Loading...- How to Build External Links for SEO in an Effective Way?
- Create Quality and Linkable Blog Content
- Write Guest Posts for Other Industry Websites
- Explore the Skyscraper Technique
- Use Blog Aggregators and Search Engines
- Write Reviews
- Benefit from Videos
- Share Your Expertise
- Create Graphics
- Create Useful Online Tools
- Use Music
- Get to Know Twitter Better
- Organize Promotions and Special Discounts
- Organize Contests
- Use Forums
- Get Links from Opinion Leaders
- Set up Social Media Profiles
- Become a Part of University Networks
- Try out Directories
- Consider Specialized Websites that aren't Directories
- Consider Sponsoring Other Companies and Foundations
- Satisfied Customers are Happy Customers
- Think About Press Releases
- Focus on Social News
- Understand and Implement Broken Link Building Strategy
- Repair Broken Links to Your Site
- Use Old Links
- Make Sure Users Can Link Easily
- Let People Rate You
- Monitor Your Market Rivals
- Keep an Eye on Brand Mentions
- Co-Create Wikipedia
- Check out Industry Association Sites
- Add .gov Domains
- Optimize Job Advertisements
- Add Your Content to Auction Sites
- Take Advantage of Partnerships
- Claim Your Copyright
- Q&A Pages
- Create Engaging Product Quizzes
- Record Podcasts
- An Extra Tip from Delante - Be an Active Commenter
- Mistakes in External Link Building
- External Link Building SEO - The Takeaways
How to Build External Links for SEO in an Effective Way?
We have selected 40 effective methods for external link building based on the current knowledge of our SEO experts. Let's dive into the details! Remember: there are some overriding principles that you should always keep in mind, regardless of the external link building method you choose. You should always monitor the parameters of the website you acquire links from, even if you follow our tips described below. It's all about the quality, not quantity.1. Create Quality and Linkable Blog Content
If you haven't set up a company blog yet, it's worth doing it. As SEO experts almost unanimously say, quality content plays a key role in external link building SEO. The goal of your blog is to provide valuable content that users will want to share. How do you create such content? There are several proven types of text that particularly attract users:- lists - such as "10 best products for X", "12 things you don't know about Y";
- articles debunking myths - articles discussing untrue beliefs related to your industry;
- explanations of industry-specific phrases - especially appreciated by those unfamiliar with the meaning of the terms in question, i.e. content series like "ABC of" "Dictionary of..."
- tutorials - how to buy something, how to do something yourself, how to solve a given problem? All kinds of articles answering the question "How", and "Why";
- answers to questions - if you know that there is something that may trouble users and potential customers (maybe they’re wondering if it’s worth buying a handheld vacuum cleaner, or if laser epilation is safe), address these doubts in an article that everyone will be happy to share.
Want to learn more about blogging? Check out our article: SEO for bloggers – tips for beginners.
2. Write Guest Posts for Other Industry Websites
When you set up a blog, you become part of a certain ecosystem. If you manage it successfully, it can become a source of very valuable external links for your site. Guest posts on other industry blogs are one of the most effective ways to acquire backlinks. This is a great opportunity both to share the expertise you have and to gain a link to your site (by including it in an article). So, you should look for blogs that are well-established among the blogging community, and are thematically related to your target site. This will additionally boost the effectiveness of your external linking. You can check website parameters using Ahrefs or MOZ to make sure that the link will be valuable for your website. How to find sites that will publish such content? Browse through a variety of sites (especially company blogs) and see if they have posts prepared by third-party authors. If so, there is a good chance that your content will be accepted there as well. It's also worth building a network with industry specialists to share specialized articles and gain external links.
Want to learn more? Read: Guest posting – what is it? How to do it and how does it affect SEO?
3. Explore the Skyscraper Technique
Unfortunately, sometimes even a top-quality blog post that you think is insanely interesting can neither attract a sizable base of external links nor significant traffic. In this situation, you should consider the skyscraper technique described by Brian Dean from Backlinko. What does it involve? Step one is to determine what content you should publish on your blog to attract a few new, valuable links. How to do it?- Check out what types of texts receive a lot of external links now, and analyze your competitors. For this purpose, you can use tools such as Ahrefs or BuzzSumo. Use them to check domains that receive a lot of external links thanks to their content (such as the most popular blogs in your industry).
