Backlinks are still considered a recipe for success for successful search engine optimization. However, the days when you could achieve great ranking success through link purchases are long gone. The naturalness of inbound links plays a big role, while black hat SEO practices are on the red list of the Penguin update. The possibilities for errors in link building have increased. To avoid penalties, it is now even more important than before to create sustainable and active content to generate more high-quality links in the long term. But how do you achieve optimal link building?
In this blog post, we give you five link building strategies that will save you from Google penalties and help you achieve organic backlinks with the help of good content.
1. Content Creation
Every optimal link building strategy begins with the creation of high-quality content as part of on-page optimization. Before you can attract potential customers to your site via links, you need an interesting added value that should convince both the unknown user and the search engine of your choice.
Publications that are particularly suitable not only as a lead magnet are webinars, blog posts, white papers, or e-books that you make available to your visitors free of charge. These linkable assets (or link baits) are content designed for maximum linkability with an informative, educational, and entertaining character. This added value allows you to demonstrate your expertise within your industry and, in the best-case scenario, gain natural links.
In addition, helpful content is often linked voluntarily, without you having to take any action yourself.
Find topics
The basis of your content should always be keyword research. To identify topics, it is an advantage if your intended link provider has already published articles that are thematically relevant to you and you can supplement or deepen them. However, your goal can also be to create completely new content based on the content that has already been published.
Alternatively, you can focus specifically on your competition’s weak points. You can do this by identifying niches that have previously been barely or inadequately covered by your competition. Then address your better-implemented article to the web operator. Explain how sharing your content and its users will benefit them.
Recycle topics
If you have already put a lot of effort into existing items, it is possible to recycle them in other formats after some time. Blog posts can be reused in eBooks or videos. The advantage this creates is that you save financial resources and still generate new content.
Get backlinks with infographics
You can then supplement the created posts with effective infographics. They not only enrich your articles with graphic explanations but also encourage people to forward them. However, it is important to make sure that you focus on areas that have not yet been exhausted.
With good infographics, you can also generate attention outside of your website by arousing the interest of bloggers or other webmasters by publishing them on social networks such as Pinterest.
Additional tip: After publishing graphics, use Google reverse image search and look for your graphics with missing attribution. Otherwise, you will miss important links.
Generate Attention
If you have written blog posts, glossary entries, or something similar, think about which potential link providers might be interested in your content. Depending on how well you have already established yourself in your industry, your content will bring you links almost on its own. Alternatively, you need to actively promote your linkable assets (outreach).
Make a list of all the companies you can provide value to. SEO tools such as the Ahrefs Content Explorer or the SEMRush Link Building Tool can provide support. These programs can also help analyze the link profile of your strongest competitors and find suitable landing pages.
2. Broken link building
Carry out a backlink analysis ( backlink audit) of your competitors’ domains and thematically relevant websites to detect possible faulty links. You can usually recognize this by the error code 404. The Ahrefs Broken Links tool can help find the broken links. Archive.org can be used to locate the original content.
You reactively create the appropriate post for your website and contact the relevant admin. In the best-case scenario, you will receive a new link back.
Your request could look like this:
“Hello [website operator],
During my research on the topic [insert topic] I came across your following article: [insert article URL].
A very interesting and informative post!
Unfortunately, I noticed that you refer to a post from [website name] that is no longer current / can no longer be found.We recently published an article on this topic, which [states advantages]: [Post URL}.
We think that our article could offer your readers added value and would be very happy if you would link to it in your article.
Thank you!
Kind regards,
[Your Name]”
3. Collaborations
A broad industry-internal network can enable you to collaborate as another link building strategy. The basis is mutual referral so that everyone can benefit from the advantages. Two forms of cooperative link building are link exchange and guest posting.
Link exchange
A link exchange is an agreement between two site operators to refer to the other’s website with a dofollow link. Unlike buying links, exchanging links is based on convictions and is rather unusual today. Incompatible topics can also result in penalties. Instead, a three-part network with an intermediate side is now used. However, good agreements are required for this type of link network.
