8 Ways to Build High Quality Backlinks to You
Backlinks are the links that other websites give to you...
If you’re running a website, you want people to find it, right? Search engine optimization, or “SEO” for short, is the practice of improving your website to make it more visible to search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. In other words, SEO is all about making your website show up higher in search results. There are a lot of different techniques for doing SEO, and it can be overwhelming for beginners. But don’t worry! In this blog post, we’ll give you some simple SEO tips to get you started.
The basics about backlinks in SEO
1. Know your goals
SEO isn’t about achieving the highest page rank possible. That’s been done. Rather, it’s about achieving a desired ranking. For example, a business wants to rank for a particular keyword. They pay someone else to do a monthly analysis of their website content and determine what keywords they should target.
2. Clear your goals
Once you’ve determined what you want to accomplish with your SEO, be sure it’s clear to yourself and your team. There’s no time like the present to set yourself circus-like goals, like, “I want to achieve number one for the keyword … by Q4.” Instead, be realistic and set yourself goals that you can achieve.
3. Make sure everyone on your team understands the goal
In order to achieve the goal, you need to make sure that everyone on your team understands the goal. This includes your marketing team, product team, and most importantly, your website team.
4. Periodically review your goals
It’s important to regularly review your goals, and make sure they’re still relevant. We recommend you do this at least once a year.
5. Add new content
If your website is already ranking for the keywords you want, then the next step is to add new content. This gives the page a fresh look and helps deter users from Googling your name.
6. Create action plans
Once you’ve set your goals, created an action plan to achieve them. This includes forgiving and updating your website, increasing traffic, learning new keywords, and trying new tactics.
7. Monitor your progress
Always make sure you’re monitoring your progress. This will help you figure out where you need to improve and what you need to do to achieve the goals you set for yourself.
SEO for beginners: The ultimate guide
If you’re interested in learning more about SEO for beginners, then we have a lot of great resources to help you get started. Here is a list of 10 things you need to know about SEO for beginners.
1. Know your competition
When you’re trying to grow a business, it’s important to know what companies and people are practicing on the Internet, because your success is dependent on them. Research your competition. Find out what they do well, and where the gaps are that you can potentially fill.
2. Figure out their SEO strengths and weaknesses
Your competitors may be doing something right that you can implement in your SEO strategy to make more money. Maybe they have a dedicated content editor, so they’re saving money on hiring someone to write their articles.
3. Realize that competitors can be anywhere
While you’re busy figuring out what your competitors are doing, you could be missing the obvious answer: Your competition could be anywhere.
4. Your business has to be where your team is
If you’re running a startup, your business needs to be on the same platform as your team. This means limiting your traffic if your workers aren’t on the same time zone or can’t access a computer at the same time.
5. There are hundreds of SEO tactics
There are so many things you can do to improve your SEO. P ut yourself in the shoes of a search engine and try to figure out how you would determine your rankings and determine what pages should show up.
6. You need to be different from your competitors
You can’t be the same as your competitors or you’ll end up in an SEO niche that will end when one of you goes out of business.
7. SEO can take time to cultivate
You won’t see results overnight. Carefully cultivate your SEO strategy, and it will bloom. You may have to make sacrifices with time or money in the beginning to see rewards down the line.
8. The first step is building a strong foundation
You can’t add on a ton of bells and whistles if your foundation isn’t solid. Make sure you’re ranking for foundational keywords before you focus on fringe terms.
9. Analytics are critical to SEO
You need to know what your users are doing if you want to improve your SEO strategy. Wh at are they clicking on? Where are they coming from? What time of day are you seeing the most traffic? These questions and more should be answered if you want to maximize your SEO.
10. You’ll need to be patient
Like any great SEO strategy, results take time. You’ll work hard to establish a solid foundation and see less results immediately. Be patient and keep cultivating your strategy; the blooming flowers will show soon enough.
What happens if you don’t have an SEO strategy?
You might be looking to build a successful business, but if you don’t have an SEO strategy, you might find that it’s running into road blocks that could be easily fixed with a plan of action. Without SEO, your website might not show up in search results for the keywords that you want to be found for, costing you potential clients and sales. It’s also possible that you might be putting your website at risk for cybersecurity threats if it isn’t optimized for SEO and search bots
SEO is always changing. You can’t stick your toe in the water and expect the wetness to stay the same. The online environment that supports your business is always evolving. If you want to keep your foot in the door of this evolving market, you need a strong and ever-changing SEO strategy.
What are the top three SEO strategies?
1. Build a strong foundation for your SEO
The best SEO strategy starts at the core and works its way outwards. Build a strong foundation to boost your SEO efforts later on.
2. Practice ethical SEO
Don’t bend the rules of SEO to push up Rankings. You’ll hurt your brand and be seen as unethical if you resort to black hat SEO tricks. Instead, use white hat techniques to cultivate a sustainable, ethical SEO strategy.