- Verify which pages within the websites you're interested in have the most links and where they come from.
- Now select your direct competitors, i.e. that content you'll want to outrank in quality and number of inbound links in the next step.
Tip: In Ahrefs, you'll get a list of such content if you select "Best by links" in the Pages section.
Check our guide to the best link building tools to use in 2023!
Step two is the key part - you should write even better articles than the text of your market rivals. How to do it? First of all, be more accurate than your competitors, and take care of the most important aspects to create outstanding content:
- exhaust the topic,
- make it up-to-date,
- keep it linguistically correct,
- optimize the text for SEO and analyze key phrases,
- tailor the content to the audience.
4. Use BlogAaggregators and Search Engines
How to do it? It’s child’s play! You just have to submit your blog to such a site in the appropriate form. Usually, you'll be asked to paste a piece of HTML code confirming that you’re the owner of the site, and after successful verification, your blog will be listed. Then you just have to wait for directory users to notice your blog. It should quickly translate into an increase in traffic.
Note: When searching for the right blog aggregator verify its parameters using tools such as MOZ, and make sure it's not a spammy site that can harm your website.
5. Write Reviews
You probably use lots of products or services on a daily basis. Take advantage of this link building opportunity and review these products or services. It would be ideal to focus on items closely related to your business profile, these can be reviews of newsletters (if you're a marketer), IT technology (if you're a software house), or weekend getaway spots if you run a store selling accessories for mountain hiking. Where to publish your reviews? There are two options. You can post reviews on sites specifically designed for this purpose. They usually allow you to place a link or signature with a link to your site in the content of the review. But keep in mind that these are often links with the nofollow parameter. Another option is to review products on your blog. Send a well-written, honest and insightful review to the company or product owner. There is a great chance that such a person will share the review on their website. For you, it's an opportunity to get a link, and for the other party - to show that their products or services are popular and reputable. Tip: Remember that you aren't the only person who can write reviews! If you cooperate with influencers, you can include a clause about providing a website link in the product review in the contract.6. Benefit from Videos
This method of obtaining links is extremely interesting for users. At the same time, it requires a creative approach. What do you need to do? Create your own video and upload it to a portal like YouTube. If you properly optimize such a video - including its description and the links posted there - you'll have a chance to gain links not only from your own site but also from those that share your video. All this can have a very positive impact on the SEO process. How to record such a video? The content will depend on your industry, budget, and the target audience you want to reach. A non-trivial, attention-grabbing video, review, or simply an interesting presentation frequently goes viral. Once it's published, don't forget to include a link to your site in the description. Apart from that, it's a good idea to share the video on your social media profiles, for example, on Facebook or Instagram. It's also a great idea to set up a company's TikTok profile, as there is a great chance that it'll help you improve your recognition.7. Share Your Expertise
You can do this in many different ways, not only using the aforementioned regularly updated blog. Need some inspiration? Here are some possibilities:- Leverage Slideshare to publish presentations explaining complex and/or current issues. Include links to your site in your presentations - Google's algorithms will find and take it into account when determining your positions.
- Look for conferences, meetings, and industry events and sign up as a speaker - your bio on the conference website will also include a link to your site.
- Can you create something DIY? Add your course to a platform like Skillshare, leave your URL in your bio, and under each video. This will help both users and Google robots find you.
- Be active on sites like Quora and answer questions - later, such answers are frequently displayed high in the search results, even for industry-specific queries.
- Write a longer article or an e-book, which will thoroughly analyze an issue that is of interest to your target audience. You can save such a publication and share it as a PDF - remember that links placed in PDFs shared also support SEO.
Source: https://www.ted.com/speakers/helen_tupper_1[/caption]
8. Create Graphics
Including infographics. If you want to create them yourself, even Canva (a very simple, intuitive, and fully online tool) will be enough. Of course, you can also outsource the task to professional graphic designers - this part is less important. The most important thing is that you post visually appealing and clear summaries of industry and non-industry data, which later can be eagerly used by people writing their own articles. They'll tag you as an author and thus leave a link to your site. Tip: Before you start creating infographics, check current industry trends. Also, remember to use only the most up-to-date data and always mention the source. Infographics are also useful when talking about evergreen topics, i.e. those that will always be relevant, or completely universal. Give free rein to your imagination - you can design templates, prepare images for blog article headers, and much more. The main thing is to make everything visually appealing. The result? People will use such graphics, and share them on their site or profile.
