SEO Link-Building Strategies that Build Trust

Link-building is a critical SEO tactic. On the one hand, it drives quality traffic to your website — which is a common objective of any SEO strategy. On the other hand, link-building can be risky business if done poorly. You risk losing trust if you build links in a way that could get you penalized by Google’s Penguin or other algorithm updates. For this reason, it takes careful planning to execute an effective link-building campaign that builds links that are seen as “natural” by both search engines and visitors.

Link building has evolved over the years — from building reciprocal links to guest posts to offering free products and services to get links — and it is important to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of search engine algorithms. Even with algorithm changes, there are some SEO linking strategies that can help you build backlinks and increase search visibility without breaking any SEO rules!

What Is a Link-Building Strategy?

A link from a credible high-quality site is perceived to be an endorsement of your own site, and will lead search engines to rank your content higher than competitors. ​To succeed in link-building, you must define a strategy or have an existing one that dictates which types of outbound links you’ll use to attract outside links and how you’ll promote those sites.

A link-building strategy is a comprehensive approach to attracting relevant and authoritative links to your website.

In essence, the more high-quality, relevant links pointing to your website, the better chances you have to rank higher and the greater potential traffic you get from search engines. There are two major types of link-building:

• white hat link-building (ethical, free, non-manipulative), and
• black hat link-building (using unethical methods for quick gains).

Most SEOs agree on three core elements that search engines look at when trying to decide if a link is of high quality.

• Firstly, the source of the link must be Natural – if you create attractive and informal content that inspires people to link to it, you will get natural backlinks.
• The second factor is Relevance – i.e. if it’s linking to a page about camping gear, it should come from a site about camping gear and not about boats, for example.
• Finally, the referring page should have some Reputation (link value/trust) – this usually means a good-quality website with lots of high-quality links pointing to it already.

Source: Victorious

SEO Link-Building Strategies

Let’s look at the most beneficial link-building techniques in SEO:

1. Competitors’ Backlinks

One of the best, yet least-used tools for link prospecting is your competitors’ backlinks. It’s a no-brainer. Your competitors have already figured out who and where their links come from. This will definitely help you find more prospects to outreach for links. Why reinvent the wheel?

Furthermore, if your competitors have links from high DA sites, you might be able to get some broken link-building opportunities: contact site owners about returning the link or simply find out if they’re planning on taking the backlink down or not. You can also reach out to the webmasters of these domains and ask them why they decided to link to your competition instead of to you.

To begin with, it is necessary to gather a list of the top 10 keywords that you want to rank for. After that, you should perform a competitive backlink analysis to find out who is linking to the competitor’s website. This is probably the most difficult and most time-consuming part of the entire process.

You could spend days upon days simply digging through those backlinks, or you could simplify this immense process by using the SE Ranking backlink report. It will help you to analyze competitors’ backlink profiles and build a data-driven link-building strategy to suppress your rivals. The tool also enables you to examine any backlink profile from every possible angle by viewing key metrics such as domain and page trust, referring domains, URLs, dofollow/nofollow rate, and the general dynamic of new and lost links.

Source: SE Ranking

2. Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is seen by many as a quick and easy way to garner exposure and traffic while also enhancing the backlink profile. However, if done wrong, it could have the opposite effect, damaging your reputation and getting your site penalized. It’s important that you take the time to understand what you’re submitting, who will be reading it, and how you can bring value to the reader.

The concept of guest blogging itself should primarily be seen as a way to share valuable information about specific topics and not only as a means for website owners to promote their websites. However, in recent years, many webmasters have taken this practice to the extreme, guest posting solely for the purpose of an SEO strategy.

When deciding to pursue guest blogging, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered, including the following: Who will your audience consist of and why would they want to read what you have to say? How will this content bring value to them? Branding yourself as an industry expert is essential for guest blogging. After all, if you’re not an expert in your field, it doesn’t matter how much traffic you get; traffic alone will not convert visitors into customers.

Source: Guestpost

3. Content Partnerships

Content partnerships are created when one resource links back to another resource in exchange for a reciprocal link from the second resource. This can also be called content swaps, link exchanges, or backlink partnerships. While this approach works great for new websites, established sites with authority can achieve even better results. Participating in joint ventures with other webmasters and building mutually beneficial link exchanges can help to increase the links pointing back to your websites.