3. Focus on quality content
The most-read, highest-quality content on any website will be seen by search bots and put top of search results. To achieve top-shelf SEO, focus on writing great content.
What are the different types of SEO?
There are several different types of SEO. You need a combination of these to cultivate a strong strategy.
1. On-page SEO
This is the work that you do directly on your website to make it better for search bots. On-page SEO includes things like keyword research, content organization, internal linking, vocabulary development, and structure optimization.
2. URL SEO
The URL (uniform resource locator) is the address of a website. URL SEO is the practice of making that address readable by search bots. This includes reducing barriers to entry such as URL redirects, URL cloaking, URL spam, and other trickery.
3. Header tags SEO
This is the practice of optimizing the headers of the content that you publish to influence search rankings. Header tags are found in the coding of the page and can be emphasized by size, color, or font.
4. Body tag SEO
This is the practice of emphasizing or adding HTML tags to the body of your content, which allows search bots to understand what the content is about and how authoritative it is.
5. Link building
Link building means creating links from other websites that point back to your own. The links from reputable sources (known as authoritative links) carry authority with them, making your website rank higher in search results.
6. Site-wide link (SWL) SEO
A site-wide link is a link that shows up on every page of a website. When these are created and maintained wisely, they can pass tremendous authority to the pages they link to.
7. Meta tags SEO
These are the information boxes that show up next to your website\’s name in search results. The meta tags are displayed in the coding of the page and can be emphasized through color, size, or text.
8. Nofollow link SEO
When you click on a nofollow link, that website doesn’t receive authority from the web crawlers of search engines. The link itself is still visible, but it’s colored red and accompanied by a disclaimer. This is a way of showing your links without impacting your rankings.
9. Human-written meta tags SEO
The generated meta tags that show are often not the most compelling or effective at influencing search results. You can improve the impact of your optimization efforts by writing your own meta titles and descriptions.
10. Internal link SEO
Every page on a website can link to another page on the same site. These internal links convey tremendous authority to the pages they connect, helping you build connectivity within your website and improving search results for the pages involved.
11. Outbound link SEO
These are the links that appear in yellow and typically say click here to visit [target website]. They don’t carry authority to your website, so it’s important to balance outbound links with inbound links to maintain a positive weighting in search rankings.
12. Nofollow outbound link SEO
As with nofollow links in general, nofollow outbound links balance commitment with progress. When you do link out to other websites, it’s best to do so conservatively and leave some of your precious link equity unconnected.
13. Page load time SEO
The speed with which your website loads has a significant impact on search rankings. Page load times are also a significant factor in how visitors perceive your website. Due to this negative correlation: websites that load faster have higher rankings. You can speed up your website by auditing the size of all your images, the number of scripts you include, and the amount of data you transfer.
14. Password-protected content SEO
Large brands often impose password protection on some of their content to prevent link spam and informational scrapers from collecting linkable data. This tactic also prevents interested visitors from accessing the protected resources when they visit. Password protection is not a perfect barrier to interaction — dedicated link traders will still attempt to find the passwords, and curious visitors will still try to circumvent the barrier to access your content. Nevertheless,password protection is a useful technique for keeping uninvited links and spammers at bay.
15. Schema markup SEO
Schema markup appears in sections of your HTML marked with specific structured tags such as {NAME} and {DESCRIPTION}. When present, these snippets of code improve the search results display for your website’s pages.
16. Social media engagement SEO
Social media platforms have a significant impact on search rankings. Each social media platform has a different balance of positive weighting for search rankings. engagement on Twitter helps your website’s search ranking.
Link building
1. Domain registration link building
The process of obtaining new links from other websites relies heavily on website owners consenting to share a link from their website to yours. In some cases, this process can be sped up by using domain registration websites such as GoDaddy and Namecheap to search for available domain names. When you find a domain name that another website may be willing to link to, you can pitch the website owner, and try to convince them to do so voluntarily. If they refuse, you can use the domain name arbitration process to enforce your claim and impose a link on the other website.
2. Google Website Creator link building
Google also provides a link building tool as a feature of their Google Website Creator service. If you plan to build and host a new website using the GWC service, you can use the Link Suggestion Tool to find suitable websites that may agree to link to your new site.
3. Google Webmaster Tools link building
If you have a Google account, you can access the Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) service to search for potential link partners. When you submit a URL to GWT, the service will report the websites that are linking to the submitted URL. You can also check your own website’s link profile in GWT. Link to your own website in your applications for Google SEO awards such as Google Panda or Google Panda Hero, as this will strengthen your case.
Content marketing
1. Content generation link building
When it comes to content creation for link building, the old adage that says “give away your bread to get the cake” certainly applies — you need to create high-quality content to secure links from other sites that also publish high-quality content.