To get even better results check our 10 tips on how to optimize your images!
9. Create Useful Online Tools
Sound enigmatic? It's a piece of cake in real life. Just think about widgets, toolbars, plug-ins, and extensions with a link to your website. What if you lack the skills? Of course, you don't have to do it yourself - you can hire someone who knows how to do it, and treat it as such an investment in marketing. It'll surely pay off and allow you to acquire backlinks from multiple locations. However, taking into account that in such a case you have no control over the linking site and you can get a lot of spammy links, it's worth adding a nofollow attribute to them. This is a safe solution that will help you avoid getting dofollow links from sites with poor SEO performance. Moreover, you'll improve the nofollow-dofollow backlink ratio of your website.10. Use music
Music as an SEO tool? Although it may seem a bit strange - it works. (We've tested it.) This way of getting links is based on popular music file-sharing sites. However, you need your piece of music! Use Vocaroo, for example, and record a several-second vocal snippet, using, for example, your company's slogan as the text, or a simple short piece of music. You'll be able to save the file in .mp3 format. Then set up a profile for yourself (as "Artist") on a music file-sharing site, fill in the required information (this can prevent the moderator from deleting your account), and share your piece there. Of course, don't forget to add a link to your site and to your social media profiles. Here are exemplary sites:- bandcamp.com
- reverbnation.com
- 8tracks.com
- yourlisten.com
- Sharemyplaylists.com
Check also: The Best Link Building Strategies Experts Recommend Using in 2023
11. Get to Know Twitter Better
Although it enables using only 280 characters, the social media platform gives you numerous link building opportunities. Remember that too-obvious ads aren't a good strategy. Connecting with others and being able to respond quickly is the most important thing about TT. Using Twitter, you can organize live coverage of industry events, or speeches by respected experts. You can select key quotes and publish them right away. Do Twitter links directly affect SEO? No, but it's worth noting that even though the link is a redirect, it can still support your link building strategy. Did you know that real-time tweets can be displayed in search results? It's all thanks to the cooperation between Google and this social media platform. You can type in a phrase with a hashtag and you'll see messages published there. This is a way to increase traffic and increase the chances of someone publishing a link leading to your site. This is what Twitter posts look like in the SERPs: [caption id="attachment_53989" align="aligncenter" width="571"]
Źródło: forum.pclab.pl[/caption]
Remember: If you add a graphic in a post, remember about an appropriate alternative description that describes the content. The alt will make it easier for search engine robots to associate a given image with the content. It'll be displayed to users when the graphic doesn't load. Moreover, it'll additionally serve people with visual impairments.
Want to learn more? Check out: Twitter and SEO. Can tweeting improve your visibility in SERPs?
12. Organize Promotions and Special Discounts
If you run a business, you can organize a promotional action and prepare discount coupons for users. In exchange, they'll share your content and website link on their social media. Another good idea is to post information about the organized promotions on portals specifically designed for this purpose. It's worth focusing on websites that allow you to insert a link that transfers SEO power (dofollow). However, you shouldn't forget about links with a nofollow attribute.13. Organize Contests
Many people are eager to participate in contests - especially those that don't require too much commitment or effort. Instead of expecting participants to be creative and share ideas, sometimes it's enough to encourage them to share the page. Running a contest doesn't have to cost a lot of money. In addition to increasing website traffic and improving your brand recognition, it can help you generate backlinks. A contest can be organized in several ways:- Post information about your contest on one of the sites specializing in promoting various online events.
- Promote the contest on your social media.
- Sponsor other contests - in exchange for funding prizes, you can get a link to your site in the contest note.
Want to learn more? Check out: User Generated Content – what is it and how to use it to your benefit?
