There are many factors that impact your SEO positioning â Domain Authority (DA) is one of them. No matter how information-rich and readable your content is, if your DA is low, you wonât be able to climb the search rankings. Luckily, your DA score is not set in stone, and you can work towards improving it. Now is the right moment to ask â how do I get a high Domain Authority? The answer is simple â by getting high-quality backlinks.
There are many tactics for acquiring backlinks. Weâve decided to ask 18 marketing experts to share with us their best backlinking methods. A few of them really surprised us, so we warmly invite you to take a look at the article.
Before we proceed, letâs take a look at backlinksâ meaning. In the most simple terms, a backlink is a link that points to your domain from an external web resource (for example, a website, webpage, or an online directory).
As explained by Wikipedia, âthe quantity, quality, and relevance of backlinks for a web page are among the factors that search engines like Google evaluate in order to estimate how important the page isâ.
And so, as far as backlinksâ SEO impact is concerned, not all backlinks are created equal â the stronger the Domain Authority of a linking website, the more credible it will make your own domain for the search engine. This means that getting a backlink from a site with a 91 DA score (so, for example, a site like HubSpot) will mean more for your own domain authority building than if you were to receive a backlink from a site with a score of 45.
You should aim at getting as many natural (i.e. non-sponsored) backlinks, from as many relevant domains as possible, and this should be an ongoing effort.
There are many ways of checking if you have backlinks â both paid and free. Some tools will tell you that you have, for example, 345 backlinks, whereas others will also point to the specific linking domains.
The HOTH is an example of a free backlink checker that will give you a basic list of your domainâs backlinks.
If backlinking is something youâre seriously devoted to making work, we strongly recommend using Ahrefs paid backlink checker, which will inform you of your newest backlinks (and provide you with the linking siteâs URL, its domain authority, and the exact text that has been hyperlinked). If Ahrefs is a little above your budget, KeySearch.co is a good backlink checker alternative.
Enough theory, itâs time for some practical tips on how to create backlinks. Letâs dive in!
My creative link building technique is to promote data that you have on your website to journalists and bloggers through Google ads (PPC).
Journalists often need data to back up claims in their articles. To search this data they almost always use Google. If your data ranks at the top of Google for a search term that clearly indicates that stats are being looked for, then you will likely get cited and get links.
A typical search term that indicates this is: “[your topic] statistics [year you are in]”, an example of this being “conversion rate statistics 2020”.
As this search is non-commercial, you can drive paid traffic to it for under 15 cents a click. You need to use Google’s keyword data to guide what statistics you publish as there needs to be enough search volume for the keywords so you can actually run ads to it.
Make it clear in your ad copy what the data is on your landing page – just be as up-front and transparent as possible.
The beauty of this is once you have a few links to your landing page, it will rank organically and build up links steadily over the year, so long as there is a demand for your data.
From personal experience, I have found supplying your followers with the embed code for an infographic on your website an effective way to build natural and relevant backlinks to one of your pages.
Infographics work much better on âhow toâ types of content, as they effectively summarize your core points in a simple visual journey. Youâll want to make sure the infographic is designed in a bold, simple and easy-to-read way, thatâs also on brand. Use your logo and branding, otherwise, the infographic could get ripped and used and no one will know itâs from your website.
Beneath the infographic, provide the embed code for others to use. This will only be effective if other website owners and authority people within your niche are visiting your site, so be sure to choose the articles you create infographics for carefully.
If a post is for an affiliate and the buyer intent is high, this type of traffic may enjoy reading an infographic, but they are not going to embed it.
Youâll find, over time, as more and more people see it, more will want to share it. So the embed code and purposeful branding are key to making sure your work doesnât get lost in a sea of anonymous infographics.
Here’s something we’re currently experimenting with (and seems to be working pretty well).
I just did this and got around ~10 companies to mention. Could’ve done more, but had a limit on the # of stuff I could include in the article.
Most of these founders offered a link back in exchange for giving them a mention.
I’ve earned 315 editorial links with an average DA of 40, including high-profile media outlets and blogs such as American Express, HubSpot, Forbes, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Udemy, and many others.
Here are my two tips on which campaigns are best for building contextual and editorially valid links and how to run them:
I’m currently building up my second niche site and have found that the easiest way to build backlinks is to reach out to businesses rather than personal blogs.
I’ve always heard that guest posting is a great way to build backlinks, so I continuously asked other personal blogs for that opportunity. I came up completely empty.
When I shifted my focus to small business outreach for guest posting, I saw my guest post-approval rating skyrocket.
