Whether your website is new or has existed for quite some time, having a well-developed link building strategy is crucial to your success in search. Link building is a powerful method used in SEO because links are a signal to search engines that your site is a quality resource worthy of citation. However, link building is difficult and incredibly time-consuming, which is why many people struggle to build high-quality links.
While building links theoretically should increase your website traffic, it’s important to earn relevant links. If your business website isn’t serving potential prospects for your products and services, then increased website traffic isn’t helpful.
When it comes to link building, there’s one crucial aspect to keep in mind: Google prefers quality over quantity. In other words, you don’t want to build random links hoping it will push your rankings in search. This black-hat SEO tactic tells search engines that your links are of low quality. As a result, your site could be penalized with a lower rank.
An effective link building strategy will build quality links to relevant content from a diverse set of sources. So, before attempting to build a link, you want to make sure it will be placed on a trustworthy domain (we’ll go into further detail about this later). Over time, and with a good strategy in place, your number of links should begin to grow at a steady pace.
While there are a variety of ways one can build links, here is a simple link building strategy you can start implementing today.
Step 1: Start Repurposing Your Content
Content is the fuel that drives digital marketing. For this reason, many choose to produce new and valuable content through a blog. But don’t think of the blog as the end of the road for a piece of content. You can earn valuable links when you improve your evergreen content. Leverage the variety of content channels available to you and repurpose your content to fit the needs of each audience.
All of your blog content is easily recycled. You can re-write it from a different perspective or transform it from a blog article into one of the following:
- An infographic
- A video
- A slide deck
- An interactive piece, such as a quiz
- A web story
No matter the type of content you choose to create as you repurpose an article, you should always remember the importance of ensuring that each piece is unique and written for your target audience.
Step 2: Find Viable Websites to Submit Your Content To
Once you have some content available, you can begin searching for websites that may be interested in featuring your article as a guest post. But remember, you don’t want to attempt building backlinks on any random site. You want to find viable websites, blogs, or resources that will bring your website traffic and potential customers.
So, how do you do this? Start by finding websites that are accepting guest posts, and that suit your niche. You can do this in a few ways:
- Email outreach
- Content creators’ private group
- Link to a blog roundup post
Remember: you don’t want just any link. Find websites with a significant amount of traffic and backlinks, with a high domain and page authority. A good rule of thumb with backlink prospects is to look for sites that have a higher domain authority than yours. You can use this free domain authority website checker to find this information.
Step 3: Start Contacting Your Prospects
Once you’ve found a list of prospective websites, the next step is to start reaching out to them and see if they’re interested in featuring your guest post. There are a variety of tactics that you can use to persuade important bloggers to publish your posts. The easiest strategy is to create an email pitch to send to your prospects.
Here are a few things to keep in mind when you’re contacting your prospects:
- Be human. It’s difficult to get a response if you sound like a robot. Be personal and real so it doesn’t sound like spam.
- Clearly define your blog’s topic and relevant keywords and the kind of content you publish. You need to make your prospect aware of the value you provide. If they don’t know anything about your website, it’s likely they won’t be interested in featuring your guest post.
- Make sure they are not one of your competitors. While it’s a good idea to find websites that are somewhat similar to yours, they shouldn’t offer the same exact product or service as you.
It’s important to note that not all guest post opportunities are free. Some websites may require a fee. However, if you are trying to obtain a high-quality link, this fee may be worthwhile.
Step 4: Monitor and Track Your Responses
You want to make sure you’re keeping track of your email responses. Without doing this, you could miss opportunities. Build an Excel sheet to track your email responses. You’ll also want to make sure you’re tracking new links as you receive them. This makes it easier to track the number of links built and their costs so you can budget effectively and hit your link targets.
There are numerous ways to build links. Guest posting is one of the easiest and most effective link building tactics available. No matter your strategy, if you’re persistent, you are destined to earn higher search rankings.
Quantify Your Link Building Efforts
It’s important to offer original content with every potential link opportunity. Create quality content that you will proudly publish on your website. If you’re unable to find a website to accept your guest post, your efforts won’t be wasted. You can publish and promote the content on your own site and earn lots of links organically when people read your content.
While earning backlinks is a key part of search engine optimization, it’s often difficult and time-consuming. As you measure the ROI of your efforts, you may discover that your digital marketing efforts are better spent of talking directly to your target audience.
At SMA Marketing, we have a deep understanding of how search algorithms work and what types of links are best for your site. If you need any assistance supplementing your SEO strategy, contact us today!