14. Use Forums
Forums have many pros and cons SEO-wise. Today, many portals that were popular in the past are empty or spammy. Therefore, it can be said that this source of external linking has already been heavily exploited. However, there are some places that still gather people passionate about specific activities, and it's worth acquiring links from such pages. Remember that your profile must be authentic. Accounts that are completely inactive or publish only advertising content may be deleted by the administrators. Avoid placing links to your website on low-quality websites. If you actually use a forum (either privately or for business purposes), and you know it has good quality, place a link to your website in the profile. Some forums allow you to add such a link not only on your profile but also in the footer. Then it's advisable to write as many valuable posts as possible because then this profile will be well linked internally. Contribute to adequate threads, answer other users' questions and be helpful - such activity will be much more valuable than spamming practices.15. Get Links from Opinion Leaders
An opinion leader is a person who has great authority in the community and strongly influences the decisions and views of others. They can be experts in a particular industry (e.g. doctors, athletes) or simply people who are trusted by others. How can their presence be useful in acquiring external links? This is closely related to building relationships online. Remember one of the first paragraphs where we wrote a lot about creating blog content? Use the expertise of representatives of companies, businesses, and communities - in a word, specialists who are popular. If such people have their own websites, trusted not only by the community but also by Google, you can quote their statements, research, or send an email to the author with information about the publication and a request to publish a link to your domain. If everything goes well, you'll have another valuable backlink.
16. Set up Social Media Profiles
Setting up SM profiles is one of the easiest ways to acquire external links. Check out Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest (depending on the industry), as well as slightly less popular social media. Registering on such platforms is synonymous with creating a user profile. The information you can put there usually includes a link to your website. While most sites allow you to place a link in your profile, they usually label it with the nofollow parameter. This means that Google won't take the link into account when determining the site's position in the search results. However, remember that such links are necessary, as your link profile should be as diversified and natural as possible. Therefore, it must contain nofollow links.
Tip: It's a good idea to look for specialized sites in the field you're interested in and set up your profile there. Some websites will be good for a music store, others for a pet store or the beauty industry.To learn more about social media links and their impact on SEO, check out our blog.
17. Become a Part of University Networks
If you've ever done research about sites worth getting links from before, you probably already know how trustworthy university network sites are. Check out the following examples: How to get links from a university site? Such websites frequently function like profiles, but only certain people have access to them: students or employees of a given academic institution. In Poland, the University System of Student Services, or USOS, is well known to every student. If you do research or teaching work, it's worth obtaining backlinks from educational websites. Even one link acquired from such a site can bring you great benefits. What else can you do? Another way to get a link from a university domain is to organize workshops and trainings for students or employees. Cooperation or partnership with universities can also be a good source of external links.18. Try out Directories
Until a few years ago, business directories were one of the most popular ways to promote companies and acquire backlinks. Now you have to be much more careful - the increasing amount of spam, and the decreasing quality of sites make this solution a little tricky. So what to watch out for?- It’s worth choosing moderated directories, and if your budget allows, even paid ones. Using such sites is much more effective than adding a huge number of links to suspicious and low-value directories.
- Each directory you use should include a unique description of your business with relevant keywords. Make sure that the content has at least 200 words.
- Don't use low-quality directories. If you aren't sure about website parameters, use tools like MOZ.
- When building your own list of the most valuable directories, pay attention to those that allow you to place links with the dofollow parameter, which will improve the position of your site. It's also worth acquiring links from valuable sites that add the nofollow attribute to the link to ensure a balanced link profile.
- Pay attention to the Spam Score of a given directory and its link profile.
Tip: Not sure which directory to choose, and don't feel like going through them one by one? Look for sites with lists of such platforms. They'll give you an idea of a site's SEO parameters and, based on that, you'll find the best website for acquiring backlinks.
19. Consider Specialized Websites that aren't Directories
This point is mainly about sites of associations, foundations, or organizations engaged in social activities of various natures. Finding such websites after making sure that their subject matter corresponds to your company's business profile isn't the easiest thing to do. However, the juice is worth the squeeze as long as you can acquire valuable backlinks. How to do it? Let's say you're in the business of selling equipment that helps people with physical disabilities to function. The internet abounds in sites that help such people on a daily basis. Frequently such domains include subpages called "useful websites," which encourage site visitors to click the links there. Obtaining an external link from such a page may require personal contact with the person in charge of administration. However, since these are the pages visited by the people you want to reach, it's definitely worth the effort (especially since you benefit both SEO and business-wise).20. Consider Sponsoring Other Companies and Foundations
By sponsoring an activity, you not only build a positive brand image, but you can also support your SEO and gain a powerful backlink. The choice of the organization is entirely up to you: it can be a charity, non-governmental organization, museum, zoo, or football club. Note that the websites of such organizations enjoy considerable trust from Google, so the links from them are extremely valuable. There are plenty of foundations and organizations you can help, and they'll be happy to link your site in the "Partners" or "Sponsors" section.
