April 21, 2023 - Reading time: 8 minutes
High-quality backlinks are crucial for achieving high rankings in search engine result pages (SERPs). But they're also one of the most challenging aspects of SEO to master. That's because, unlike other aspects of SEO, website owners have no direct control over their creation.
Despite what some may claim, there are no cheap tricks or tips that will score you surefire backlinks. At least not any that have any real value. Instead, earning backlinks requires you to create authoritative, informative, sharable, and unique content others deem worthy of presenting to their audiences.
Here we'll cover why backlinks are valuable to SEO and several strategies you can utilize to create backlink-friendly content.
Backlinks refer to any links from other sites to your own. So, in some respects, backlinks are the opposite of external links, which direct users away from your webpage. But, of course, every backlink is also an external link to someone and vice-versa.
Backlinks play such an essential role in SEO because they essentially serve as a vote of confidence from one webpage to the other in the eyes of search engines such as Google and Bing.
What's important to understand regarding backlinks is that they are not all created equal. And the more prestigious the source of a backlink, the more valuable this backlink is, and the greater chance it has of affecting site authority and SERPs.
Backlinks have been a vital component of increasing website authority online for years now, but how search engines measure their value has changed significantly.
In the past, some SEO marketers attempted to utilize blind spots regarding how search engines read and valued backlinks to unnaturally push sites to the top of SERPs. These practices included buying links or setting up websites known as link farms that pumped vast quantities of low-quality, link-heavy content to push targeted web pages up the rankings. This type of link-building often falls under what is known as 'Black Hat' SEO.
Today, many still try to cheat the system, but search engines have gotten much savvier in measuring the quality of backlinks and spotting any links that break their terms of service. And as a result, the focus is now more than ever on earning high-quality links from reputable sites instead of building linking networks.
Also known as guest blogging, guest posting involves writing content for other websites and publications, often for free. But while giving articles away at no cost may sound like a bad deal, sites that offer guest posting opportunities typically allow you to add links back to your site in exchange for the content.
Guest posting is a brilliant strategy for building backlinks because it's one of the few legitimate and effective methods you can utilize that allows you to add backlinks to your site directly. And since you get to tailor the content you provide to the external website, you can ensure that the created link is contextually relevant to what your site is all about.
Of course, the target site must be genuinely relevant to your niche for a guest post to be truly effective. In addition, you'll want to stick to writing for publications with a domain authority equal to or greater than your own. As a result, it often pays to research any potential guest post opportunity thoroughly before dedicating your time and effort to writing a post.
Working with the right influencers can improve your chances of earning natural backlinks. For starters, many popular influencers have their own websites and may choose to link your content from there. Furthermore, many influencers have access to and work directly with other sites. So you may gain a backlink or two that way.
Even if an influencer doesn't directly link to your content from a website, the increased visibility they provide means that there's a good chance another high-quality domain does. Ultimately the more awareness there is online regarding your brand and content, the more likely people will interact with your website. And the more that happens, the higher the chance that others will start linking to your online domains.
Collaborating with other brands, publications, and influential individuals to create content on your site is a fantastic way to build backlinks. That's because any collaborators involved will typically want to share and inevitably link to the content. But, of course, if you utilize this method, you'll want to ensure there's something in it for whomever you're collaborating with on your chosen project.
One example of cross-promotional content that can potentially generate multiple shares and links is an expert roundup. As the name suggests, an expert roundup involves bringing together various experts within a chosen field related to your niche to discuss a particular topic. These experts might be entrepreneurs, professionals, key influencers, or anyone else likely to appear authoritative in the eyes of your audience.
A resource page is a curated collection of external links that site owners believe will be helpful to their readership. They often contain links to articles, web tools, guides, downloadable content, webinars, and anything else considered relevant and valuable to consumers and professionals within the host site's industry or niche.
Often, these sites are open to recommendations and pitches regarding adding new links to their resource pages. That's because the more resources they have to share, the more extensive and valuable the page is for their audience. So, if you can find a resource page and have a resource (or are willing to create one) that you think would be a good fit, it can often be worth reaching out to the host site.
Broken link building relates to the practice of finding broken links on web pages within your industry or niche and offering to replace these lost or forgotten resources with your own. Not only is this a relatively low-effort way to earn backlinks, but it results in a win-win situation for both your brand and the target site: you get a backlink, and they get a fixed link.
You can utilize numerous online SEO tools to find broken links across the web, including Semrush and Ahrefs. And once you find a broken link that you can replace with your content, it's simply a matter of reaching out to the site owner. And since few things ruin user experience more than dead links, chances are, the site owner will be more than happy to oblige
First devised by Brian Dean of Backlinko, the skyscraper technique is a proven link-building strategy that follows a three-step process:
Creating skyscraper content is by no means an easy task since you'll need to source better copy, visuals, research, and go more in-depth than any of your competitors on a chosen subject. And the resulting content needs not only to be better than your competitor but so much better than theirs that publications will be willing to drop their previous links to pick up yours instead.
Ultimately, however, people will always gravitate towards the best of the best. And, if you have the resources and determination to go up against the best marketers and writers in your industry, skyscraper content is a proven method for earning backlinks.
Digital PR relates to building linkable assets and promoting these assets to high-end sites, influencers, and journalists. These assets often include in-depth, long-form guides, infographics, data-driven research and studies, and anything else that publications want to share with their readers.
When done correctly, digital PR provides a scalable way to earn backlinks through in-depth, compelling resources that people will link to naturally. That means that even after the initial hype around an asset release wears off, these assets continue to earn backlinks long after.
Earning quality backlinks ultimately comes down to creating link-worthy content and having a solid outreach strategy to get that content in front of the right people. And there are no cheap tricks that can fast-track your way to success. But if you focus on building your contacts and developing valuable resources and assets using the strategies outlined here, sites will soon begin sending links your way.