Welcome to The Ultimate Guide to Backlinks!
What IS a backlink?
Firstly, lets have a refresher course on what backlinks are before we dive into this ultimate guide to backlinks! Simply put, when one website mentions another on its site with a link that takes a visitor to your site, that is a backlink.
If you’re reading this guide, then I bet that you’re looking to drive more traffic to your website.
In fact, you’ve probably even spent a good amount of time researching how to build backlinks to help flow traffic through your site. Or even some of the many backlink tools and backlinks building services there are to choose from.
So many questions and options out there to choose from. So, let’s break down our ultimate guide to backlinks in 2020.
Link Building: What is it and Why does it matter?
Remember the days of ‘ole, when you would hear that now infamous dial tone and whining of the computers talking… in those days, backlinking wasn’t even a twinkle in your eye. Now it’s how many sites live and die in the world of search engine optimization (SEO).
Goal of Link Building
The simple and proven goal of link building is to build your website’s search engine visibility.
You do this through strategic practices like content marketing, public relations, email newsletters and other forms of outreach, and building useful tools specific to your website’s customer base and content. In doing this, you raise your ability to build one-way links to a website to attain your goal of driving more traffic to your website and raising your authority.
What is authority? We will get to that, patience young Padawan.
Your backlinks and building time matters for many reasons. But they all boil down to the advent and search engine domination of Google.
Remember Geocities and Netscape Navigator? If you weren’t born in the early 80’s, I doubt you do. I digress…
Google’s PageRank Algorithm and Google Penguin are your litmus for backlinks. If your page is linked to in an editorial link (links within the body of a site and authorized by the creator / author) then this has far more authority and weight than links placed in the headers and footers of your page.
Google Penguin also lists these editorial links as one of the biggest backlink tools there is. It doesn’t get any better than organic traffic from recommended sites.
Links that are placed for purposes of simply attempting to drive traffic but have no relevance or cannot be vouched for by the site’s owner are what are referred to as unnatural links. You don’t want these, building editorial backlinks is the most effective way to build your site’s authority.
What is Authority?
In the world of how to build backlinks, a site’s authority is paramount. In general, a site like LATimes.com that links to your site using a backlink will have much more impact than a link from some questionable, or no-name site. Even if it is an editorial link.
Page Rank
Page Rank is your bread and butter backlink tool here to build web presence and drive traffic as well as raising your site’s own authority. Having editorial links placed on PageRank’s top sites will always influence your site’s authority.
Content Marketing: Why it’s one of most important backlink tools:
In the world of content marketing and using it as a tool to drive your site’s traffic there are really four types of content that are effective. Stick to these and your site will grow.
Visuals
For many people, seeing things laid out visually is one of the best ways to learn. This also applies to the content on your site.
Visuals work on many levels. They’re easy to create links to from other sites; if someone shares your image on their site then BAM you’ve got a backlink.
Visual assets to include on your site include images, infographics, diagrams, along with charts and other visual content pieces.
Research and Data
Always be original. And one of the best ways for your site to stand out and do just that is through original and self-sourced research and data. This one is pretty self-explanatory; if someone links to your original case study or collected data then they’re driving traffic back to your site.
Ultimate Guides
I mean, you’re reading this still, aren’t you? In-depth guides that breakdown what there is to know and all that you can cover on a topic are strong and proven content marketing to publish on your site.
People love to soak up information and knowledge. What better way than an article with as much information as I can find and research packed into one ultimate guide for you to enjoy!
Lists
Lists are also great for building backlinks. No, not your partner’s To-Do List, but lists of information or tips, techniques, “best of”’s, anything really.
They work and thrive as content marketing because they’re easy to understand while also packing a great deal of information into small bites for your visitors.
Why Email Outreach is a Strong Backlink Building Tool
You may not enjoy writing as much as I do, but we all compose emails every day so why not do it in a way that drives your site’s authority up. And being informative to your customer base.
It’s also important to reach out to potential sites, bloggers, news outlets, etc depending on the content on your site to create relationships.
Web folks love building traffic and helping another person of similar interests and content can go a long way. You scratch my back, I scratch yours kind of mentality.
Be sure you personalize any template emails you’re sending out to potential relationships / other sites you’re contacting.
Take the time to read their site and do your research when reaching out. This will bring results you’re looking for in building editorial links for your site.
Other backlinks building services:
Some other backlinks building services that you can use to build your backlinks are Ubersuggest, Back Link Builder, and Linkbird to name a few. There are many out there. These are three that I use when researching my competitors, building my backlinks, and wanting to track my rankings, respectively.