Tip: Remember that you can support not only entire organizations but also specific festivals or local events - this will benefit your company, especially if it also has a physical location or store.
21. Satisfied Customers are Happy Customers
If you're in the manufacturing, sales, or services sector, it's important to maintain positive relationships with your customers. This will also have an impact on external link building. Depending on the industry you're in, keeping in touch with buyers should pay off. After all, some of them may have personal blogs, or perhaps they're entrepreneurs? Get to know your customers better, and when finalizing a transaction, ask them to review your company and link it on their site. Tip: Remember that customers are much more likely to share your website with others (and maybe even write a few words about your product or service) if they're happy with the purchase and service. That's why it's so important to keep your customers happy and make them brand ambassadors.22. Think About Press Releases
There are many reasons why it's worth being present on numerous portals. Although it may seem impossible for people without contacts to do so, there is nothing further from the truth. You can prepare a press release on your own or outsource it to a PR agency (however, this usually costs an arm and a leg). There are plenty of topics you can cover - most often they depend on the industry you operate in. Although link building isn't the main purpose of a press release, using this type of promotion can help you acquire a link to your site. It's a great external link building method. Why don't you use sites where journalists ask experts in their field questions, and in return for their help put a link to such a person's site in their articles? This is how the HARO website works. [caption id="attachment_54004" align="aligncenter" width="491"]
Source: helpareporter.com[/caption]
23. Focus on Social News
Share your articles, videos, or infographics on social bookmarking sites such as Reddit or Digg. Keep in mind that this requires the right Real-Time Marketing approach. Why? Uploading random, uninteresting content will probably quickly deter users and Google. To get the most out of bookmarking sites, share industry news, interesting facts, and current news. Remember to promote selected entries you consider particularly noteworthy to users.
24. Understand and Implement Broken Link Building Strategy
Updating broken links is a relatively simple and very effective link acquisition strategy. It involves two clear steps:- Start by looking for sites where you could add a link to your site.
- Then, monitor the content and look for links that don't work (e.g., generate a 404 error).
25. Repair Broken Links to Your Site
When building a link base, it's worth examining whether all external links to your site work properly and are up to date. After all, the internet is constantly changing and not everything we did a year ago still serves us. Make sure to monitor your backlinks, especially if:- the structure of your site has changed,
- you have moved to another domain,
- you suspect website errors that may have caused a situation where, in theory, there are many links to your site, but in practice, they're broken.
26. Use Old Links
Although not very popular, this external link building SEO method is a great way to obtain links your market rivals don’t have. How to do it?- Find sites that have recently stopped working, but you can still access the domains (you can use Expired Domains for this purpose, for example).
- Use Ahrefs to see what sites have been placing links leading to the broken pages.
- Find out what content was published on those sites. The time machine tool available on Archive.org will be helpful here.
- Take advantage of the discovered opportunity and post similar or even better content on your own site.
- Now you just have to get in touch with the administrators of the sites linking to the broken domain, inform them that their links don’t work, and tell them that your website has similar or even more valuable content.
- Voila. More links yours!
27. Make Sure Users Can Link Easily
It may happen that people managing other websites want to link to your site, but they don't have programming skills and aren't sure how to do it. Make the task easier for them by preparing ready-to-paste code snippets along with a preview of how the link button will look like. Such elements can be placed on a separate page called "Link us" or under each article.28. Let People Rate You
In order to obtain valuable links, it's worth sending your product to bloggers and specialized sites for reviews. In this case, it's not about sponsored content, but about authentic reviews from people who have managed to develop their own brands online. They have a positive impact on social proof and are a kind of opinion leader. How acquire links during such cooperation? As a first step, do a thorough research to identify opinion leaders with trusted websites (again, MOZ comes in handy here). Remember that the quality of the reviews also matters. Short, incorrectly written ones can only harm your website. Therefore, in addition to the parameters, pay attention to the style and linguistic correctness of the comments. Of course, you can't be sure that the review will be published but by choosing the right addressees you increase such probability. And once a review about your product is live, make sure that the reviewer includes a link to your page on their site.
