Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors that affect your rankings on Google search results page. In fact, Google themselves have said it that backlinks are one of the three major ranking signals that Google measures. So you must have strong backlink strategy for growth on search engines.

Backlink for SEO is important because it shows that you are a trusted brand in your industry. As before Google, there were other search engines that used other factors like keyword density in content to rank web pages.

The keyword is still important, it has not gone obsolete. But the systems were not this sophisticated before.

That is why people could game the system by stuffing in keywords within articles. It resulted in irrelevant or spammy web pages to rank high. This caused a lot of problems for the users.

After Google came it introduced backlinks as a ranking factor. Initially, people tried to game that as well. Many used to buy a massive number of links for their SEO link building strategy. Those dark days of SEO didn’t last a long time.

Now the quality of the backlinks is a major factor. If a top brand in your industry or a top magazine links back to you, Google is going to see that as a trust signal. Other search engines also use the quality of backlinks as a factor to rank web pages for organic search results.

Link Building Strategies 

Link Position

Position of the link on the page matters. If the link to your site is at the footer it will not work as well. But if you can get a backlink within the body of the content it will work great.

You need to get backlinks from a website that will link to you from the body of their content. It is best if you can get a link with anchor text.

Anchor Text

Anchor text is the clickable part of a link. You need to keep an eye on it as Google thinks of it as a ranking factor.

You do not want to get a backlink with an anchor text that is keyword rich. The backlinks that you get needs to be a keyword that you are aiming to rank for.

Like if you are aiming to rank for “cheap car deals in Louisiana” then you can get a backlink for it. It is going to work really well for your website.

But be sure that you do not overdo it. As it can cause your website to seem spammy to Google.

You should also try to get backlinks with anchor texts that have related keywords. Then it will give Google a clearer idea about your website. As it makes easier to understand the topic of the web page.

Guest Post

It is one of the best ways to build links. But this is also one of the most abused ways to build links.

If you start to abuse guest post by writing content just for the sake of it then it will not work. You must publish great content for guest posts.

Publish guest posts to the prestigious blogs in your industry. It can be difficult to get your content on such blogs. But getting only one of your content there can do miracles for your website.

Never publish guest posts to the low-quality website to get exact match anchor text links. Because Google can understand these. You are never actually going to be able to rank high, in the long run, using such tactics.

Do guest posting right, it will reward you miraculously.

Nofollow & Dofollow

rel=”nofollow” is an HTML attribute. It tells the search engines that the link is not an endorsement. You need endorsement links.

When you get backlinks to make sure that they have rel=”dofollow” attribute. Without this, it will give you no value of the backlink.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is the organic way for you to get backlinks to your website. However, most have the wrong concept of content marketing. As they think publishing content is content marketing.

Only publishing content for the sake of it will not get you any backlinks. You need to strategize your content. These are the types of content that generates backlinks.

Visual Assets

Visual assets are mainly images, diagrams, infographics, and charts based on data. These are pretty good at generating backlinks.

As when someone shares your visual assets on their website they are obviously going to link to you. On the other hand, simply articles do not generate many backlinks when shared.

List Post

List posts are simply posts that have strategies, tips, techniques, etcetera. But all of them are collected and arranged in a user-friendly manner.

People love this type of content. These are quite easy to understand and remember.

You can create the list posts based on the niche you are in. If you are selling car parts then you can make a list post like “21 Ways to Take Care of your Car’s Battery.” This type of posts surely works like a charm.

You will also get attention on social media for list posts. So it’s suggested that you promote them on social media.

Research Data

When you do extensive research of your industry and create a piece of content with it, you can be sure that it will create value. Because your data can help to prove a point or change in your industry.

Other websites are going to link to your article from their web page when they bring up a conclusion based on your data. As they did not do the research they cannot make a direct claim on the conclusion. Also, you are helping them to save the resources required to do market research. So it is a win-win situation for both.

Ultimate Guides

Guides are resources to learn about a certain topic. These are comprehensive and are quite big.

When you write a guide make sure that it goes through all the steps thoroughly. As a result, you will be able to teach or inform your audience about the subject of your guide.

Guides are basically like a mini-book. Try to make it the go-to source of information on a topic for your audience. So that they keep coming back to your guide.

Backlink through Email Outreach

You can personally reach out for backlinks through email. Wait, it can’t be this easy, right? Technically you would be asking but it surely won’t be easy as certain steps need to be followed.

