If you own a website or blog, link building is probably something you’ve been doing all along, although you may have never even known it had a name.
Link building refers to increasing the number of quality inbound links to a website, blog or web page to help facilitate a higher placement in search engine results – or keeping the link wheel turning for SEO purposes.
Of course, inbound links aren’t the Be All End All of search engine optimisation. Link building does carry some weight when it comes to the search engine algorithms, but you have to be careful what kind of links you’re tossing out there when doing seo services because some of them can actually do more harm than good.
Inbound links from popular, high authority sites in your niche are going to be the best choice in any link building strategy. Because they are considered ‘trusted’ and ‘authoritative’ by the major search engines, your page gains that trust and authority by association.
There are all kinds of link building strategies you can employ to improve your site’s SERP. In fact, I’m going to showcase 50 of them to get you started on your own successful link building campaign.
1. Guest Posting
Guest posting is just like blogging, but you do it for someone else. How this works for you is pretty straightforward. First, you want to seek out a popular blog that’s relevant to your niche. Contact the owner and offer them a ‘guest post’ penned by you. In that guest post, you will link back to your website or blog. You get the link. The blog owner gets free content, win/win. This should not be confused with mass article directory submission pre penguin era.
2. Get Tweeting
Twitter is a fantastic way to bet inbound links to your site with little to no effort. Compose a tweet that’s interesting and compelling and then link it to something on your site that’s equally interesting and compelling. The more useful it is, the more likely people are to pass it on and keep the link wheel turning for you. You can also tweet your links to people who ask for information or advice in their Twitter stream – if it’s relevant to what they seek, of course.
3. Grow The Facebook Likes
Facebook works the same way as Twitter. You create an engaging post and include a link that people will want to follow out of natural curiosity. You can also respond to other people’s post and include your link to solve their questions or to provide information, assuming, like I said before, the link is relevant and actually helpful.
4. Pin It On Pinterest
You may not have thought about using Pinterest for backlinks, but you can. Just choose a fabulous image that is related to the content you will be linking to and post it on a relevantly titled Pinterest board. Seek out other people in your niche and re-pin their things, too – which will make them more likely to re-pin yours as well. At the time of writing this post, pinterest is still a do follow site and massive link juice can be passed to your website from it.
5. Google Alerts
Sometimes people will mention your company or brand in their content, but opt not to include a link back to your site. Set up a Google Alert to inform you when your brand is mentioned so that you can contact the author of the content and ask them to include a link. Or better still drop a comment on the mention page and introduce yourself and while contributing something meaningful to the mention, you can include a direct link back to your website.
6. Linked In
Everyone online professional or web site owner should have a Linked In profile. This avenue of link building is often overlooked. You can link to your content on your Linked In stream just like you can in any other social media stream.
7. Google+ And Circles
Yep, you guessed it. Google+ is another must-have for online professionals and website owners. Use your account the same way you would your Linked In stream to link to your content. Remember to add people to your ‘circle’ (read: friends list) so that you can respond to their content to increase the visibility of your own. I cannot say now if there is a direct correlation between google+ and search rankings but knowing google and power of monopoly, it is only a matter of time before it does.
8. Niche And Geo Directories
While the strategies I’ve mentioned so far have been free, this one isn’t. In fact, it can be quite expensive. However, getting your link catalogued within some of the major directories would exponentially increase your site’s authority within search engines. The ROI of increased traffic, a wider audience and high potential for making more sales may well be worth the $300 that some directories (like Yahoo!) charge for inclusion. Now this should be approached with caution and it is quality over quantity. Stay away from bogus directories, non-indexed directories, general free directories and most of the free directories. Niche and geo directories should be top of your list.
9. Blogging
Blogging for your business or brand is a great way to increase inbound links. Just use anchor text to create the link and remember to only include content of the highest quality for best results. Nobody is going to link to a lacklustre blog and the search engines won’t be too interested in it, either.
