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One of the most important factors in off-page search engine optimization (SEO) is link building, which helps to improve your site’s ranking in search engines. Link building can help you drive more traffic to your website, increase your visibility in search results, and even lead to more backlinks that can help increase your website’s credibility and make it more likely to rank well in search results.

According to a study by Backlinko, pages in the top spot in the Google search engine results pages have an average of 3.8 times more backlinks than the pages in spots 2-10. However, link building can also be time-consuming and tedious work if you aren’t doing it right! For example, not all link-building strategies are created equal. If you aren’t careful about the type of links you build, those links could actually hurt your website rather than help it!

You can try out various link-building strategies to build links, but how do you know which are the most effective? This post will explore nine effective link-building strategies that you can use to help boost your search engine rankings and overall SEO effectiveness.

Why is Link Building Strategy So Important?

Link building is a critical part of search engine optimization. Most searches aren’t navigational anymore; people don’t go from Google to your homepage and then direct traffic from there. Instead, they simply type whatever they’re looking for into a search bar and look through the results one at a time. Because so many people are using navigation-less searches, you need to put extra effort into ranking your content higher.

Link-building strategies are an important part of that process because they affect how Google sees your site and whether or not it will show up in any search results. Therefore, as an aspiring digital marketer or business owner, it’s important to understand link-building strategies so you can incorporate them into your marketing efforts. Links are both your friend and your enemy when it comes to SEO.

A large number of low-quality links pointing back at your site can negatively impact your rankings, but high-quality links help push you up through search results. