In today’s post, you will learn about the 10 best and effective link building strategies that experts use.
After reading this complete post, you will learn about these effective strategies and can build a quality backlinks profile.
So let’s start.
Link building is a tactic that SEOs use to increase search rankings.
This is down to Google using links as a ranking factor since 1998.
The first version was slightly flawed; they didn’t take into account the quality of the links but instead focused on the quantity.
Thankfully the time of spammy links has ended, now they focus on quality rather than quantity.
In essence, the more quality links that point to your site, the more authority you have.
So let’s learn how to win those all-important links so you can start seeing some major growth.
The Importance of Building a Balanced Link Profile
Before I explain the importance of a good link profile, I want you to understand what it is.
A backlink profile, to put it simply, is a portfolio of all the links that point to your site.
When you browse through your portfolio, you’ll see it contains links from authority sites, spam links, social media platforms, and much more.
If you want to build a strong backlink profile which boosts your credibility, then your profile should:
- Look natural
- Use varied anchor text
- Have relevant links
- Have links from authoritative sites
- Contain dofollow links
To check what state your links are in, you have a few tools available to you:
- SEMRush
- Ahrefs
- Moz
One of the best things about these programs is, you can spy on how your competitors are building their links (but more on that later).
10 Effective Link Building Strategies in 2020
Building links can be very time consuming, and in some cases can cost you a lot of money.
This isn’t great if you’re on a budget.
So to help you out here are ten proven link building strategies you can focus on.
The best thing is most of them are free to implement and very useful to have in your arsenal:
1. Guest Posting
This is one of the easiest and most common link building strategies.
This is due to the majority of people thinking it’s a white hat technique.
Which is strange considering Google has given plenty of warnings it isn’t.
But in the end, what Google wants to see is a specific metric.
Guest posts are great to use as a marketing function.
It helps you build a greater audience, and get that all-important link.
The trouble with this strategy is website owners have started to wise up, which means they’ll probably make you pay for it.
But if you are careful to avoid spammy link farms and only write quality content, you will find some golden opportunities to the guest post from authority sites for free.
2. Internal Links
The thing I love about internal links is that you’re in total control of them.
But what makes it even better is how easy it is to do.
It carries minimal risk of being penalized but can be extremely powerful.
Internal linking does a few things:
- Direct traffic to money sites
- Helps Google better understand your content
- Control Google’s spiders
- Helps Google find new content
Considering internal linking can achieve so much with such little effort, it really is surprising that many people aren’t using it effectively.
3. Sponsor Up and Coming Events
It might seem like a strange concept using events to build powerful backlinks.
But it’s actually quite an effective way of building links.
The events can be local, national, or international; the most important thing is that it’s relevant to your website.
You have two options when it comes to this strategy:
- Host an event
- Sponsor an event
To do this, you can perform Google searches to see what’s going on and whether it’s relevant to you.
From there it’s all about pitching the idea, and usually parting with some cash.
4. Scout For Broken Links
Most websites will have hundreds if not thousands of links pointing to various sites.
And in some cases, these links won’t be working.
This could happen for several reasons, but the important thing is it presents you with an opportunity.
And most of the time the website owner will know nothing about the broken link.
And this is a problem because they:
- Risk their reputation
- Can cause issues for their SEO
- Lower the user experience
Which is why finding the broken link opens the door.
You have a chance to build a relationship with the website owner, add value to them, and more importantly get you the link by pitching your content as the replacement.
5. Roundups
These are pages made by blogs that link to great content.
These are usually done weekly or monthly and are a great way of scoring a link.
All you need to make a short write up including a link to your page.
They can be found for nearly any niche and only takes a quick Google search.
From there, it’s all about the pitch.
6. Testimonials
It’s probably one of the easiest ways to score a link…ever!
It only takes a couple of minutes of work, but it can win a massive link to your homepage.
The idea behind it is to reach out to the products and services you used and offer a testimonial in exchange for link placement.
You’ll be surprised how effective this technique is.
7. Support a Business
It’s a very underused and quite often a forgotten technique.
People that are starting a new company need a way to raise some capital, which is why they might opt for a crowdfunding scheme.
You can donate money in exchange for a link; the best thing is this can work for all types of niches.
8. News Events
Creating new content that goes viral can be tricky and very unlikely.
So, instead of trying to find out what people like, why not find out what they are talking about instead.
This technique is called newsjacking, due to you taking advantage of popular talking points.
It can still be pretty tricky, but the idea is to:
- Find a popular topic
- Brainstorm ideas
- Create the content
- Publish content
9. Tickle An Influencers Ego
If you manage to tickle an influencer’s ego enough, you could end up scoring yourself a link from their site.
Building relationships with people is the key to success; it gets you what you want in life.
The trick is to get the influencer feeling involved with your piece of content.
Most of the time, they’ll feel compelled to share it, and more often than not, without you asking.
Not only do you get a link, but you’ll also get a portion of their traffic, so it’s a win-win really.
For this method to work, you first need to create a catchy headline.
The idea is, to sum up, the article idea and play with the influencer’s ego.
You can do this with headlines like “The Top 10 SEOs Say This Is The Best Backlinking Tool” or “Listen To What Fashion Influencers Say This Is Their Favorite Brand.”
You can mix it up as you please and use it for any niche, but the important part is to tickle their ego and define a question.
Now you need to make sure you break down the question.
People are busy, so you need to make things as easy as possible for them, yet still, get all the information you need.
From there it’s all about finding the influencers and creating the best possible outreach email.
10. Backlink Analysis
This is by far the most effective way to win links, especially when compared to the number of links you earn compared with the time you spend on it.
This technique involves spying on your competitors to see what they are doing.
You see your competitors will be spending a lot of money on their link building campaign.
So why not copy what they’re doing?
It involves using tools like Ahrefs to find out which sites are linking to them.
From there, you can start planning on how you’re going to win the same links.
It’s a pretty straight forward technique that I want to explain in a little more detail.
You need to start by making a list of the top five competitors that rank for your chosen keyword.
Once you’ve got your list, it’s time to analyze their backlink profile for that page.
To do this, I like to use Ahrefs, but you can also use tools like SEMRush.
Search the site using the Ahrefs site explorer and use the left-hand menu to select the Backlinks tab.
From there it will give you a long list of backlinks pointing to the page.
Now it’s all about picking the best backlinks from the high authority site.
You want to look at each link and think about what did my competitors do to win that link?
Conclusion
There you have it, ten stunning link building strategies you can use to succeed in your SEO efforts.
But remember, you have to make your portfolio look natural.
If you don’t, Google might penalize you.
The other thing I’d like you to remember is stealing your competitor’s backlink profile is the quickest way to success.
If they are already ranking for number one, there must be a reason for it.
