Top tactics for backlink building
Your backlink strategy can include a number of distinct tactics. Each one requires a different level of effort, but all of them can effectively improve your SEO profile if done right. Also, use only quality SEO tools.
Create “shareworthy” content
Time commitment: High
Spam potential: Low (as long as you do it right)
Value potential: Unlimited
Shareworthy content lends itself to sharing (and linking to, which is really just sharing). To create shareworthy content, you need to focus on doing at least one of two things:
- Inciting strong emotion
- Providing extremely useful information
The first can prove challenging and is necessarily resistant to formulaic methods, so we’ll focus on the latter here.
To create extremely useful information, you’ll need to think in-depth about:
- A particular audience
- What its needs are
- Where there are gaps in their current resources
If you can identify and fill the right gap, with the right content, members of your audience will naturally see it as an invaluable resource for their peers and want to share it.
Some examples of shareworthy content:
- An “essential guide”: a lengthy piece providing an “everything you need to know” overview of a topic
- Proprietary information: case studies, data journalism, research or independent analysis — however you share it, the key point is that it’s proprietary: something only you can provide
- Visual: explaining interesting or challenging data in graphic form
- In-depth content: blog posts or articles longer than 1,000 words, often with graphs, data, and images
As you create this content, keep the 7 Main Characteristics of Sharable Content in mind.
Pro tip: cite some “influencers”
When relevant, include mentions of industry influencers in your content, then let the people mentioned know that you cited them or their work. If you’re lucky (and/or persuasive enough), they may share it too!
Guest Posting
Time commitment: High
Spam potential: Low (as long as you do it right)
Value potential: Very high
Guest posting is one of the most common ways to get backlinks to your site and is a great way to build brand recognition as well.
Guest posting means writing articles for other blogs, with the goal of including a link back to your website in the text. You’ll also have an author bio, where you can typically include other web and social links as well. Here are a few steps to follow if you want to start guest posting:
- Use your metrics (detailed above) to determine which sites are a good fit for your blog post.
- Email the blog’s editor to pitch 2 to 3 blog post ideas, sharing the value of your piece and why they should have you as a guest author. Remember: You provide value by writing them a high-quality blog post, and are able to help them reach a wider audience by sharing the final post on your social networks. It’s usually wise to send links to your relevant previous work as well, to add credibility to your pitch. The more high-profile your previous publications, the better.
- Once accepted, write the article, including a natural link building back to your website. For example, if you have a post about company culture on your blog and are writing an article on how to keep employees engaged, you would find a way to include that link. For example:
“More than 40 percent of employees will leave a job if the company culture is negative or not what they were expecting,” according to… [Insert anchor text and link. Anchor text = article name or your business name/website URL]
- Send your finished piece to the editor, who then reviews it and has the final word on edits.
- Follow up on publishing date seven days after sending, if you haven’t heard back. This gives them enough time to review the post.
- Share the published piece on your social networks to encourage traffic and engagement. Be sure to tag the website or blog as a show of goodwill (and more importantly, to ensure your post gets traffic).
The process of guest posting can take a lot of work, but the results can be invaluable, with boosted rankings and more traffic to your site.
Create “shareworthy” content
Time commitment: High
Spam potential: Low (as long as you do it right)
Value potential: Unlimited
Shareworthy content lends itself to sharing (and linking to, which is really just sharing). To create shareworthy content, you need to focus on doing at least one of two things:
- Inciting strong emotion
- Providing extremely useful information
The first can prove challenging and is necessarily resistant to formulaic methods, so we’ll focus on the latter here.
To create extremely useful information, you’ll need to think in-depth about:
- A particular audience
- What its needs are
- Where there are gaps in their current resources
If you can identify and fill the right gap, with the right content, members of your audience will naturally see it as an invaluable resource for their peers and want to share it.
Some examples of shareworthy content:
- An “essential guide”: a lengthy piece providing an “everything you need to know” overview of a topic
- Proprietary information: case studies, data journalism, research or independent analysis — however you share it, the key point is that it’s proprietary: something only you can provide
- Visual: explaining interesting or challenging data in graphic form
- In-depth content: blog posts or articles longer than 1,000 words, often with graphs, data, and images
As you create this content, keep the 7 Main Characteristics of Sharable Content in mind.
Pro tip: cite some “influencers”
When relevant, include mentions of industry influencers in your content, then let the people mentioned know that you cited them or their work. If you’re lucky (and/or persuasive enough), they may share it too!
Guest Posting
Time commitment: High
Spam potential: Low (as long as you do it right)
Value potential: Very high
Guest posting is one of the most common ways to get backlinks to your site and is a great way to build brand recognition as well.
Guest posting means writing articles for other blogs, with the goal of including a link back to your website in the text. You’ll also have an author bio, where you can typically include other web and social links as well. Here are a few steps to follow if you want to start guest posting:
- Use your metrics (detailed above) to determine which sites are a good fit for your blog post.
- Email the blog’s editor to pitch 2 to 3 blog post ideas, sharing the value of your piece and why they should have you as a guest author. Remember: You provide value by writing them a high-quality blog post, and are able to help them reach a wider audience by sharing the final post on your social networks. It’s usually wise to send links to your relevant previous work as well, to add credibility to your pitch. The more high-profile your previous publications, the better.
- Once accepted, write the article, including a natural link building back to your website. For example, if you have a post about company culture on your blog and are writing an article on how to keep employees engaged, you would find a way to include that link. For example:
“More than 40 percent of employees will leave a job if the company culture is negative or not what they were expecting,” according to… [Insert anchor text and link. Anchor text = article name or your business name/website URL]
- Send your finished piece to the editor, who then reviews it and has the final word on edits.
- Follow up on publishing date seven days after sending, if you haven’t heard back. This gives them enough time to review the post.
- Share the published piece on your social networks to encourage traffic and engagement. Be sure to tag the website or blog as a show of goodwill (and more importantly, to ensure your post gets traffic).
The process of guest posting can take a lot of work, but the results can be invaluable, with boosted rankings and more traffic to your site.
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