Link Building Strategies That Drive Up Your Rankings

Building a strong backlink profile is a sure-fire way to increase rankings and drive traffic to your site. The problem is when it’s not done correctly, it can cause more harm than good.

This article will walk through why backlinks are so essential for an online business and three actionable link building strategies to use.

Why Backlinks Are Vital To A Successful Website

Backlinks are vital for the success of any online business. A wise man once said, “it’s possible to get good SEO results without link building, but incredible results are only seen with link building.”

When link building is used correctly, it can take the smallest site into the number one spot.

Backlinking is a prevalent technique among SEOs and can help maximize success.

The easiest way to look at backlinks is to imagine them as votes of approval.

The more votes a site has the more Google deems the content worthy of the top spot.

But backlinks are more than just votes.

If someone clicks on the link from a site they trust, they automatically see the link as an endorsement.

This automatically instills trust with the brand, which makes people more likely to return or buy a product from the site.

And it’s important to note, quality backlinks (relevant, high authority) always trump quantity. But the more high quality links you can build… the better.

3 Link Building Strategies Any Website Owner Can Implement

Many people look at link building and think they could never do it themselves. Which is strange, there are so many strategies out there that any novice could implement.

Here are three link building strategies that generate good results:

Backlink Analysis

This has to be one of the most effective link building strategies out there. This is mainly down to the amount of time spent compared to links won.

But that’s not the only reason this technique is so effective, and here’s why.

Big online businesses spend thousands trying to build the perfect backlink profile. And this doesn’t just cost money; it also takes A LOT of time.

For the reasons above, it can make it very hard for a small business on a budget to compete with them; unless they start working smarter.

Competitors have already done all the hard work; now it’s time to steal their backlink profile and their links.

Here’s how it works:

1. Find The Competitors

The top organic search results for a keyword all have one thing in common; a great backlink profile that Google approves of.

Search the target keyword in Google and make a list of the top sites. Don’t worry about the size or authority of the website. The only important thing is their backlink profile.

2. Inspect Their Links

It’s all well and good having the list of competitors, but without their backlink profile, it means nothing.

One of the three tools is needed to steal the backlink profile:

1. SEMRush
2. Ahrefs
3. SEO Powersuite

These tools allow users to reverse engineer each site’s backlinks.

Use one of the tools site explorer page.

Enter the first URL into their search menu and hit start. Click on the backlink section, and it will list all the links pointing to the page.

Export the list, and then repeat with the next URLs on the list.

Once you have all the data you need, it’s time to work out how to replicate those links.

To do this answer this question: “What did the site do to get this link?”

Once you have your answer to that question you can start building backlinks that will help you reach the top spots for each of your keywords.

Guest Posting

This is one of the oldest strategies in the book, but it’s also straightforward to do and super effective.

Some people may have noticed an SEO debate about whether guest posting is a white hat or black hat technique.

But this debate seems a little irrelevant. Google has had given its say about guest posting:

As you can see, this passage doesn’t vilify guest posting but nor does it condone using it as a strategy.

It’s an SEO’s job to feed Google the metrics it wants to see. When this is done in a smart and safe way (without any huge neon signs showing your article is a guest article), guest posting can be used to build some powerful links.

The concept behind guest posting is straightforward and only takes four simple steps:

1. Find All The Targets

Finding websites that would be willing to publish content is the first step, and it’s a super easy one.

Search for phrases like:

• Keyword + “Add Content”
• Keyword + “guest post”
• Keyword + “submit article”

Using these terms will give a wealth of sites that accept guest posts for that particular keyword. Open an excel sheet and start filling it with all the search results.

2. Lock On To The Right Targets

Now it’s time to see if the pages on the list are worth getting in touch with. But what makes a target the right the target?

Ideally, a site with high domain authority and lots of traffic coming to the site is the best opportunity. And avoid obvious spammy link/article farms.

SEO tools like Ahrefs and SEMRush come in very handy.

Use their site explorer page to search for each website on the list and analyze their metrics.

Remember the best sites are one with lots of traffic and high domain authority. What counts as high will vary between niches, so do some research to find out what the average is.

3. Pitching

Once a substantial list of opportunities has been made, it’s time to pitch to the site. This is a crucial stage of the process, and it pays to stand out.

Site owners get hundreds of emails a day all looking for the same thing. Standing out from the rest is the key to success.

If they don’t answer the first email don’t get discouraged, send a couple of follow-ups.

4. Creating Content With The Backlink

After making a deal for a guest post, it’s time to create the content. The critical part here is to engage with the blog’s audience.

Make sure the content stands out and most importantly contains the link. Make sure the content looks as natural as possible, has other external and internal links, and where possible is not marked as a guest article.

Internal Links

This is one of the most straightforward link building techniques to implement. More importantly, it’s super easy to do and completely free.

Internal links help users navigate a website and find new content to read. And the site owner has total control over where they are placed and what anchor text is used.

But internal links also hold value with search engines. For example, well placed internal links can help Google:

• Better understand content
• Discover new content
• Direct traffic

With all these benefits, it’s no wonder internal linking is such a valuable tool.

The easiest way to add more internal links to a page can be done in a few simple steps, take a look:

1. Make a list of URLs with their target keywords
2. Use Google and search site:(Homepage URL) + keyword
3. Work through each search result and add the target link if possible
4. Rinse and repeat for each page and keyword

This process isn’t quick but can have amazing results overnight.

Link Building Services

Link building isn’t for everyone for one main reason; it takes a lot of time. If time can be better spent elsewhere, then it makes sense to hire professional backlink building services.

The best thing about link building services is it takes no effort, it’s a case of choosing the DA and how many links are needed.

But, this technique does cost considerably more than DIY link building.

To make it worse:

There are a lot of sharks in the industry more than happy to take money in return for weak or spammy links, so be sure to do your research if you are considering this route.

Wrapping Up

Link building is a sure-fire way to get excellent ranking bonuses, but should only be started once the on-page work is completed.

Without building links, it’s unlikely a website will be able to compete with the big guns.

Which is why utilizing these link building strategies can be so effective, but very time-consuming.

And for this reason alone more and more people are turning to link building services.