10. RSS Feeds
Don’t forget to add an RSS feed to your blog and to register it at Feedburner. Your content gets crawled by other sites and your feed shows up on other pages – and so do your links!
11. Link To Other Pages Within Your Site (internal cross linking)
Don’t just concentrate on getting inbound links to your page. Even though it’s important, linking across pages within your site will help your link building campaign as well.
12. Press Releases
Press releases are highly effective when it comes to creating inbound links – when used correctly (and sparingly). There are a number of free distribution sites that you can submit them to, but if you want maximum exposure for your releases, the paid distribution sites are the way to go. Do this with moderation and has Google updated their webmaster terms, no follow your PR links!
13. Create A Slide Reel
Create a tutorial-based PDF and upload it to a site like slideshare.net with a link back to your site.
14. Offer Incentives For People To Link To Your Site
Offering incentives is a great way to motivate people to link to your site from there. It may be a free product or service you are offering for anyone who will provide a link or you could also make a contest out of it and select a final winner. Free stuff is always a great motivator.
15. Appeal To Who You Know For A Link
Ask your friends, family and relatives to link to your site from theirs. It’s the least they could do for you, right? Right.
16. Create A Directory
This is something I have used in the past. Create a niche directory based on your industry and offer links and resources to other webmasters. This makes your website a go to resource for industry experts in your niche.
17. Message Forums
Some message boards and forums will let you use anchor texts and links in posts that you make on their platform. Use that opportunity whenever you can, especially by responding to other posts when answering questions related to content in your niche or site. If links aren’t allowed in your posts, put them in your signature as well as in your forum profile. Again, this should be done in moderation. Do not go spamming your anchor keywords and links all over forums and create a nuisance of your backlink profile.
18. Q&A Boards
Q&A boards – like Yahoo Answers – allow you to post links to content when answering questions from other users so seek out questions related to your niche that content on your website can help answer. If your answer gets chosen as a best answer, you get the added benefit of that extra targeted traffic to your site.
19. Include Your URL In All Online Profiles
Don’t forget to include your site’s URL in any online profile that you create for yourself on any platform. This means social media accounts, message forums and anywhere else you can participate with other users.
20. Create Something Specific And Then Reach Out To The Specifics
Create content on a really specific topic – like green living or auto repair – anything that’s relevant to your brand or business. Then reach out to other niche sites and blogs and let them know about the content you’ve posted. This method is known as content roadmap, thanks to Brian from backlinko for this one.
21. Create An Infographic Library
Create a bunch of infographics related to your niche or industry and provide them to users free of charge, so long as they cite their source and provide an attribution link.
22. Create An Image Library
This works the same as the infographic library above. Take lots of high quality images and provide them free on your site in exchange for citing the source and an attribution link.
23. Create A Free File Cabinet
Compile some useful reports, statistical offerings, research data and white pages and provide them free of charge in exchange for an attribution link.
24. Create Free Apps
If you’re tech savvy, you can create free apps that link directly to your site from their start pages. Make your links so compelling that they draw people in and make them want to click it. Be advised you will need a mobile-friendly site in order for this to work.
25. Provide Testimonials
If you’ve recently bought goods or services from someone, offer them a testimonial in exchange for a link from their site.
26. Provide Reviews
This strategy works the same as the testimonial one above, except you’re offering a review of the product or service in exchange for the link.
27. Create Video Content
Create short, informative videos and post them to a YouTube account. You can link your site from YouTube, directing people to where they can find out more on the topic.
28. Article Directory Submissions
Write articles about topics related to your industry and post them to free directories like Ezine. Your resource box can include a link back to your site. As an added bonus, people are free to use your articles on their site, so long as the attribution information and links stay intact, making the benefits of this strategy double.
29. Blog Commenting
Comment (sparingly) on blogs related to your niche and be sure that your blogging profile contains a link back to your site.
