In terms of SEO, link building is one of the most complicated and challenging aspects. However, its impact on the blog position is so grand, this is an essential part of a successful SEO strategy. Due to the popularity it enjoys for so long, we can say with certainty that backlinks won’t go away soon.
In this post, we will introduce you to the top 10 link building strategies for your blog.
1. Use Custom Search To Build Link Channels
Websites that are fans of your blog and have previously posted content on your site or linked to you are at highest probability to do this again. To remind them to do so and build link channels with these websites, use custom search to find them.
- Find the sites that have linked to you in the past.
- Load these sites into an engine like Google’s CSE or Ahrefs Site Explorer.
- Use the engine to find other prospects that are likely to be linked to you.
When you have all this finished, use the customized search engine to look for prospects that have linked to you or have written on the same topics you are discussing in the past. Such customization will give you access to a narrowed-down database of websites who are the perfect potential link channel for your blog.
2. Use The Rlr Framework To Get Your Competitors’ Backlinks
Every blogger out there, or at least every successful blogger, invests in the link building strategies like you do. Some of them have had much more success or did this much longer than you have, which is not a reason to be jealous. In fact, this is good news for you.
It might sound a bit lazy, but this is a great strategy – replicate the links from your competitors. They’ve literally done your work already, so you can just use the RLR technique and get their links for your blog.
- Learn how your competitors build their links.
- Steal the tactics they use for your blog.
Here is how you do this: Visit Google and enter the link building strategies. When you find it, copy the URL of the first-ranked page that shows in the results. Use Ahrefs Site Explorer and its ‘backlinks’ report and you can figure out how they attract those links.
3. Create Infographics To Attract Backlinks
Some bloggers choose to use guides, others focus on their content strategy to attract backlinks. Another thing you can focus on, which is highly popular nowadays, are infographics.
How do you do this? Firstly, you need to check which infographics are popular from the already available ones. Just enter google and search for ‘SEO ranking factors infographics’. Once you know what infographic strategy would be successful, you can create your own informative, highly attractive infographic.
Simply document the content you are planning to use in the infographic, find a nice design, and make the inviting mix.
4. Convert Your Blog’s Homepage Links Into Blog Posts Links
In most cases, it is the homepage that will appear at the very top of the highest-rated page in terms of links. This is very common – most blogs get most of the backlinks to the actual homepage, meaning that this is the page you want to aim your focus on.
Yes, we all want people to visit more and more blog posts or product pages, but the homepage is the most promising page on your blog where you can attract the audience. But, if you also believe that a better strategy would be if you convert these links into links on your blog posts, there is a way to convert them.
- Find out who links in your homepage (you probably did this if you followed the tip no.1).
- Look for the backlinks on your homepage.
- Detect those who can be changed to post blog or ‘deep links’ (it makes sense or are related to a blog post/product page).
- Send an outreach message to the person who linked, asking them if they are willing to change it to a more relevant page instead of the homepage.
Now, we cannot guarantee that your outreach messages will all turn out to be a success, but some people will be willing to change it and help you out.
5. Reclaim All Links From Images That Were Stolen From Your Website
If you dedicated enough time on your SEO strategies, you probably have many high-quality pictures, infographics, screenshots, videos, etc. on your site. This makes you a potential target for the widely-spread image theft.
This is forbidden, but it isn’t necessarily bad news for you. Since other people had the decency to steal photos without your permission, you can use this to leverage their actions to build backlinks.
- Find the websites that use your high-quality infographics, photographs, screenshots, etc. you placed on your website. A simple Google image search will let you do this.
- Make sure that they didn’t ask for permission.
- Ask them to give you credit, i.e. reclaim the link they haven’t
bothered to make.
Make sure these websites are giving you credit for those images (if not, reach out and reclaim the link).
Of course, to be able to do this, you should own the images’ copyright. Otherwise, it won’t really work if the picture isn’t actually stolen from you.
6. Opt For Smart Guest Blogging
Many are against guest blogging as a great strategy nowadays, but if you have a fine strategy for this, it can still work. Guest blogging can help you to deliver traffic to the blog, generate backlinks from related blogs in the same industry, build credibility as well as exposure, and build relationship with other bloggers in your field.
A high-quality guest blog on an influential, high authority website will bring many people to your blog and to your e-mail list. If you take your time and create a quality blog for a well-chosen blog in your niche, you can get an insane conversion rate for a single guest blog!