Note: Before sending a product or an invitation for collaboration to a selected person, make sure they're interested in reviewing the product.
29. Monitor Your Market Rivals
There are specialized tools that allow you to monitor how and from where your online competitors get their links. For this purpose, we always recommend the tried-and-tested competitor analysis tool - Ahrefs. It's worth playing around with this tool a bit, experimenting, and not limiting yourself to just checking your direct competitors. If you manufacture products, it's worth checking where your suppliers get their links from. If, on the other hand, your goal is to improve your local presence, it's worth looking at the links of local players. In this case, the industry is less important, and the location matters more. Why should you use Ahrefs? While monitoring your competitors, you can also learn a lot about your site - detect lost links or find 404 error pages linking to your site. Then take advantage of 301 redirects and transfer the power of broken links to existing pages. Once you know what websites link to your competitors, benefit from the strategies described above, such as the skyscraper technique or broken link building.
Check also: How Can Ahrefs Help with Link Building?
30. Keep an Eye on Brand Mentions
Some users are eager to share reviews and industry news. Be sure to look for existing mentions of your company. After finding such posts, check if they have a link to your website. Tips:- What if the link wasn't added, although it should have been? -> If you have found entries without a link, ask the site administrator to add one.
- How to find all mentions of your company? -> Use the Backlink Profile report, where you can filter results The New Backlinks report will show you new links leading to your site. The Brand24 platform also serves the same function. However, in SEO we like to have everything in one place, so Ahrefs sounds like the best tool for analyzing new links.
31. Co-Create Wikipedia
Wikipedia links are very valuable when it comes to their trust flow. TF is a factor calculated by the Majestic tool. It determines the trustworthiness of a page, which translates into link quality. Acquiring high Wikipedia links is possible and at the same time useful for the Wiki community! How to do it?- Search Wikipedia for pages that are thematically related to your business profile. Use Google and relevant keywords. Type the formula: site:wikipedia.org [keyword] + "dead link" into the search engine. An example? Suppose your site is about Egypt. Then you can use the query: site:wikipedia.org Egypt + "dead link". In the example below, you see 22 results - and that's already 22 potential links!
- Thanks to it, you're able to find an entry where there is information about a dead link among the external links.
- Once you've found a few such dead links, use a tool like Wayback Machine to find out what content was posted on the now-broken pages.
- Fill a gap in Wikipedia's bibliography. Publish high-quality text on your site or blog that includes information currently unavailable on the site. Of course, you can update it to ensure that it's of high quality.
- Finally, log into the Wikipedia account as an editor and replace the dead link with a link to your page.
Tip: This is where you can find an index of all articles with dead links on this page: All articles with dead external links.
32. Check out Industry Association Sites
This is another type of non-obvious place where you can obtain backlinks. These are associations where membership is reserved for those in a specific profession. Frequently the membership is paid, however, sometimes that's a small price to pay, considering that placing a link on such a site will give you many benefits.- First, it's a high-quality link (as long as the site has good SEO parameters) placed on a thematically relevant page.
- Second, being present on such a site gives you numerous opportunities to make new contacts in the industry.
33. Add .gov Domains
Placing a link on a .gov domain reserved for government institutions is extremely valuable! Of course, you can't publish your link on every site, however, finding such pages gives you numerous opportunities.34. Optimize Job Advertisements
Are you looking for new employees? When publishing a job offer on verified portals, always complement your profile and ad with a link to your company website. Of course, not all sites accept such practices, but it only takes a few minutes to find platforms that will allow you to include a link. Although this method can be used only in specific circumstances, it's extremely simple and effective. So keep it in mind and use it during your next recruitment - it's simply a good and helpful practice.35. Add Your Content to Auction Sites
If you have an online store, but you can also offer your products on auction sites like eBay, Amazon, or even Etsy, use this as another opportunity to get a few more backlinks. It's not that easy, unfortunately, but we have some advice for you. Note: The task isn't a piece of cake, as most of these sites don't accept direct links to online stores. However, you can get around this restriction if you have followed some of the previous points. What do you need to keep in mind?- If you run a blog and describe trends related to the products you have in the offer, and link in the description on the auction portal.
