your traffic and your sales (for 2019 and 2020)
It is true that in today’s world is very important to be noticed by audiences on the web to get more sales. There are many strategies that you can use to make your brand more visible by people browsing the web: you can make sure your brand has a space on social media by creating a profile on Facebook (1), Twitter (2), Instagram (3) or LinkedIn (4), making a blog, having a website and more.
But one strategy that is not so often used and that sometimes is not mentioned is link building, a strategy that will definitively help your brand increase your chances to get qualified leads and ultimately, sales.
That is why, in this article, we want to tell you everything about link building: what is it why is it important, and how you can use it to help your business grow and succeed.
Keep reading to learn more and make your business outstanding!
What is link building?
Before we tell you how to use this strategy to make your business bloom, let us first explain what is link building.
Link building is how digital marketing experts call the process of getting a website linked back from third party websites. This process allows you to increase the popularity of your website, and consequently, your brand by increasing the traffic to your website or blog.
According to Virteom (5), link building strategies can help you to create high-quality SEO marketing campaigns that will help your business thrive and get recognized.
The idea with link building is getting high quality, authority mentions of your website, blog, social media profiles, etc., from websites that are respected and trusted to backup up the quality of your brand.
The more links back to your website, blog, or any other digital space, the more successful your brand will be, positioning better on people’s minds and becoming more popular.
It is very important to mention that, to have a successful link building, the best is to have your brand mentioned naturally and organically. Link building is one of the off-page SEO strategies marketing experts use to position a brand, and it is seen as one basic tool to help your brand out-stand.
Link building is one of the most challenging SEO tactics to complete (6), yet one of the most important ones, because it gives you credibility. That is why we want to offer you a few tips to get backlinks and increase your traffic.
Follow vs. no-follow links
To get quality backlinks, you must know the difference between follow links and no-follow links.
Follow links mean links that Google considers them when ranking a website. Thus, follow links are good for putting your website on Google’s radar, they boost your website’s rank, allowing you to show up higher on Google’s search for a given keyword.
No follow links, on the other hand, means that they are not considered by Google when studying your website. This means that even you can have a backlink if this backlink is a no-follow link, Google will not notice it and it will do nothing to make your website ranks higher.
To know a little bit further on this matter, you can have a wide explanation at WordStream (48).
You may think that there is no use for no-follow links for your website, but you are wrong. Even though no-follow links will not help you to rank higher on Google, at the eyes of the website’s users there is no difference between them both, so no follow backlinks can still help you to get leads, increase traffic and give you more sales.
16 great tips for link building that will get you back
linked and thrive your business
You may not know it, but link building is the most important SEO skill that you need to have if you want to take your business to the next level (7). So, if you want to be a master of link building, keep reading because we are about to give you the complete guide on how to get backlinked and give a boost to your website.
1. Join groups and ask for back links
You can join groups on social media, on websites such as Facebook (8) or LinkedIn (9). These groups, of course, must manage topics related to your brand. So, for example, if you have a clothing brand, you could join fashion, design, model groups, etc. Interact in the groups by adding comments, liking their publications and more. Then, after a few interactions, you can contact some of the members of the groups with a private message.
In your message, let them know about your website, invite them to see it and ask them to consider mentioning you or your brand on their website and to add a link.
Use this tip carefully, because the base for a successful link building is to get quality mentions from relevant and authority websites to yours (10), in order to get Google (11) to notice you.
So, for this, make sure you only contact authority websites. They may link your website for free, they may ask you for payment, or they can tell you they will mention your website if you mention theirs. It will be up to you to accept or not. It will not matter though, if they are quality websites that do not spam (12).
2. Get back linked only from relevant sites and positions
It is extremely important that your backlinks come only from relevant websites. For example, if you have a website about cooking recipes, the best websites to be back linked from will be websites about recipes, food, supermarkets and such.
Also, it is important where your link is located. Links at a website’s homepage are very valuable because home pages are the most important ones on websites, especially regarding SEO.
Links can also be on the content pages, although these back links are less valuable. When back linked on content pages, it is important to appear in the first paragraphs of the article.
Links located at the end of the article, on the related content, or on the comments, have almost no value for backlink purposes since Google and other search engines will not consider them important.
3. Get back links on websites at high page levels
According to Quora (13), page level refers to how many clicks you need do to get to a website’s homepage. So, when you back linked from a website, it is important to see in which page you are mentioned.
Ideally, your website should be mentioned on level 1 pages, but this is rare because most websites do not mention other websites on their homepage.
In this matter, it is important that the user does not have to navigate endlessly to get to your website. A maximum of 3 clicks to get to your site is the recommended amount.