Contributing articles, videos, and infographics on your niche builds valuable relationships between you and your audience and helps them learn more about your expertise. Links from content partners create a cycle that benefits both your business and theirs. These links connect one resource to another. This linking of sites makes it easier for prospects searching for something to find another thought-provoking piece of information.

4. Link Reclamation

There may be thousands of online posts, tweets, articles, and videos that mention your business or its products, but they lack links to your website. Through link reclamation, you can reclaim backlink opportunities that pass right under your nose.

The process can be divided into two parts. The first one is reclaiming a lost link. The basic principle is simple: ask sites that previously linked to your site if they’d like to reconsider adding it back again or at least give you credit for originally creating the content in question. They quite often had good reason for removing the old backlink and would likely be happy to help rectify it.

Source: Masterblogging

The other strategy is to find unlinked brand mentions in a variety of websites and blogs and ask webmasters for credit to a specific page on your website. There are numerous tools that can help you monitor the mentions of your brand. You can also set up alerts for your brand mentions using Google Alerts. Then, send an email to publishers and ask them to credit you with links. However, it’s important to remember that it’s always better to receive links from related and relevant sites.

5. News Sharing

News monitoring is a practice that has been around for decades; marketers and PR experts for major brands are constantly on the lookout for news about the industries they cover. Form relationships with journalists or bloggers working in your industry. Contact them when you get an announcement – and pitch them the story. Make sure you combine news relevancy with the links you plan to add.
Proofs of this spectacular method were shared by Fery Kaszoni on his Linkedin profile.

6. Social Media

Most of us have heard of the idea that social media is a new avenue for increasing exposure, traffic, and brand awareness. That’s right! Social media is the way of the future, but have you ever thought about how it can help build links back to your website? If you haven’t, you’re not alone. Social media has taken on a more prominent role in the link-building process because it provides a low-cost and easy way to create high-profile links.

Source: Bytraject

You can also get in touch with bloggers, journalists, or industry leaders by commenting on their blog posts or answering their questions on Quora or LinkedIn. By presenting yourself as a knowledgeable source (and being able to back it up), you can earn genuine links from interested parties.

7. Paid Promotion for “Linkable Assets”

So your content is ready to go, but who’s going to see it? That is the all-important question. Hopefully, you’ve done a great job of creating linkable assets, but that isn’t enough. You need to reach out and get your content in front of your target audience. And there’s nothing wrong with that — we call these ways of reaching the audience “paid promotion techniques” or “paid promotions”. The process typically involves bidding for a paid search ad position or buying ad space.

By promoting a piece of content as an advertisement on a paid advertising platform like Facebook Ads, or Google Ads, you can build a bigger audience for a temporary period of time. This way, your content becomes more visible and reachable to those who might link to it after the campaign (or they may decide it deserves a tweet). This backlinking strategy is a viable option if your content is well-targeted at sites that fit your desired keywords and you believe it will resonate with the audience. It’s also useful when you want to test the viability of a new blog post or content piece on any given topic, which could then be used as an additional reference point for potential incoming links.

8. Sharing City Studies

Cities are not just places where people live, work, and play. They can also be hotbeds for blogs and press releases from businesses that are promoting products and services in their local regions.

A city study, or study of your local area, is an in-depth piece of reporting that is centered around a specific locality. These types of studies often include demographic analysis, economic data, and even information on industry success in the city itself. A city study adds context when used in articles that are trying to explain the relationship with the town.

In short, city studies are a type of journalism that offers useful location-based content to readers. They can help you target specific regions with topical information. Any type of information network will always strive to keep its users up to date on the area around them, which is why it is important to understand how you can reach these people and gain new clients by utilizing city study according to your own business.

Conclusion

One of the great debates surrounding SEO strategy as a whole is how much time and energy should be invested in link building. A large majority of SEOs believe that an enormous amount of time, effort, and money should be invested in link building. After all, links still influence search rankings – at least for now. Whether you’re in favor of link building or not, one thing is for sure: the above-mentioned SEO link-building strategies will help you to make a bigger impact on your existing campaigns. So, feel free to follow these strategies and build a strong backlink profile!