Investing in the time and effort to create link building strategies may seem like a tricky part of digital marketing that’s best left alone, but if you’re not taking to time to develop effective link building for your website or digital platform, then you’re likely missing out. In fact, link building can still be considered one of the most important ways to ensure your business is seen by all the top search engines, even though the rules surrounding their requirements seem to change year on year.
If you’re new to link building, the basics of what this digital strategy provides are a form of Search Engine Optimisation that can’t be achieved through keywords alone. Link building, as the name suggests, is the process of ‘building’ the number of relevant hyperlinks on your website from other websites. One of the functionalities of the bots search engines use is to use those all-important links to crawl between pages on your website, and between different sites. This process allows your website to rise in the rankings of search engines like Google, and also provides a way for bots and visitors alike to discover new web pages.
While link building has consistently been a high-level requirement for website success, the rules and requirements surrounding these strategies change year on year. However, these strategies are still hanging around; and they’ve proven highly successful when it comes to improving those rankings and getting websites seen quickly and more effectively.
Here are five strategies for link building that are still highly effective, and well worth looking into:
1. Try out guest posting
Guest posting has long been a viable strategy for link building. It provides a way to create great-quality content – the type that’s loved by search engine bots – that can then be posted on external websites that you trust. This enables a way to build links while still producing content of high quality, meeting the requirements for platforms like Google while providing value to your target audience.
Guest posting works best when your focus is on producing content that’s both helpful and high-quality, making it essential to invest time and money in doing it right. When that balance is achieved, the quality of your link building efforts is far higher, directly impacting on the visibility of your website.
Enjoying this blog? Register now for your free monthly roundup email >
2. Spend time co-authoring on other platforms
A variation on the concept of the guest post, co-authoring is another highly legitimate way to link build outside of your platform by collaborating directly with other websites to create content. This can work both ways, making it advantageous for both sides, allowing for the placement of legitimate backlinks within content that’s tailor-made for that particular platform.
The key to making this strategy work is being an expert in your field. Content created with another platform should be high-quality, informative and valuable to their audience. If the content isn’t up to scratch, then it could harm both of your platforms as a result. Choose authority and trusted websites for this, and your link building will soon be of far better quality.
3. Keep up with the latest trends and hot topics
Trending topics and hot ideas dictate a great deal of how and when we search for things. That means when something new and exciting comes out, whether it’s a scientific discovery, new makeup product or just about anything else in-between, search engines explode with a rapidly-growing number of search results on that particular subject.
Creating blogs and content surrounding something trending that’s industry-related to your platform can be an excellent way to achieve link building quickly and easily, thanks to the vast amount of information available in that moment. If you can create content that’s relevant and helpful for individuals searching for that topic or trend, then receiving a large number of backlinks from other websites in a relatively small amount of time is easily achievable.
4. Fix broken links
The other side of link building is broken links – an unfortunate result of websites that have been running for an extended amount of time, or even content that’s more trend-led. The broken link technique involves taking those dead links, once you’ve identified them in your website, and repurposing the material surrounding them to create something relevant, new and live.
Broken links are more likely on older sites, so it’s well worth investing in the time to go back and fix broken backlinks to have instant access to content that’s now going unused.
5. Post externally to forums
Forums might seem very “ten years ago” to some, but when it comes to link building and SEO, then there’s no better place to start. Forums can be a fantastic way to increase traffic to your website. As locations that are generally used to build knowledge and have conversations, they are the ideal place to include links to relevant information or content that you have created.
This organic approach must be connected to the forum audience in question to be successful, but if you can strike the right balance, then it can be an incredible tool.
Conclusion
Link building may be ever-changing, but it’s always an invaluable way to get the best returns from your SEO investment. High-quality backlinks are always worth the effort, so don’t be afraid to get stuck in when it comes to the practical techniques that are available to you.