If you’re looking to boost your rankings in the search engines, getting backlinks from other websites can be a great strategy.
If high-quality websites link to your content, it shows that the information on your site is trustworthy and reliable. This is a positive ranking signal to search engines like Google and Bing, increasing the odds of your website appearing on the first page.
According to Backlinko, the number one result in Google has nearly four times as many backlinks than the links in positions two to ten.
If you’ve not got backlinks for your site before, you may not be sure where to begin. However, with a bit of strategy and planning, it’s easy to get lots of relevant links off sites in your niche.
Here are seven of our top tips for getting backlinks.
Create testimonials and case studies
Social proof is critical for businesses, with 70% of people trusting a recommendation, even if it comes from someone they don’t know. You can use this to your advantage.
Reach out to companies whose products and services you use (and like), offering to write a testimonial or work with them on a case study. They get a great quote they can use on their website, and you get a backlink for your site. It’s a win-win!
Search for your brand name and ask for a link
It may be that your brand or business name has been mentioned on websites before. If this is the case, you can reach out to these websites and ask if they would mind linking to you.
Just search your name, make a list of all the mentions and then reach out to the website owners and see if they will turn your name into a hyperlink back to your site.
Not everyone will respond, but you will get a few links back from doing this.
Here’s a helpful tip: Set up a Google Alert for your company name moving forward. This makes it easy to keep tabs on your future mentions.
Look out for broken links
Backlinks can quickly become broken when pages move or get deleted. This is an excellent opportunity to help other websites out by letting them know their links no longer work.
Find resource pages in your niche, and check the links to see if any are broken. If you use Chrome, there are some link checkers that can do this for you automatically.
If you find any broken links, email the website and let them know, offering your website as an alternative. Be polite and friendly, and there is a good chance the web administrator will replace the link with yours.
Create blog posts for other websites
Guest blogging is not only an effective way to get backlinks, but to introduce your business to brand new audiences.
Keep an eye on websites that have guest blogging opportunities, as well as trade magazines that offer editorial calendars (often known as forward features).
You can then pitch your potential ideas, with a link to your website at the end of the article. Since this can be time consuming, a blogger outreach service might be better option for you.
Create infographics
Websites love featuring infographics in their content as they help explain complicated information in a fun and interactive way. You can get several backlinks by creating a useful resource that people want to feature on their sites.
You can create infographics yourself or get a freelancer or digital marketing agency to create one for you. Then host it on your website and wait for the backlinks to come in! If you want to move things along, you can even send a personalised email to relevant websites, letting them know it’s there for them to use.
Don’t forget to check which sites are using your infographic – you can do this by using a reverse image search on Tineye. That way, if they’re not linking back to you, you can send them a kind email and ask if they would be able to add a link.
Look at your competitors
This can take a little bit of research but can be a really handy way to find new backlinks.
Look at which sites are linking to your closest competitors. Most of these websites will be happy to link to your site too.
You can use tools like Moz and Ahrefs to look at who is linking to your competitors. The free versions won’t show you all the backlinks, but will show you enough to get started.
If you want to make a dedicated effort to link building, investing in the full version may be a worthwhile investment.
Create great content
It may sound super-obvious, but if you create brilliant content, people will want to link to it!
All the content you create should provide value to people – either entertaining them, inspiring them or educating them.
If you need a little inspiration, look at the emails and social media messages you get from your customers, as well as using Google Search Console to see what people are searching for.
You can also see what your competitors are writing about and create similar content that is even better!
As a final thought… did you know 65% of website pages have no external backlinks at all? This means that if you can get even one backlink for each of your website pages, you’ll be streets ahead of your competitors!