Search for businesses that relate to your niche that also have a blog section on their website and pitch some well-thought-out blog posts.
Being a Digital Marketer, I am responsible for optimizing my On-Page SEO and building backlinks.
Link building is one of the most essential yet most challenging aspects of SEO but infographics can solve that problem for you.
Stand-alone and unresearched infographics will rarely perform in search engines. Well-designed and insightful infographics can help you garner a boatload of backlinks. Make sure to craft a well-researched infographic thatâs of interest to a particular niche or industry, they will not only share that information but also give you credit.
Recently, I published a guide on Airport Sleeping Pod that provides travelers with a place where they can rest and sleep in the airport.
The blog ranked at 31st Position with few keywords right away as soon as I published it on Google. I tried to work out every reasonable method from the optimization of On-Page and Off-Page SEO to Content Marketing of my blog but didn’t get any positives. After that, I designed multiple well-researched videos and infographics and uploaded them on my blog.
I was shocked to witness that the blog that stuck on the 31st position on Google climbed straight to Featured snippet immediately after I embedded infographics in my blog.
Apart from the traffic gained from social shares, I saw a significant surge in organic traffic and backlinks right after my blog snatched 1st Position on Google.
The social shares and backlinks for the blog also saw a sharp increase in numbers. The infographic was shared on different platforms including Reddit, Pinterest, and other infographic submission websites.
Creating topical, link bait product and services. We have worked with one client in particular that wanted to scale their link building through more creative (and especially link baity) tactics. Whilst this does not work for every business, they were in a field where they were able to create products & services at very short notice.
As such, we ran campaigns that were heavily current affairs based. We were often securing hundreds of backlinks per week through what you might deem as tabloid news-worthy stories. For example, offering services to help people cope with the end of incredibly popular tv programs, or products that would generate an often adverse reaction. Through a six month period we gained thousands of backlinks, well over 3 million estimated views, and over 500,000 referral visitors to the site.
Link bait is a very fine line to tread, with a much higher risk profile than other tactics. As such, we did supplement this campaign with more traditional tactics!
On a side note:
Link earning campaigns. Whilst this may not be a unique link building method, it is one of our favourites. Furthermore, it is applicable to most industries and often under utilised by agencies and in-house marketers alike. Creating content, and more importantly ensuring that it ranks and is distributed via multiple channels, is a far more scalable option than guest posting.
To me, the finest method of acquiring backlinks is creating content that others want to link to. You just have to get some eyeballs on it and then the snowball effect kicks in. It can be a content that addresses a problem that’s never been addressed before; even if it’s been addressed, you have a different but valuable perspective to it.
You can also cover news on your website that’s of some importance and it hasn’t been reported by anyone else before. The most effective kind of content that has the potential to grab others attention and bring in natural backlinks is statistics based content.
Collect statistics related to a topic in your niche. Create a detailed and well-organized article on it. Add eye-catching and information providing visuals to it and see the magic. In my opinion, creating such sort of content and marketing it well through social media as well as outreach is a far more effective backlinking tactic than guest blogging.
A unique and creative technique for businesses to increase backlinks is by conducting a simple PR survey. The main objective of conducting a PR survey is to collect opinions from the general population or a niche audience of people regarding a certain topic related to a brand. The results are then shared through company outreach, press releases, news sources, and journalism outlets. With every media publication that shares the press release, your website receives a new backlink â especially from sites with high domain authority.
Here is an example of a brand conducting a PR survey to increase site backlinks AND grow brand awareness.
A bank conducts a national study with millennial homeowners. The PR survey asks respondents questions regarding stress levels when buying/selling a home and emotions surrounding the home experience.
It creates a press release with the headline, â95% of millennial homeowners in the U.S. experienced a high level of stress when buying or selling their home.â The press release discusses the PR study further and promotes the bankâs new digital platform to make buying and selling homes easier. Itâs picked up by media outlets across the country with a link to where people can visit their new online platform.
One method which has worked well for me, is using Ahrefs Content Explorer tool.
So for instance, let’s say I have a content piece about “A Guide to eCommerce Link Building Outreach”:
This is essentially a way of building resource links, however, by pinpointing articles where you know they’ve linked out to someone else, you generally have a higher success rate. I tend to find success rates go anywhere from 5 – 10% depending on the niche and quality of the article you’ve written.
I have managed to get many good-quality backlinks through writing case studies including challenges, data background, selected time frame, results, and critical takeaways. How?
[By publishing on] Scoop.it It is a content curation website where I select the trending topics and write a case study. The tool allows me to get indirect links.