- The above point also applies to videos or graphics you create. The list includes instructional videos (on how to use the product).
36. Take Advantage of Partnerships
If you have an online store where you sell another company's products, then ask the manufacturer to include a link to your site and store on its website, in the section of business partners. Since the manufacturer also benefits from such partnerships, it shouldn't pose a big problem. Just make sure that the parameters of the site are good and will support your backlink building strategy.37. Claim Your Copyright
Check whether your site's copyrighted content isn't being illegally used by other users. To do this, simply use Google's search engine or a more sophisticated program for detecting plagiarism. If you actually find such posts, be sure to contact the site administrator. You don't have to force them to delete the page content. Just ask them to provide a link to the source content such as texts, graphics or videos.38. Q&A Pages
Such pages can also be a valuable source of external links. Moreover, they're a great tool for branding and building engagement and trust among potential customers. However, it's important to monitor what happens with the links included in the questions and answers (meaning how users are redirected to the destination site). [caption id="attachment_54027" align="aligncenter" width="471"]
Source: https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-Backlink-in-SEO[/caption]
39. Create Engaging Product Quizzes
Kahoot! is a clever solution that can be used to create quizzes. Be creative and analyze your target audience to understand their needs and preferences. It's also a good way to come up with attractive prizes for the people who get the best results. How does this support external link building? Using platforms like Kahoot! Can help you organize company quizzes and include links in your profile. Users are eager to share their results on social networks. Perhaps some will also decide to share the quiz on their blog and link your page?40. Record Podcasts
Podcasts are extremely popular these days. There are more than a million podcasts on Spotify alone! What exactly does this form involve? It often resembles an interview or radio show - the people who host the podcast share their knowledge in audio form. They often invite experts, and well-known people from a particular industry to participate. Such content is available for free - all you need is access to an Internet connection. You can create a great, substantive podcast about things you're passionate about and are related to your business profile. The podcast can be about anything, including beauty, fashion, zoology, foreign languages, or trekking. Podcasts have millions of fans and users are eager to share information about their favorite episodes and authors on social media and blogs. Although links to external sites on Spotify aren't clickable, they're on other platforms such as SoundCloud.An Extra Tip from Delante - Be an ActiveCommenter
Commenting on industry portals and articles will allow you to engage in discussion and expand your network. It's also a way to gain valuable links from thematically related sites. Be an active reader and comment on posts that you find particularly interesting, but remember that the link should only be in addition to the content, not the main part of your comment. Otherwise, the comment will be considered spam and deleted. Do you know any other interesting external link building strategy tips?Mistakes in External Link Building
Effective external link building gets harder each year. It's necessary to pay attention to even more factors. For a long time it's no longer about the number of links, but mainly about their quality. We realize that there are a ton of mistakes that can be made in external linking, so we have prepared a report in which we've analyzed 50 selected websites in terms of their linking. The report the most common link building mistakes in 2021 contains information about the most common mistakes made in the off-site process and how to solve them. In this article, we'll focus on a few bad practices. You can learn about all of them in the full version of our report.Links from Websites with Bad Reputation
As it’s been already mentioned, in external link building SEO, it’s all about the quality of the linking domains. But how can you tell it’s worth obtaining links from a given domain? This is when popular tools come in handy. As a rule of thumb that the link you acquire should come from a site that has better parameters than yours. Pay attention to such issues as:- The visibility of the site in Google - you can check this using SEMrush or Ahrefs. Pay attention to the graph. If your results deteriorated at a certain point, it may mean that your website's reputation in Google decreased.
- TF indicators in Majestic, DR and UR indicators in Ahrefs, and DA & PA indicators in MOZ.
You can read more about it in our post: How to remove bad backlinks from my website?
