How To Use Inbound Links The Right Way

You’re doing everything right. Your content has that special something.

And yet your traffic just isn’t picking up.

A big part of this could be a lack of inbound links.

Links give consumers an added feeling of security, following one is like following a recommendation from a trusted friend.

See how you can improve your traffic using inbound links below.

What Are They?

Inbound links come from someone citing your content in their own. Anytime someone adds a hyperlink to an article, listicle or infographic it generates an inbound link.

They are one of the best ways to get new traffic to your site, but generating them can be tough.

Provide Value

Providing value is absolutely essential.

It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in or what you’re trying to do. If you don’t provide potential consumers with value, they have no reason to visit your page.

In generating inbound links this goes beyond just writing good content or making useful tools. You need to create something that is better than what’s already available on the market.

There are lots of ways to do this. Solving a problem, creating controversy or even just being very entertaining are all ways to stand out from the crowd.

If what you have to offer carries that little extra zing, other content creators will feel it. They want to provide high-quality links within their own work.

Make sure your content has that little bit extra.

Guest Posts

Writing guest posts can be one of the best ways to generate inbound links to your site. Authority sites have name recognition within their field, getting an article with your name on one can be a major coup.

A lot of sites are always looking for guest pitches. Many will happily let you add a link to your own site in exchange for an article.

Let’s get some of the misconceptions out of the way right at the start. Guest blogging isn’t universally beloved.

Generally, a guest post is unpaid. It’s all about exposure, a word many content creators have grown to hate. Don’t let that discourage you.

Getting an article accepted somewhere like Fortune or HuffPost can provide you with a lot of viewers. As long as what you create is useful and valuable to them, they might follow the links you provide.

Paid postings can also work in your favor. Let’s be honest, it doesn’t feel great to have to pay someone to let you write them an article. In many cases though, the benefits of a highly visible link can outweigh the cost.

Network

No matter what you do, networking is always useful. It’s especially helpful when trying to generate high-value inbound links.

Guest posts are a great way to get your foot in the door. If you’ve already written something for someone they have a much better understanding of your skills and knowledge base.

A great way to do this is to find a complementary blog or site to your own. If you’re writing about home improvement, finding a local realtor to exchange links with can really give you a boost.

You can write for them about the benefits of renovation to home value. They show up with articles about the best moves to make when preparing to sell.

Making relationships like this gives you a pool of people you know and can work with. It lets you maintain friendly relations with others in your industry and helps you both grow your followings.

There are even benefits from hiring a link building agency to help maximize the placement of your posts. They work to make introductions in industries you can provide content for and provide other useful advice.

Social Media

Social media is king when it comes to building a loyal brand. This still applies when trying to generate links.

The biggest return from the successful use of social media is in building relationships. Generating a network of people who know what you do and trust the way you do it.

Once you’ve built up a network it works to help distribute your content to a wider audience. People love to share things. Everyone wants to be the one who found something first, introduced it to their friends.

By effectively leveraging your social media accounts you both get a growing group of people who enjoy what you produce. This creates thousands of potential links throughout different platforms.

It also lets you effectively use others trust of their friends or industry influencers judgment. If they like what you do enough to post it, it’s the same as a recommendation.

Internal Inbound Links

Here’s where things can get tricky. Internal links usually aren’t counted as inbound links, but they can definitely help you build traffic.

By placing high-quality links in your most popular content you can introduce readers to other aspects of your site. This provides a number of benefits.

The biggest one is simply that they’re on your site longer. The more time they spend looking around, the more likely they are to gain something of value.

Building a brand is all about providing value. As long as your content is well thought out and valuable to your consumer, they’ll appreciate it.

It also helps you shape the way they see your site. You can help them find useful tools you developed or lead them to a better understanding of what you do.

Using internal linking in this way mimics the benefits of inbound links. You expand a consumer’s awareness of your brand and what you have to offer.

What to Take Away

With links it really all comes down to two things, trust and networking. You’re using the trust other bloggers and content producers have in your work to spread your brand.

To do this you have to let them know you exist, thus the networking. Building a network of people who trust what you do enough to add it to their own work is crucial.

Find out more about linking, SEO and other marketing topics by checking out our blog.