After choosing the topic with the high views, I added the URL of my case study and hit the suggested button. It then notifies the topic creator that I have suggested to him content on the specific topic. If the creator likes my content, he adds it to his page, and so I get the backlink.
One of the most effective approaches that we’ve been using at Foundation for generating backlinks starts with creating interesting & data-driven content. The wonderful world of Reddit is filled with amazing data sets and insights around what content will take off.
Thus, we monitor & reverse-engineering popular posts & comments in various SubReddits to get inspiration around what content we should be developing.
Upon creating that content, we submit it back to those communities and simply due to the buzz & engagement in the community â white hat links start rolling in.
The best backlinking method Iâve tried is posting links to articles on my answers in discussion websites like Quora and Reddit. While it doesnât pass on link juice, this tactic is really great for raising awareness for your website.I would pick questions that are relevant to the blog topics we write about.
After replying to a query, Iâd paste the link to the blog article where readers can get more information. No tools required and when done right can generate hundreds of clicks on your website.
One simple, yet underused way of achieving backlinks is taking a look at your unlinked brand mentions. If you’ve created valuable content, you should get credit for it.
Our clients tend to think âif websites are mentioning my brand online and not providing a backlink, how would we even know?â At Golden Spiral, our favorite way to solve this dilemma is through the SEMrush Link Building Tool.
By providing branded keywords, SEMrush will scan the web for unlinked mentions of your company. Your branded keywords should be based upon the following:
Once youâve compiled a list of prospects, youâll want to cull it down by determining which domains will be more worth your time. Then, let the outreach begin!
When it comes to link building in the modern BERT, E-A-T world, relevance and real-life connections are king and relevant context is queen. Secondly, podcasting has been a huge boon for ourselves and our clients.
We literally receive dozens of daily spammy outreach emails asking for links. Most are ignored, blocked and many are marked as spam. We have found that real connections with real people bring the best links of all. They require more work, but you actually build relationships. And, we don’t do it through email. We find these people on Linkedin and we strike up real conversations on the phone (gasp!).
Once we make these connections, we invite them to be guests on our podcast. If they have one, we do the same as a guest on theirs. We have found syndicated podcasts as one of today’s best methods for high authority links at scale. Using high-profile executives helps scale that process even more.
Run unlinked mentions! Tools such as MOZ allow you to search for mentions or citations of your company and/or brand that are not yet linking back to your site. The PR value is already there since your brand is getting a shout out.
However, for SEO purposes, getting that link is gold. Simply reach out to the author congratulating them for the article, and suggest for them to link back to your site to add additional value for their readers.
Additionally, if you are able to, let them know that you’ll gladly share the content on your social channels. That way you are fostering a good relationship with the author which could potentially lead to more links down the road.
The number of links you can obtain using this method varies depending on how many mentions you are getting on the web.
Identifying dead businesses. As you know, as new business arises every single day, there were many businesses that died as well. Try to check business from the same industry that has already shut down. You can replace these outdated backlinks with your website links by just emailing them.
Turn copyrights to opportunities. Instead of threatening other people of lawsuits if they copy your companies content, use it as an opportunity to make your own pictures appear every time when you search the picture in Google.
We have had a lot of link building success over the last year by launching a podcast. The show is marketing focused and we interview guests from a wide range of backgrounds.
By keeping things generic, we can cover topics that range from SEO to content marketing and PPC. While it has been hard to monitor conversions and ROI, there is no doubt that the podcast has been great for both backlinking and exposure.
The first way that we used the podcast to build backlinks is by politely asking our guests to promote it on their blog. After all, they should want the episode to be successful too.
We do include a link to their site on our podcast page but there is motivation from both sides to promote the show and increase listenership. Of course, some of our guests are governed by company policy but others have been more than happy to share.
The second way that we have built links is by contacting blogs that have podcast lists and charts. Whether you have a marketing podcast, or something completely random, there are a lot of opportunities out there.
It takes significantly less time to send a podcast link than it does to write a guest post. Similarly, it takes the website owner much less time to add a podcast to their charts than it does for them to upload a guest post. Finally, we have picked up some organic links along the way too.
As you can see there are plenty of tactics that you can use for building backlinks, starting from infographics, creating company roundups, writing data-focused content all the way to podcast creation.
Whichever approach you choose, bear in mind that in order to build high Domain authority youâll have to do two things simultaneously: 1) create high-quality content regularly and 2) commit to continuous backlink building.
If you need a hand with creating content that both Google and your readers will love, then give us a shout!
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