The Ultimate Guide to Building Backlinks

What are the things you need to know about building backlinks?

The first thing to know is their importance when it comes to SEO. Out of the many factors Google chooses to use in its algorithm, backlinks are used to determine the quality and value of a site. About 72% of SEO pros think that backlinks are a major ranking factor.

Want to know more about backlinks and what it takes to get quality backlinks?

Keep reading to find out.

Backlink Basics

The way Google sees it, if your site has a lot of backlinks, that means that you have information or articles that are worth linking to. That, in turn, means that your site is high-quality.

The second thing to know is that it’s not the number of backlinks you have, it’s the quality that matters, too. That’s where Domain Authority comes into play.

There’s a big difference in getting a link from a popular site like The Huffington Post and a link from a local blog that no one reads.

Perform a Backlink Audit

When was the last time you did a backlink audit on your site?

If your answer was along the lines of the 12th of never, you’re going to want to do one. There are a couple of reasons why.

The first reason is that you can have spam sites that are linking to your site. That can pull down your SEO, not to mention your brand’s credibility.

The second reason is to give yourself a starting point for your link building campaign. You can then use this data to track your progress.

If you want to know more about performing a link audit, check out this resource.

Guest Posts

One of the most popular methods to get quality backlinks is to write guest posts for other sites.

Guest posts can not only give you backlinks, but they can also position yourself as an expert in your field.

Let’s say that you’re a Realtor. You start to write articles about the local real estate market for a major newspaper in your area.

You’re immediately seen as an expert in the community and you have a backlink with a high domain authority.

To start your search to find sites that accept guest posts, use Google. Do a simple search for your topic and guest posts. You can create variations such as “topic accepting guest posts.”

Help Other Bloggers Out

One other way to get backlinks is to help other bloggers clear their broken links. Websites are hard to maintain, and the larger the site, the harder it is to maintain.

If you come across a broken link at a site on your target list, simply send the webmaster a note. The note should say that you noticed the link and that you can help replace that article for them.

Give People a Reason to Link to Your Site

You can implement all sort of tips and tricks for building backlinks to your site. Perhaps the most important thing you can do is to have high-quality content on your site.

That will give people a reason to visit your site and link to it regularly. The more value you add to people’s lives and help them solve a problem, the more likely others will want to link to your site.

Here are a few types of content that will help you get backlinks.

Data & Statistics: We already talked about how you can help other bloggers correct broken links. You can also help them out by providing tons of statistics for them to link to.

Infographics: People love visual information. They process visual information 60,000 times faster than text. What you can do is take your data articles and create infographics. Post them on your major social media channels. You’ll attract attention and backlinks to your site.

Quality Content: In this case, you want to focus completely on your audience. What are their challenges and what can you help them with? Are they looking for marketing advice? Are they looking to purchase a home? Think about ways that you can help your readers out.

Using Anchor Text

The anchor text that’s used for your links tells Google what your link is about. You have to be careful about the anchor text that you use because it could be misinterpreted as spam.

If one of your keywords is related to link building, and you use the anchor text link building all the time, it will be considered spam.

Start off by having general anchors for your links. For example, you can do your company name, which is a brand link. You can then do a naked link, which is just the plain URL as your anchor text.

The best rule of thumb is to keep your text as natural as possible.

Develop a Backlink Building Strategy

Now that you know how to get backlinks to your site, it’s time to build a strategy to get quality backlinks to your site.

Start with choosing the sites you want to link to. Make a list of sites that are related to your site’s topic. For example, if your site is about SEO, you’re going to target sites about digital marketing.

During your audit, you can do research to see where your competitors are getting their links. You can look them up in SEMRush, which will list the sites that backlink to your competitor.

Add these sites to your list. If they’ve linked to your competitor, there’s a good chance they’ll link to you.

You’ll also want to check the quality of those sites. You can do that by doing a little research. You’ll want to check the DA score in tools like MozBar, Ahrefs, and Majestic.

Building Backlinks Takes Patience

Do expect that backlinks will happen right away? Shift your expectations. Building backlinks requires patience. You might not get traction right away. Taking a little bit of action every day will add up to results.

If you don’t think you can make building links a priority, you can hire a link building agency.

For more SEO tips, check out our blog.