Let’s assume you are a driven entrepreneur or self-taught SEO. First of all, that’s awesome! However, be very careful about all the snake oil out there. Also, remember that Google is constantly messing with their search algorithm so stay up-to-date with best practices. What worked well before has no guarantee what will work today.
Developing relevant backlinks to your website is one of the top two priorities one must take to optimize your SERP rankings. There are many creative ways to gain backlinks to your site without having to pay or go out of your way. In this post, you will learn some of the best link building strategies. Here are some ways to get appropriate and natural backlinks from non spammy websites:
1. What is Broken Link Building?
This is the freebie white-hat SEO tactic that is scalable and effective. Basically, whenever you write an article, it is safe to say that there are plenty of other articles out there discussing the same topic already. Which is why you need to optimize your post right?
Well, there are other blog posts out there that link to your competitor’s articles using them as a resource or reference. This is where your opportunity knocks. Sites get updated or people forget to redirect their old URL to their new one. This leaves the referring site linking to a 404 error and ultimately hurts them while wasting the time of the reader.
Find these links, and contact the webmaster or blogger to let them know that they have a broken link. Trust me; they’re going to appreciate it. Also, give them the link to your article, which could easily replace the broken link.
You just provided SEO consulting services for free to the site with the broken link and provided an easier solution to their problem. The best part is that you can automate broken link building, which is rather convenient.
2. Education and Government Matters
This is not a political statement. This is a marketing announcement.
I’m sure you’ve heard that .gov and .edu site links will flood your page with that sweet Google juice. This is not really true.
While .gov and .edu sites are notoriously difficult to get a link from, most research has proven that Google doesn’t really give them any special treatment.
However, many .edu and .gov sites have extremely high domain and page authority in a variety of industries. The high rankings of these sites can be explained by the heavy traffic they receive from students and staff; combined with the variety of topics covered by schools and governments.
Either way, you probably want to get these links and you’re going to have to work for it. One way of course, is to get involved in the conversations that are relevant to your business that occurs a lot within these site’s social media and forums. This might give you an opportunity to guest blog for one of these sites and getting one of these is pure gold.
If you are a local business that provides goods or services that may be useful for students and citizens, you should try this technique as well.
For example, most cities have an animal control department for wildlife in the public. However, people with animal infestations within their private homes will often search and contact their city’s animal control department.
Unfortunately, animal control only deals with public issues and not private. This means that animal control receives tons of calls and emails every year with issues that they cannot help with. So, many city .gov sites have set up links on their animal control page to local business websites that take care of private home critter problems.
Basically, look around local .edu and .gov websites and look for opportunities to get linked as a resource. Websites with .edu domains typically have high authority as they have been around for a long time and have many trusted and quality sites linking to them. You can also find trending topics on their sites that are relevant to your industry, which could get you a chance to connect.
3. How to Get Ranked For 2018
I’m sure you are aware of the review and ranking sites on the web specific to your industry. If not, try searching: ‘top ten (your industry) companies’.
Hopefully your business was ranked by a trustworthy source and linked to for 2017. However, if you weren’t for 2017, at least get considered for 2018. All you have to do is contact the webmaster via email and ask them how to get considered for the New Year.
Maybe you’re worried that you won’t make the rankings, and even if you don’t that’s ok! At least you’re on the radar. The beauty of it is that very little people even apply to any of these and the ranking site is left filling in spots with whoever pops up first in their Google query. Be active in the lazy world!
Even if you don’t make the list, you will have started a communication line. If you receive an email regretting to inform you that you aren’t good enough, ask for feedback. Many of these sites also have a reference and resource page. Ask if you can be considered to be linked on those pages.
If you ask for something big and get a NO then ask for something smaller to get a YES right after. Play the player and win the game.
That’s it! Just kidding. There are tons of other ways to get back links with the most important being relevant content development. These three tactics are slightly more advanced back linking techniques that are in the current SEO consulting Meta which I have personally used to get excellent results.
And never forget about the close relationship of SEO and content marketing, write articles and publish them in many places. When the article is resourceful, users that read that article will certainly be encouraged to visit your website. This will improve your site traffic rate. Such traffic will be highly targeted and the conversions rate with such traffic will be high.
Did I leave any traffic strategies that have worked well for you?
