You’ve created your website. You’re confident in your content, but not many people are visiting your website. There are lots of reasons why your site might not be receiving enough traffic, but all these reasons ultimately boil down to search engines not having enough trust in your site. If they don’t trust your site, you won’t find your way to SERPs (search engine results pages).
One of the ways to get onto SERPs is to have a reliable website, which is where link building can come in.
To put it simply, link building is an SEO tactic of getting backlinks from other sites to your site. If a lot of sites link back to your website, this sends a message to search engines that your website is trustworthy. If you can build links, either on your own or through link building services, you have a greater chance of getting a higher ranking in the SERPs.
If you’re not doing any link building for your site, you ought to start doing it now. Learning everything will take you a lot of time, so try some of these tips for beginners.
Finding Replaceable Links
This option can be quite time-consuming, and the success rate is not very high, compared to the time spent. However, if you think your content is better than other people, you could try this out.
For example, if you have found a website that has linked to an article that covers 10 tools for improving SEO, but you have an article that lists 20 tools. Yours is the better article, as long as your writing skills are up to scratch. You could contact the website and pitch your offer.
Your message to them might say something like, “I noticed you linked (inset link) in your recent article. I have written a similar article that I think has better content and would be a better reference for your article.”
If the site owner looks at your content and agrees with you that it’s better than the content that they are currently linking to, then they will most likely replace that link with yours. However, keep in mind, that this method does not have very high success rates, especially if you’re trying to get your link into a sponsored post.
Link Building In Community Sites
Going to different websites hoping that they will give your website a backlink is not the only link building strategy that you can use. Going directly to your target audience is another method that you can try.
Community sites such as Reddit, Quora, and forums can be great places to build links. If you see people discussing topics or asking questions on these sites that is relevant to or can be answered by content that you have, comment on them, and include a link to an article or video of yours that would be useful for the readers.
There’s also a chance that the people you drive to your site this way will produce more backlinks for you, by sharing your content on social media or on their own websites too.
Just be careful not to overdo it and come across as spammy. Engage in a genuine way.
Create Ego Bait Content
Ego bait content involves mentioning a site or a specific person in a positive way. The chance of this method working is about 50%, so try not to rely on this too much. However, it can be a good method for beginners to start building links. You can do this in three different ways:
Choose the method that you think will fit best. If you have already written and published an article, you can change it to ego bait with methods one and two. Method three is like guest blogging, but you will publish the content on your own site.
Once you have chosen your method, contact the person or site that you mention. In your email, explain that you have mentioned them (include a link to your post) because you admire their work. Tell them that you don’t want anything from them, but if they’d like to promote the article or mention it in one of their own posts, you would appreciate it.
High authority sites are more likely to ignore this, as they get a lot of these emails, so choose your target carefully.
Check For Unlinked Mentions
Sometimes, a site might mention you in their content, but it won’t be linking to your site or published post. You can grab this as an opportunity to get a backlink.
The first thing that you should do to get these links is to find these unlinked mentions. You can either manually search for them or use tools to help you do this. There are several tools and services online that can help you find mentions without having to spend hours searching for yourself on Google.
Once you have found some unlinked mentions, your instinct might be to contact the site that has mentioned you immediately. However, it is best to assess the site and how relevant the unlinked mention actually is. If the site has already mentioned your site or posts with links, then leaving one or two unlinked won’t hurt you. If you find an unlinked mention is a published post that is against your site, you’re better off leaving that unlinked.
Write Up-To-Date Resources For Events
Writing content about up-to-date events is another way to get a lot of good backlinks back to your site. As long as it includes important information about the event that people will want to know, then you should have a better chance of getting linked back to.
You will have to be one of the first to know about events in your industry. For example, if you have a music site, you could feature local gigs and concerts, and if you write about technology, you can write about conferences.
You can promote your posts on your social media, or contact the event organiser to let them know that you have published content about the event. Ask the organiser to reference you as a reliable source about the event.
Submit Your Website And Content To Directories
Online directories are online lists of websites or content. Website directories don’t do much for link building, but being in a directory will make you seem more credible and trustworthy.
This could be seen as a long-term investment. You should also think about submitting your website to niche-specific and local directories too. There are also some directories that look for specific blog posts.
Remember to not spam these directories, especially the free ones. You need to remember to submit accurate information, including your name, address, and site statistics. It’s also a good idea to have a description of your website ready.
The most important thing for you to remember is that you ought to avoid directories that will require you to add a banner or a link back onto your site. Having these on your site can actually have a negative effect on the SEO score of your website.
This method is an old strategy that websites have been using for many years. It is still relevant today and does still work. Make sure you don’t spam these directories, as this can lead to an unsuccessful submission.