4. Make sure to research the authority of websites before trying to get back linked
You may think that getting backlinked from any website is beneficial for your business, but you are wrong.
Your backlinks must come from high reputation, authoritative websites so those backlinks are worth it. There is nothing worse than doing a huge amount of work to get backlinked just to find out that it works for nothing because the site has zero reputation, which is something Google does not like. There are tons of authority checking tools (14) to help you see if the website is worth it, such as Small SEO tools (15), SEO review tools (16), Website SEO checker (17), Over the top SEO (18), and many others. Make sure to review a couple of these sites before
trying to get a website to backlink yours.
5. Interlinking your own subpages
One often forgot link building strategy is linking to your website. It is easy, fast, free, and very effective.
According to Boostability (19), interlinking your pages will help you to make visitors stay longer on your website, and will improve your rankings, thus making you more interesting for Google.
Since it is your website, you do not need permission or requests to link building.
It also does not matter where on the page you put the link if it is relevant in the page.
Make sure to add your links naturally and that they flow with the text.
6. Interlink your own page in your own page
You can also interlink your page on your own page. This means that you can cut your content into sections, allowing the users to get to point of the website they are interested in reading.
This is a very useful way to be back linked because it will probably be very used by visitors who know what they want to know about, and getting to that part of the page without scrolling down is a plus for them.
This kind of link has a very high clicking rate and is very beneficial to your website. To do this, you can use WordPress plugins (20), HTML programming knowledge, or other strategies to do it.
7. Sign up into specialized websites
Another way to get your brand or website back linked is by enrolling on specialized business websites (24).
For example, if you have a catering business, you want to sign up on any food, cooking, meals, catering, etc., directories existent, especially those where you are located.
By doing this, you will get quality backlinks that are also very natural and organic because they are websites that have something to do with your niche.
As a matter of fact, placing your business on specialized listings can help you to get in touch with people who are looking for a specific product or service, increasing substantially your sales (31).
8. Add your business on local directories and listings
You can get backlinks by enrolling your business on directories and listings websites (23). At these websites, you can showcase your business to a lot of potential leads and future clients, and of course, increase your traffic and get backlinks.
According to Quora (25), local directories and listings are great because they can help your business to develop and be known by more people who are looking for something in their area. Local directories also improve your reputation, increasing your rankings and getting you more revenue.
This strategy must be used with caution though since it can get you penalized by Google if you overuse it. To avoid this, make sure to sign up only on trusted sites, such as the yellow pages (26), the white pages (27), true local (28), start local (29), hot frog (30), and other local directories and listings.
You can sign up in both free and paid directories and listings if they are good reputation sites that are related to your niche. Make sure to add things such as your email address, working hours, phone number, etc.
The trick with this tip is to enroll in these places thinking about your users, instead of getting Google to like you. After all, these websites will not only backlink you, it will get you in contact with actual clients who may be looking for the products or services you are offering.
9. Share your website and content on social media networks
You can backlink your website and contents by yourself in your own social media networks. Add an interesting image related to your content and ask people to share your social media posts. It does not matter if it is friends or coworkers; it will help your link building.
Social media is so important for link building purposes, that 81% use it to share content (32). This tells you that it is worth it.
For this tip to work, you will need to update your social media networks daily, to keep people engaged with your website and content. You do not have to post only your content. You can share cool content made by others that have to do with your niche. When having a business, keeping your social media networks can be hard to do, but if you are too busy to post and update your social media networks, do not worry, there are plenty of sites that will help you schedule and automate your posts (33). Sites such as Postcron (34), Hootsuite (35), Buffer (36), Mention (37) and others, can help you a lot.
10. Use your social networks bio to have a permanent link
You can have a permanent backlink to your website by adding it to your bio information. It is as easy as placing it at the beginning or in the last part of your biography.
This is a great backlink that may have a no-follow attribute, but that will still get you more views and traffic on your website (38).
Make sure to have your bio information updated so people do not crash into a wall when they click your link.
11. Use Google Alerts to find who is mentioning you but not back linking you
Use Google Alerts (39) to know whenever someone mentions your site, whether they link it or not. If you are not linked, you can contact the website and request them to link you. Make sure to tell them that will be better for their readers.
Google Alerts can also help you to improve your business by letting you know some interesting information about your brand, like reviews from customers on other websites, allowing you to see who your competition is and more (40).
12. Link to big websites in your posts to increase traffic and to build user’s trust
When writing your posts, link to big websites. It helps you to build trust among the users of your space. Websites such as Amazon (21), Udemy (22), or any others are great and you do not need permission to use them since they are big and everybody uses them.
It may not seem like a link building tip, but it surely helps you to be more serious about business.