30. Mix Up Your Anchor Text
When you use anchor text to link back to your site, don’t always link to the same page. Mix it up a bit and include links to various pages within your site or blog for the best results.
31. Hold a Podcast
You can share your expertise with your followers by holding a podcast. Link to your site from your podcast hosting platform so that people will know where to go to find out more about you or the information within the podcast.
32. Interview Someone
Approach high profile bloggers or online industry leaders for an interview. Post the interviews on your site so that the people you interview can link people to the text itself or include your link on their page if they post the text on their site.
33. Offer Interviews
If you’re kind of a big deal in your industry or niche, accept interviews from anyone who asks for them. As I mentioned above, when the interview appears online, it will include a link back to your site.
34. Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking sites liked Reddit or Digg lets allows you to link to content on various websites. Using these platforms to link to quality content on your blog gives other people the opportunity to share them as well, thereby increasing your inbound links even more.
35. Create A Free Ebook Library
Put together a few ebooks that you can give away for free on your website. Put your site’s URL in the footer and create a download page that people can visit to get their free copies and so that they can pass on the link to their audience as well.
36. Ebook Directories
Once you’ve created your ebooks, don’t forget to showcase them and link to them on one of the many available ebook directories.
37. Share Other People’s Links
Sharing other people’s link will make them more likely to respond in kind. Always remember to reciprocate any link attention that you receive in order to foster good relationships in your industry.
38. Web 2.0 Properties
Web 2.0 sites are kind of like article directories, but it’s where you share other content like images and videos instead. Be sure to include your content and links on some of these platforms as well.
39. Donate To A Cause Or Crowdfunding Event
Your link will usually appear with your name on their donor’s pages.
40. Sponsor An Event
If there’s an event going on that’s looking for sponsors, donate your time, product, services or money to have your link included with your name on their contributors pages.
41. Scoop It
Scoop It is another one of those content sharing platforms where people ‘scoop’ content they find interesting into a feed for other users. Scoop your content onto the site and remember to scoop other people’s content as well to make it easier for them to find yours.
42. Submit Your Infographics To A Directory
Remember those infographics you created in Strategy #21? Submit them to infographic directories for an added boost and don’t forget to link them to your site when you do.
43. Check Out The Competition
Use a free tool like the Competitor Backlink Metrics to gauge the success of competing website’s link building strategies. It will show you things like their PageRank, Google backlinks, mozRank and more. Use this info to tweak your link building strategy for optimum performance.
44. Track Your Own Success
You can get a subscription to an analytics service like mywebsitetool for about $50 a month that will allow you to gauge the success of your own link building strategies. These tools come with a lot of features that allow you to do thinks like see who is linking to you, how many people click those links and where your dead links are.
45. Keep Your Website Current
If you’re not constantly populating your website or blog with fresh, engaging content, nobody is going to link to it. Keep it interesting!
47. Beware Of Low Value Links
Low value links are inbound links from low ranking sites that may or may not have any relevancy to your own. Avoid these at all costs because they can actually do more harm than good when it comes to your SERP.
48. Join Your Local Chamber Of Commerce
For a relatively small annual fee, your site can be listed on your local Chamber of Commerce website as a member, which will work wonders for your local link building campaign.
49. Stay Away From Automated Link Building Schemes
These seldom work and usually do more harm than good by getting you low value links.
50. Focus On Quality Not Quantity
It doesn’t matter if you’re able to attract a million inbound links in one felled swoop. If those links do not come from a source that is trusted, respected and in good standing with the search engines, they won’t do you very much good. Your number one link building strategy should always be to focus on the quality of the inbound links you’re getting, rather than on the quantity of the inbound links you’re getting.
This isn’t meant to be an all-inclusive list of link building strategies, but I hope it will give you a point of reference to start with. Some of the strategies you may have heard of while others may be new to you. However, if implemented properly, every one of them can be beneficial to your website’s search engine placement, traffic and success.