If you are careless with your email you will end up in the spam folder of people you reach out to. You need to avoid this at all costs.

So let’s get you through the steps of email outreach.

Step 1

You need to find out the people who have chances of linking to your website. If you just randomly as someone to link to your website you are simply going to be declined.

Do a Google search of the keyword that you want to rank your article for. Then go through the search result. You need to pick out all the links of the top ranking search results.

Now get into Ahrefs or SEMRush to find out the blogs who have linked to the top ranking website. Then create a list of the websites that have linked to the top ranking contents. This list consists of people who are likely to link to your content as well.

Step 2

Use tools like VoilaNorbert.com to find out the contact email address of the people you need to reach out to. You can simply type in the name of the person who wrote the content that links out to the top ranking content. Then you need to type in the domain name of the website that person wrote content for.

If the person works for that company or blogs the email address is going to pop up. It is easy as that. This way you can obtain the email address of people you need to reach out to.

You can also use tools like Hunter.io to find out the email addresses of people who work at a company. But using this can be a bit daunting if the company has a huge list of employees.

Step 3

Send a personalized email to the people you need to reach out to. Make sure that you don’t only send email to one website contact. As generally, this is a number’s game. If you reach out to hundreds you might get a few backlinks if your email script is good.

Resource Page Link Building

Resource pages are the pages where a list of links are given. These links are compiled to help the audience learn about a certain topic in details.

It can also help them to reach out to the places in need of an emergency. Either way resource pages are helpful.

The resource pages are created to link out to other websites. But all the links in resource pages are helpful sources of information. So your content needs to be good if you want a position on the resource page of other websites.

Step 1

You have to find resource pages that you can add your content to. It can simply be done by doing Google search with your keywords.

You search queries need to be like:

“Keyword” + “useful resources”

“Keyword” + “helpful links”

Step 2

Analyze the resource pages of the search results. The resource pages need to have high page authority and domain authority.

You can check it on Moz. If you use Ahrefs then check out the domain rating and URL rating. If the URLRating/Page Authority is good, then getting a link from the page is surely going to help you.

Step 3

Look for content on your website that is best suited for the resource page. If your content isn’t a good fit for the resource page you are not going to get a link.

Step 4

Now reach out through email to the blog. Personalize your email as much as possible. As you are actually asking someone to do a favor for you. Don’t treat it lightly.

Broken Link Building

This link building strategy creates a win-win situation for you and the blog you are asking a link from. So there can be high chances of you getting a link. But make sure that your content is top class.

Step 1

Install the Google Chrome extension named Check My Links.

Step 2

Find the web pages that have outbound links. Try to go for the pages that have a lot of outbound links. As higher the number of outbound links more the chances of finding a broken link.

Step 3

Check for broken links with Check My Links. Find out and note down all the broken links in a page.

Step 4

Manually outreach the blog owner about the broken link. Tell them that they have broken links on their website and point it out for them. Then add links to your own website with the same kind of content that the broken link had. There are high chances of that broken link getting replaced by the link of your own website.

Link Reclamation

When your brand gets mentioned on the internet it doesn’t generally get linked to. You might think that it is natural to get a link. But many times (if not most) it doesn’t happen.

Use BuzzSumo to find out where on the internet your brand name has been mentioned. BuzzSumo will show you if the website has linked to you or not.

If you didn’t get a link, ask for it. You have a good chance of getting yourself a backlink.

Reverse Image Search

Do an image search with your visual assets on Google. It will show you the search results where people are using your image on their blog post.

Visit those websites and see if they have linked to your post that has the visual asset. If they have not done it yet, simply ask them to do it.

Podcast Interviews

You need to get interviewed to podcasts. Reach out to podcasts if they are willing to take your interview.

If you do an interview on podcasts you are likely to get a link. These are comparatively easier as you simply have to speak on podcasts. While writing content for guest posts can take a lot of time and resources.

Final Thoughts

Now you know the best methods for your SEO link building strategy. Your backlink building campaigns are going to be a lot easier now.

Link building methods do not necessarily always have to be expensive and difficult. If you take the right approach for backlink SEO strategy you will get a decent number of backlinks.

However, backlink strategy is a number’s game. So do not get frustrated when you reach out to a few and get to replies. As that is how the way it is.

Getting just a few backlinks with the right link building plan will get you started with a boost. Later you will get websites linking to your pages without even asking.

Always keep in mind that “Content is King.” If you have lousy content getting backlinks will be quite difficult for you. So always concentrate on creating content of great quality.