13. Make a killer website with awesome content
The best backlink is the one that websites give you without you having to ask. This is definitively the best backlink there is because it is natural and organic.
To do so, the best way is to make your website more and more popular (41). And you can do this by making content of high quality, that engages audiences making more people visit your website.
And to make your website more popular, the best way to do it is by creating great content (42). To make good content you need to consider every single part of your articles, from the content to the stats you show.
Consider adding to your titles the benefits people will get from the article to make it more attractive. Also, words such as you, new, numbers and percentages tell people that will improve whatever it is you are talking about.
Regarding content, make sure to treat trending topics, adding times, (meaning when or how long will people succeed with your advice), explaining things easily, promising success, and showing successful examples that prove you are right, to bring more people to your website and to make your articles more shareable.
Make sure to add images, infographics, and other visual content to make your content great. When your content gets shared and reshared, mentioned by people, etc., other
websites will want to naturally add you on their content as well.
14. Buy product reviews
You can also pay to get product or service reviews that will come with a link to your website. This kind of link is very good because you do not only get linked but also get a valid review on your product or service, which will also increase your traffic and probably your sales (45).
Do not overuse this service; not only to save money but also not to overexpose your brand, especially on these kinds of websites, you could get penalized by Google and you could end up having a problem instead of a solution.
15. Sign in at discount and sales websites
Create offers and discounts to be posted on different discount and sales websites and add your link to them (46). This is great because it will increase your sales and give you extra traffic.
To use this strategy, you will need to thoroughly study your products or services, costs, and prices, to be able to offer this option to clients without losing any money. At Shoprocket, they offer you a few good advice on how to do this.
16. And the best tip EVER to get back linked is…
Building your brand will always be the best advice (43). Even though this is a long-term thing, it is the best way. When you have a recognized brand, or blog, or website, people will link you naturally, just like you today link big names such as Google, Yahoo (44), or any others.
Link building can definitively be a challenging process to go through, but when done right it can mean the difference between a regular business and an epic one.
Links:
1. Social media marketing Facebook
2. Social media marketing twitter
3. Social media marketing LinkedIn
4. Article: 6 great things you can do when you automate your social networks
5. https://virteom.com/the-importance-of-link-building
6. https://seotribunal.com/blog/stats-to-understand-seo/
7. https://backlinko.com/link-building
8. www.facebook.com
9. www.linkedin.com
10. https://blog.monitorbacklinks.com/seo/how-to-get-quality-backlinks/
11. www.google.com
12. https://prowly.com/magazine/stop-spam-backlinks-ruining-google-reputation/
13. https://www.quora.com/What-is-page-level-of-website
14. https://www.prepostseo.com/domain-authority-checker
15. https://smallseotools.com/domain-authority-checker/
16. https://www.seoreviewtools.com/bulk-seomoz-authority-checker/
17. https://websiteseochecker.com/domain-authority-checker/
18. https://www.overthetopseo.com/
19. https://www.boostability.com/how-to-interlink-your-pages/
20. https://www.wpbeginner.com/showcase/24-must-have-wordpress-plugins-for-business-websites/
21. www.amazon.com
22. www.udemy.com
23. https://www.bringtheseo.com/are-listings-directories-good-or-bad-for-seo/
24. https://www.weidert.com/whole_brain_marketing_blog/why-you-need-to-be-in-online-business-directories-and-17-to-choose-from
25. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-importance-of-local-business-listing-using-SEO
26. https://www.yellowpages.com/
27. https://www.whitepages.com/
28. https://www.truelocal.com.au/
29. https://www.startlocal.info/
30. https://www.hotfrog.com/
31. https://smallbiztrends.com/2016/05/market-your-local-business-online.html
32. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/social-media-marketing-link-building/214686/#close
33. www.intagram.com
34. www.postcron.com
35. www.hootsuite.com
36. www.buffer.com
37. www.mention.com
38. https://sproutsocial.com/es/glossary/link-in-bio/
39. https://www.google.com/alerts
40. https://www.bigcommerce.com/ecommerce-answers/what-are-google-alerts-and-how-can-they-help-online-retailers/
41. https://www.thebalancecareers.com/create-a-successful-website-in-10-easy-steps-2315329
42. https://coschedule.com/blog/shareable-content/
43. https://freshsparks.com/successful-brand-building-process/
44. www.yahoo.com
45. https://www.shipstation.com/blog/product-reviews-important-buyers-sellers/
46. https://www.business.vic.gov.au/money-profit-and-accounting/pricing/Discount-strategies
47. https://blog.shoprocket.co/practicalities-how-to-offer-discounts-without-losing-money/
48. https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2013/07/24/follow-nofollow-links