You have created amazing content, but you’re not getting any organic traffic to your website.
All you need to do to attract visitors is create great content, right?
Wrong.
Even if you’re creating fantastic content, it doesn’t mean search engines automatically notice it. Building backlinks is one of the best strategies to boost traffic and domain authority. As a website owner, you must learn how to get backlinks to your website.
Some businesses pay top dollar to gain a single link on high-quality websites. But not all businesses can afford to buy backlinks. For owners of new businesses, getting backlinks might seem out of reach.
Here’s the good news:
Even for someone running a newer website, getting backlinks is entirely doable.
We’ll give you seven smart techniques on how to get backlinks for your website in this guide.
Here’s what you’ll learn:
What a backlink is
Why you need to get backlinks to your website
How to get backlinks to your website on high-quality websites
Backlinks: What They Are and Why You Need Them
A backlink is a link to your website on another company’s website. The link can be text, an image, or a button.
It goes both ways. A backlink tells search engines how your content relates to other websites and pages on the internet.
Why Do You Need Backlinks To Your Website?
Getting backlinks for your website is one of the factors Google and other search engines use to determine your search engine optimization (SEO) ranking. Backlinks also foster brand recognition by reaching people who might not otherwise be aware of your business.
When you know how to get backlinks to your website, you’ll be empowered to improve your website’s domain authority.
Domain authority is a metric that determines how powerful your website is with search engines. Small businesses and new websites in the early stages of growing traffic have low domain authority.
When high domain authority websites link to your website, it tells the search engine crawlers that your linked-to website is valuable.
To improve visibility on search engine results pages (SERP), you need high-quality backlinks.
Practical Tips for How To Get Backlinks To Your Website
You have already written and published your content. Perhaps the question in your mind right now is,“How do I get backlinks to my website?” This can be the hardest part of SEO, especially for small startups.
Relax.
Many website owners don’t know how to score a backlink from high domain websites. But, a variety of tactics and link building strategies can help your website earn high-quality backlinks and improve ranking.
Here are seven of the most practical tips to get you started as you consider how to get backlinks to your website.
1. Convert Unlinked Brand Mentions to Links
You might find people mentioning your business across the web without linking to you. That’s a missed opportunity to get quality backlinks to your website.
Unlinked brand mentions are one of the easiest backlink building opportunities for your link building campaign. These people already like your brand and understand what you do — that’s why they mentioned you.
Converting unlinked mentions requires you to track the mentions and reach out to the website owners to get a backlink..
So, how do you find unlinked mentions?
Here is what you need to do:
Use the SEMrush Brand Monitoring Tool. Set it to notify you as mentions of your brand occur.
Use Content Explorer to look for existing unlinked mentions. This is a mini search engine within Ahrefs.
Reach out to authors who have mentioned your business positively and ask them to link to your brand.
Look for unlinked mentions of branded products, services, company representatives, and slogans
2. Help a Reporter Out (HARO)
Help A Reporter Out (HARO) is an online platform that helps journalists get feedback from the public to use in their stories. You generate backlinks on authoritative news sites and reporters get relevant content.
Here is how to get backlinks to your website from HARO:
Sign up as a source on HARO’s homepage and select a pricing plan. Journalists are always looking for expert opinions to include in their articles.
Check your email three times a day from Monday to Friday. HARO will send you a list of articles that the reporters need information for.
Look for articles that cover your area of interest. You won’t be able to respond to every single query.
Send in your pitch. Include your answer and your contact information, as well as a link to your website.
You are not guaranteed to get a backlink from every single HARO query you respond to. But you will likely get a backlink for most of the responses reporters use. It is also an opportunity to get free referral traffic.
3. Write Guest Blogs for External Publications
Your first concern should be to bring people to your website. But unique, valuable content makes people stick around. And low-quality, spammy content will hurt your backlinking efforts.
One of the best tips on how to get backlinks to your website is to submit guest posts to well-established websites with high domain authority and lots of traffic. Even Google accepts guest contributors on its Google Analytics blog.
Here are tips to get your guest blogs posted:
Show that you’re qualified as a writer. A testimonial could be an important asset.
Demonstrate your qualifications by sharing links to your previously published content.
Make sure you have unique, high-quality content. Writing spectacularly might be your only bargaining power.
Present your pitches to medium domain authority websites if you’re just starting as a guest writer with no previous work to show.
Keep pitching. Websites will not always respond to your pitches, but don’t get discouraged.
4. Check Out Your Competitors’ Backlinks
As an entrepreneur, you probably know that it’s important to gather as much information as possible about your competitors.
This empowers you as a blogger to decide if the most effective SEO digital marketing techniques that work for them will do the same for you. Spying on your competitors’ link building strategies can give you ideas about how to get backlinks to your website.
Analyze your competitors’ strategies by:
Identifying their resource page links and finding which of the websites you can add to your connections.
Creating a Google alert for when they publish new content. This lets you monitor backlinks to their websites.
Following them on social media.
Subscribing to their newsletters to learn what strategies they implement in their business.
5. The Broken Link Building Method
With the broken link method, you contact a webmaster to report a broken link on their webpage. At the same time, you recommend a link to your website as an alternative to the broken link.
The chances of getting a backlink to your website are high since you’re helping them improve their page’s quality by reporting the broken links.
Here are the steps for the broken link method:
Search for relevant websites in your niche and go to their resource pages.
Type any of the following on Google to find the links and resources:
Main keyword + links
Main Keyword + resources
Keyword inurl:links
Download and install the Check My Links plugin for Google Chrome to find the broken links on those pages.
Download the search results with Ahrefs SEO Toolbar or the Scraper extension.
When you reach out to the webmaster, introduce yourself and be professional. Tell them in a friendly way that they are linking to a resource that no longer exists. Give them the broken links’ exact locations so that they can find them easily.
6. Share Infographics
An infographic is a graphic representation of information or data. Visual data is easy to understand and share — which puts them among the most popular methods to drive traffic to your website.
Here are some tips for creating shareable infographics for your website:
Make well-designed images with well researched statistical data for your audience.
Ensure that your visuals address trending topics.
Research topics that people care about and consider useful.
Take the time to collect good-quality data. You can choose to use secondary data from trusted sources or collect data yourself.
Make your infographic easy to share. Their value lies in their ability to be shared and promoted to others.
7. Legitimize Your Website
Content marketing requires you to prove to your visitors that your website is trustworthy. They want to feel safe interacting with your website.
Here are a few ways to legitimize your website and give the right impression to your visitors:
Prove that you are a real business by including your phone number and address on your contact page. You can also post profile photos of you and your employees.
Cultivate a professional appearance. Avoid cluttering your webpages with unnecessary elements like sponsored ads. Ensure your images and graphics are high-quality, and the layout and typography are clean.
Correct errors. Misspelled words or images that don’t load properly can lower your website’s credibility. Remove broken links as they give the impression of a neglected website.
Add trust badges to show that your business partners are trusted industry experts and your website is secure.
Update content to show your visitors you’re an active business.
When it comes to building backlinks, you can use any of the strategies above. The winning edge in search engine results pages (SERPs) goes to marketers who know how to implement these backlink building techniques.
Now that you know how to get backlinks to your website, ensure you are not violating Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Avoid paying for links or participating in illegal link schemes.