An Incorrect Ratio of Dofollow to Nofollow links
The HTML code of a link can be extended with additional attributes - one of them is rel="nofollow". Theoretically, a link with such an attribute doesn't convey SEO power. This means that acquiring such a link shouldn't improve your site's visibility in Google. The situation is different for links, which are commonly referred to as dofollow. These convey power, and as long as they're placed on sites that have a good reputation, they can improve the position of the website they link to. Does this mean you should only acquire dofollow links? Not necessarily. If you use Ahrefs to check a couple of random domains that have good visibility in Google, you probably won't find one that has 100 percent dofollow links - and that's okay. In link building it's important to keep your link profile as natural as possible. That's why you should make it diverse and acquire both dofollow (e.g. from paid articles) and nofollow (e.g. from social media) links. Your nofollow links should constitute approximately 50% of all links. Remember that naturally acquired nofollow links won't decrease your positions in the SERPs.A Decrease in Domain Rating
The DR (Domain Rating) metric is developed by Ahrefs to evaluate your website's link profile. If this indicator has declined, it's worth analyzing what's the reason for this. This is what has an impact on DR:- DR of domains linking to your site - if websites linking to your website have lower DR than you, they can have a negative impact on your parameter.
- The number of sites that link to your site.
- The number of pages that a domain links to - at one stage there may have been 3 dofollow links on the site, and after a while, there were 30 of them. So the power transferred to your site also decreased.
- Update of Ahrefs - Ahrefs may have carried out an update, as a result of which the rules for calculating DR were modified, as it was, for example, at the beginning of 2018.
Rapid Increase or Decrease in the Number of Links
The link profile should be built gradually. You can't get thousands of links in one day. Let's say you just set up a site and acquire hundreds of backlinks. Google may consider such an increase unnatural. The number of links should grow naturally, just like the site does. Not sure how to evaluate your page growth history? You can use tools such as Ahrefs or Majestic SEO. The older your domain, the more you can do. How to deal with a sudden drop or increase in the number of backlinks? First of all, think about the reason. It doesn't necessarily indicate something bad. What if you had a backlink from a sizable website and it was on every page (in the footer or sidebar)? Removing it could cause a noticeable change in the graph, but shouldn't result in a serious visibility drop.Redirection Chains
When you want to transfer the power of a link, you can use the 301 redirects. However, even if you use them, it's estimated that you can transfer maximally 90 percent of the link power. In some cases, using 301 is the best solution, but you should avoid the redirect chain. Let's say you have pages called A, B, C, and D. If you want to redirect all of them to the latter, then do it directly. Don't redirect A to B, B to C, and C to D. Redirects are also important when talking about backlinks. If your site's address has changed and you can replace the links that lead to it with a direct one, then definitely take advantage of that. This will transfer all the power from that link to your domain. It's also important to change the links when you start using an encrypted connection - from then on, the site address will start with https://, not http://. You can find external links with redirects using Ahrefs. To analyze internal links, benefit from Screaming Frog. Above you can see only 5 link building mistakes. Our report discusses the 16 most common mistakes in detail! What else should you watch out for? Check out the most common link building mistakes in 2021 report!External Link Building SEO - The Takeaways
That's it - quite a lot of information to digest, isn't it? If you try the above-mentioned techniques, be sure to share your impressions and results! Google's search algorithms change frequently, which has a crucial impact on the work of SEO specialists. Although some of the methods can still generate lots of traffic these days, they can become obsolete and ineffective in a month's time. That's why we make sure all our posts are updated regularly. Do the abovementioned 40 tips sound overwhelming? You aren't sure where to start? Relax! Let's finally summarize the most important external link building techniques:- Create valuable blog content that users will be happy to share.
- Consider publishing guest posts on partner blogs.
- Create infographics that can be used by users.
- Get links from opinion leaders.
- Find really valuable business directories.
- Allow users to post ratings and reviews of your services or products.
- Be active on social media and write comments on industry platforms.
- Fix broken links.
- See if you can get links from valuable domains, such as government (.gov) or university websites.
- Create shareable and linkable content in diverse forms such as podcasts, videos, or audio.
Looks like I have a lot to improve, will try some of these in the future for sure. Thanks, Matt
I have never seen so many methods for link building . i am new to the Seo industry . i find your articles very helpful
Thank you so much !