How To Build Backlinks - Link Building Techniques

Before we get started I want to stress that using a combination on link building methods will always yield better results than a single strategy. Google likes to see a diverse link profile that appears natural so lets play their game.

Guest Posting

Guest posting has recently been in the limelight as another passing fad among link builders. If you create a bunch of low quality, useless articles and share them on low authority sites, you are wasting your time. Guest posting should only be done on sites that you would post to if SEO did not exist. Is it likely you will get referral traffic from the site you are guest posting on? If not, find another site. Posting on high quality sites provides a much greater booster in SEO value as well. Aside from getting a link from an authority site, you will also likely get links from people who pick up parts of the content and link back to you or the guest post. Either way, you get added SEO value without added work.

Outreach Link Building

There is nothing new or sexy about this method, but it works. Coming up with a list of sites to reach out to can be difficult, but this is how I do it.

Run a back link analysis of your top 5 competitor sites.
Eliminate links with a page authority below 20.
Eliminate any no-follow links (unless they are likely to provide significant referral traffic).
Export your list and sort from highest page authority to lowest and work your way down the list of sites looking for ways to get a link. Finding the link to your competitor and improving the content they used to get that link is the best way to get your own link. You can also look for broken links to competitor sites and offer a new piece of similar content for the site owner to link to.
Send a quick email to the site owner and tell them what you have to offer.
Repeat until you have gone through the entire list, then find sites ranking 5-10 for your keyword and repeat steps 1-4.

Social Link Building

This is a lot like traditional outreach link building, except you are going to find link opportunities from social media. I have mentioned this technique before, but it is worth repeating. Here is how to find people who will likely link to your site.

Curate content closely related to your niche and share it via social networks.
Monitor user engagement and identify content that was heavily shared, liked, re-tweeted, etc.
Create a new piece of content closely related but better than what you shared.
Contact everyone who engaged with the curated piece and let them know you have something they would love.
Relax while your new piece of content is being shared, liked, and linked to.

Directory Submissions

Before you leave the page or a nasty comment, I am not talking about the old school method of blasting your site out to a billion and nine directories. There are a few directories that are still valuable to submit your site to but remember, quality over quantity is the key. Here are some worthwhile directories to get you started.

Best of the Web
Yahoo Directory
DMOZ (they have seen a recent loss in listings)
Business.com
Exact Seek
When you are looking for directories worth submitting to you should look for sites that are human edited, have been around for a while, and are trusted. If you are looking for local directories, here is a list of the top 50 from HubSpot.

Blog Commenting

You are probably thinking that this method is straight from 08, and it kind of is. The difference is that you are going to comment only on sites closely related to your site. You should leave comments that add to the conversation and encourage interaction from the writer. Actively participating with writers will allow you to build a relationship with them and it can even set the stage for you to guest post or contribute to their site. The second benefit of blog commenting is no-follow links. Since the other methods we cover are do-follow links, the no followed links will help to round out a natural link profile. Forum participation can also be used instead of blog commenting, just make your posts quality and build relationships with active members.

There are literally hundreds of link building techniques that can be used effectively. The specifics of your niche will determine what is most effective for you. Regardless of your niche, high quality links from authority pages will drive your site higher in the SERPs. If you are completely new to link building and want to master the craft, I suggest setting up a few test sites and trying the methods above as well as others you run across. Testing is the best way to see what works so do it early and often.

See That Wasn’t So Bad Now Was It?

If you follow my advice you can rank your website and gain organic traffic. Since organic traffic converts as nearly 15% as compared to the industry average of just under 3% for outbound marketing, it is a strategy that everyone doing business online should implement. Remember if you don’t try anything, you are never going to rank – why not go for broke?

What are you waiting for? Touch up your site and go build some links!

I hope this guide has helped you and don’t forget to share it with your friends! If you have any questions or comments please feel free to share them belowBefore we get started I want to stress that using a combination on link building methods will always yield better results than a single strategy. Google likes to see a diverse link profile that appears natural so lets play their game.