name, your URL, and your mail ID before commenting. Once the comment is published, your name is linked to your website. While some blogs allow you to submit your comment directly, others subject your comment to scrutiny after which, they take a call regarding the publication. Remember that the less spammy blogs will require you to log in before you can make your comment. Also, make sure that the domain authority of the blog is 30 or above.
- Free tool Backlinks
If you can offer a highly valuable tool for free, attention and backlinks will flow to your website. Conduct a study on various websites before you choose where to promote your free tool and identify the sites where you might have potential users of the asset. A free tool could be something as simple as an online cost calculator that is helpful to those in your industry. Or you can even provide a much lighter version of a paid tool that you already offer.
You do not have to be a rocket scientist to know how to build backlinks. The panacea to your invisibility on search engines is a competent link building strategy that utilizes the best possible methods to get yourself recognized and trusted.