7. Rank For A Keyword
Millions of different blog posts are being published on daily basis. That being said, you should also know that many bloggers decide to reference data from other bloggers’ posts. To make your blog posts rank high as a solid resource, build a list of topics and keywords that are often cited and aim to rank for those!
You can do this by creating a high-quality piece of content that’s built around a specific keyword or two. Your content should be informative and provide statistics, as well as definitions.
8. Post And Reply To Real Blog Comments
We put an emphasis on the word ‘real’. Do not make a spammy commenting strategy – it will not work! And while you might think that this strategy is a bit outdated, you’d be surprised to learn how well it still works.
There are many simplified ways to do some mass commenting on blogs with the goal to build backlinks, but how often does that succeed, really? Believe us, you’ll get a better chance at link building if you send real comments on influential, related blog posts, even if they are at a significantly lower number than with mass commenting.
It goes both ways, too. Find the comments that are actually real and from other bloggers in the niche – they’ll probably leave their link in the comment, too. Once you do, reach out to them and ask them nicely to put a link to one of your blog posts on some of their posts on their blog. Who knows, this might actually work!
9. Make Use Of Google Alerts
Google Alerts is powerful, but often underestimated link building tools. Naturally, you’d want to be linked to any mention of your name or the name of your blog. Well, this is the tool to help you learn who mentioned you across the web.
Use Google Alerts to see who mentioned you with or without linking to your website. When you find someone who hasn’t done this yet, reach out to them and ask them to add a link to your website. If you did well with the blog, you’ll be surprised to learn how many people actually did this and forgot to create a link!
When you are done doing this, you can simply set up alerts for every time someone mentions you or your brand. This will keep you on track and help you save some time, while in the meantime gather backlinks without any special effort on your behalf.
10. Use Expert Roundups To Build Backlinks
This is an extremely easy, but also very successful way to build some new backlinks to your blog. Here is what you need to do:
- Think about and note down all the questions you’d ask the experts in the niche if you meet them.
- Gather a list of those experts and actually ask them.
- Consolidate the experts’ responses into a well-crafted blog post.
- Contact the experts and influencers again to tell them about the blog post.
- Ask them to link to the blog post.
People will want to be acknowledged and will probably feel very honored that you did this, which is great news for you. Asking influencers to link to a blog that shares their responses is most likely to result in a positive income for you. Depending on the influencer, you’ll very likely get posts and shares across all their popular social channels. This is a great way to attract more audience and backlinks for your blog.
Here is a very find template you can learn from for this tip:
Hey [NAME],
Robbie Richards here, from robbierichards.com. I came across your LinkedIn profile today and thought I’d reach out regarding an expert roundup I’m putting together.
Here’s the question: [INSERT QUESTION] Please leave your response on this form: [URL] I’ll include a link to your website and promote the article to my 35,000+ audience.
Deadline for contribution is [DATE]. Cheers!Robbie
P.S.
Here is an example of similar article I published (shared over 10,000 times).
www.robbierichards.com/seo/best-seo-tools/
Source: http://www.clambr.com/link-building-tools/
11. Transcribe Videos And Outreach To Industry Influencers
This strategy is similar to the previous one in the sense that you can use influencers to build backlinks for your blog. Video transcription of influencers in the industry can be great for your link building strategies, since people tend to trust and value expertise.
Nowadays, there are plenty of formats for videos you can use, including presentations, tutorials, webinars, vlogs, Hangouts, Q&A’s, etc. Transcribing the content spoken by the best influencers in the niche and publishing it on your website will surely attract some quality audience for you.
The process is much similar to the previous one. Once you have the transcription on your site, you should reach out to them and ask them to link to it. This is a very efficient and rapid way to get content that is linkable and links from the best experts in the industry. Moreover, it will help you get noticed by influencers and with it, assist you in building relationships with experts in the niche.
Use this opportunity to leverage the influencers’ big social audience. If they like and allow for your gesture and agree to link back (let’s face it, this is very likely to happen), you’ll get shares on their social media channels and with it, more visits on your blog.
Here is how you can do this:
- Visit YouTube and find the influencers in your industry. Look for good topics related to your blog posts.
- Transcribe the video you chose.
- Reach out to the influencer and tell them what you did. Ask them to link back to your post.
Final Thoughts
Have you chosen which strategies you will use for link building? All these are effective and very popular, and while you might not have the time to implement them all, you definitely want to use at least a couple to improve your blog’s ranking. Good luck to you!