2. Blog posting link building
The Tech Guy, an Oregon-based internet marketing agency, provides a convenient list of the best blog post topics for website owners looking to link from their website. You should also ensure that your blog posts are written in a way that encourages social shares.
3. Paid search link building
As an experienced SEM practitioner, you no doubt also understand the value of paid search campaigns for lead generation and branding purposes. Pay-per-click (PPC) ads are a convenient way to link from your website to a P CE resource such as a landing page or lead magnet.
4. Affiliate link building
You may be able to secure an affiliate link for a another person’s products and services if you can prove that their products or services have helped you achieve a desired result. The SEMRush Fresh Signals blog is always looking for affiliate links to showcase to the community.
5. Technical link building
Once you have a technical skill such as PHP or Google Analytics, you can use it to obtain links from other websites that also use that technology. For example, if you learn Python, you’ll be able to leave comments on other Python-based websites and post Python scripts in GitHub, thereby securing an easy link from your website to that code.
The renowned white hat hacker, Kyle (formerly with Google), shares his secrets for linking from technical forums. The key to securing authentic forum replies is to offer helpful insights to the community when you post.
6. Meme link building
Memes are simply GIFs, videos, or images that contain large blocks of text. The jokes contained in the text are often viral and therefore excellent for link building. As image-based content is so integral to memetic content, artisitic skills are not necessary to build links with this tool.
7. Events link building
If your niche holds conferences, webinars, or other live events, you can secure an instant link by posting an article to your website that announces the event and links to the registration page.
Free internet conference calls are another way to build links from your website to an event page. You can use Google Hangouts to stream the event, then post the link to your website.
Anyone can do event link building… but don’t forget to actually attend the event once you’ve advertised it!
8. E-commerce link building
E-commerce websites can build an instant link to a product page by using product feeds such as the Amazon Product Advertising API. You simply add the product image, description, and link to that API in your website code, and you’ve secured an instant 1-way link from your website to that product.
You can build 1-way links to an e-commerce shopping cart page in the same way. To do so, you’ll need to learn the HTML and CSS required to display your product images, descriptions, and cart.
9. Building 2-way links (the most valuable kind)
Two-way links are reciprocal links between websites. When each site links to the other, the link increases the potential for both websites to gain website traffic when a user clicks one of those links.
To establish a two-way link with another website, you’ll need to offer something of value: usually a blog post or article that promotes the other site. In turn, they’ll offer a link back to your website.
This is a highly-valued type of link and can be a significant win for both parties.
How to build links with content marketing
create a blog post (or article) that highlights the other website. Include information about the website, how/where to access the content, and a link to the site. Post the article to your website.
1. Blogger outreach
write a warm email to a content creator asking if they’d like to include a post or article that promotes your website. In my case, I was creating content about SEO and link building, so I offered to create a post for other bloggers/influencers if they linked back to my website. Most were more than happy to collaborate!
2. Using YouTube to build links
In the video description, include a link to your website. If the YouTube creator links to your website, they’ll generate 1-way links automatically.
Find broken link building opportunities
If the content has been removed, or the URL has changed, the link will fail and show as broken. To find these broken links
You can use browser extensions to find broken links on a page, or you can scrape websites for links using a tool like Scrapy.
1. Find orphaned links
An orphaned link is a one-way link. When a link is one-way, it’s ineffective for generating website traffic because search engines can’t see how much authority belongs to your website. Orphaned links are two ways, so you can make the link effective again by creating a reciprocal link back to the website.
You can use tool like OpenSiteExplorer to find orphaned links.
2. Check your competitors’ backlinks
Briefly scan competitor websites for their backlinks in SEO. Where are they receiving the most traction and authority? Write a post that links to those websites in your “resource” or “favorites” section.
3. Check your own backlinks
Use tools like Open Site Explorer, Moz, and Ahrefs to see where you’ve received the most traction and authority. Write a post or article that encourages your audience to follow in your footsteps and emulate what you do well.
for example, if you see that I have many authority links from university websites, I may encourage my audience to pursue similar opportunities.
4. Build social media buttons into your posts
Or your visitors will lose the opportunity to effortlessly promote your site to their social media following.
Create landing pages
Additional pages on your website that encourage visitors to engage with your content or sales offer. You can use these pages to collect email addresses, drive sales, or generate leads.
For example, you can create a separate page for the visitors who opt-in for your newsletter. That way, you won’t distract them from the core purpose of your website.
Enable Google Analytics
Track the progress of your SEO efforts by examining your search engine traffic data. You can set this up if you install Google Analytics on your website.
Find an SEO consultant
Venture into the world of PPC and pay-per-click advertising to drive traffic to your site. Spend some money to have an SEO expert evaluate your domain, content, and AdWords campaigns. You may be able to increase your profits and website traffic exponentially.
Integrate SEO into all aspects of your online business, from marketing and copywriting, to graphics and web design. Implement the above tips into your workflow and you will witness the positive results.
