Can a website without links rank well? Of course not.
So, when someone says that link building is dead, this means that they’ve failed to adapt to the ever-changing nature of this SEO technique.
Namely, link building is not about writing a bunch of spammy guest articles or leaving a myriad of comments on sites in your niche.
Not anymore.
On the contrary, it is more powerful and complex than ever and, to understand it, you need to continuously polish up your knowledge, keep track of the latest SEO trends, and invest in reliable SEO tools.
So, here are a few critical tips that will help you build quality links and give your new site a boost.
Write a Guest Post
This is one of the most popular and powerful link building tactics ever. Simply put, you need to find relevant sites in your niche and ask them if they’re interested in publishing your guest article. Of course, many sites will accept to do so, but you need to pay attention to the following:
- Their page authority
- Their domain authority
- The relevancy of the site
- The position of your link on a page
- Co-citations
- Nofollow vs. Dofollow links
You need to publish articles on those sites that won’t compromise your rankings or, worse yet, get you penalized by Google. To find relevant sites in your niche and check their trustworthiness effortlessly, you should consider automating your link building efforts.
Namely, with link building tools like Dibz, this process is made a walk in the park. Its SPAM factor, which analyzes a number of factors (ads, external links, spammy anchors, and exact match keywords, etc.) separates the wheat from the chaff and provides you with the reliable results only.
Create Linkable Content
Content marketing is closely interrelated with SEO. It helps you drive relevant traffic to your site, boosts your authority, and makes your blog more transparent. However, to get the most of it, you need to create content that inspires people to link to you organically.
- Visual content, such as images, infographics, videos, quizzes, and charts. This form of content helps you present mountains of boring stats and data in a visually appealing and digestible way.
- List posts are engaging, easy to read on the run, and skim-friendly. In 2016, HubSpot analyzed over 100 million articles and they concluded that list posts and infographics get more shares and links than other forms of content.
- Original research, such as case studies or whitepapers, drives natural links to your site.
- An ultimate guide is a comprehensive piece of content that covers everything your readers should know about a certain topic. Needless to say, it needs to include an insane amount of useful information and tips.
Build Links From Resource Pages
Resource pages are created specifically to link out to numerous websites and this is why they make amazing link building opportunities. For starters, to find them, you need to search for certain search strings, such as “keyword” + inurl:links or “keyword” + useful links. Once you find the right resource page and assess its authority, you need to know what to offer to a webmaster.
Here, you need to pay attention to how they link out. For example, most of them tend to link to a piece of awesome content or helpful curated lists. So, it’s better to try to pitch them a certain piece of your content rather than your site’s homepage.
Broken Link Building
Broken link building is a great way to get a quality link to your site and, at the same time, add value to someone else’s website. And, with the tools like Check My Links, LinkMiner or Majestic Backlink Analyzer, it has never been simpler. You just need to find a relevant page with a lot of outbound links, find an invalid link, and inform the webmaster about it, offering your link as a replacement.
Additionally, you can also use Wikigrabber to check Wikipedia’s dead links and replace them with your own links. Even though all Wikipedia’s links are nofollow, they are highly authoritative and they will pass a lot of trust to your site.
Turn Your Mentions Into Links
Let’s imagine this. Someone has already mentioned your brand or product in one of their articles, but they didn’t link to you. This is an amazing opportunity for you to gain another quality link to your site. All you need to do is use Google Alerts or some of its alternatives to track your brand mentions on Google. Once you find such content, you should contact a webmaster, asking them to link to you.
Link Building is Important, but It’s not Enough
To make the most of your link building practices, you need to stay on top of them.
Keep track of your backlink profile and make sure that all links leading to your site are quality and organic. If you notice any spammy or suspicious links, you need to disavow them as soon as possible. This is how you will manage to stay competitive and make sure your young site becomes an authoritative source of information.
Nate Vickery
Nate Vickery is a marketing consultant mostly focused on digital marketing for startups and SMBs. He is also the editor at Bizzmark Blog, and an online author, writing for publications such as Marketing Insider Group and The Next Web.