Guest posting
Another and more natural variant of cooperative link building is guest posting or guest blogging. It is based on the principle of “content versus publicity” and represents a win-win situation for both partners. At the core of this strategy, the guest author is allowed to distribute their content and thus generate reach and inbound links in the text or through author information. As a platform provider, you receive well-founded text contributions in return.
In contrast, you can also publish guest articles or expert interviews on third-party websites. By mentioning your brand within the author box, you generate links. A less offensive option is to link from the post to your website in more detail.
To get guest posts, either tap into existing relationships or use search engines to find potential bloggers. The search engine can also help you find guest posting niches. To do this, use commands such as “ keyword + guest article”, “keyword + guest post” or “keyword/competitor/industry name + intitle: Interview”.
4. Activities on the Internet
A less editorial, but no less comprehensive and targeted strategy covers all online activities. In the following, we want to focus on the comment function in forums and websites as well as social networks.
Comments and Ratings
Links left in forums are part of your link structure, similar to links to the website in the comment columns of blogs. Nevertheless, comment links usually have the nofollow attribute and do not pass on PageRank. In addition, forum links now have a rather bad reputation.
In addition to comments, you have the option of using reviews as testimonials for other brands. In the best-case scenario, your review will be published or linked to and you will receive another link.
The following applies to both variants: If you follow the strategy mentioned, make sure that you do not rely on quantity – as in the old school – but rather select links with topic relevance and added value.
But you should also be careful with this strategy: linking to your site too frequently ( link spamming ) can be punished.
Social media marketing
Social media activities are part of a good online marketing mix. Despite their low backlink value, social networks are suitable for linking to your page, subpage, or specifically to a landing page and thus drawing attention to your brand’s website. You also increase the likelihood of links in blogs.
A good way to do this is to create a Facebook page with interesting news from the industry or your company for link building that is as natural as possible.
In addition to link building, social media marketing offers other advantages :
- Increasing brand awareness
- Strengthening the brand through customer loyalty
- Establishing yourself as an expert through a trustworthy website
- Chance of brand presence in the SERPs
In addition to creating social media profiles, you can also expand your social network activities to include the Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter profiles of specialized bloggers, magazines, or companies.
5. Internal links
Internal links are also an important part of the link profile and have a positive impact on the ranking and your user loyalty. The reader receives further information, which increases the viewing time.
Internal links also offer the advantage that you as a website operator are not exposed to any risk and can therefore set links quickly and free of charge. This includes specifically linking to specific pages that need to be reinforced. Unlike external links, this optimization is not a problem and is recommended.
The most important thing for your optimization is that internal links can be used to specifically strengthen certain pages.
Additional tip: Plug-ins like the SEO Smart Link WordPress plugin recognize certain keywords in posts that have already been created and make it easier for you to find suitable linking options.
Tip: Google Alerts
As you now know, content creation is the prerequisite for building links naturally. However, you should not trust that all website operators will automatically create links for you. A helpful tool for tracking whether your name or brand has been mentioned online is Google Alerts. This allows you to set up several alerts and be notified when certain keywords appear.
In this way, you can track which pages you were mentioned on, whether a link to your website was created and you have the option to ask about this later. Google Alerts also makes it possible to find websites that may be of interest to you.
Conclusion
Buying links is a thing of the past. Today, natural link building strategies are more important than ever before to build organic links. The be-all and end-all is your content! With the help of quality content creation, you generate links instead of “creating” them from the great risk of Google penalty.
Using the five strategies, you can now create your link building roadmap and know which methods are suitable for getting even more potential out of your posts.
Do you need help creating customized content for your business? And do you want to sustainably generate more visitors through organic links? The Times IT content and link building experts from your SEO agency in Bangladesh will be happy to provide you with advice and support! We also offer SEO seminars at your location or in Cologne.
frequently asked Questions
What are link building strategies?
Link building strategies are part of search engine optimization and enable you to build external links that lead to your website.
What makes a good link building strategy?
Effective link building strategies rely on organic link building through content with thematic relevance, which “generates” rather than “creates” links. Instead of keyword stuffing, the focus is on added value for the reader. This means you can create high-quality backlinks almost automatically.
Which link building strategies are penalized by Google?
Black hat SEO practices are link building strategies that deliberately violate Google guidelines to achieve a better ranking. These include, for example, link spamming or link purchasing.
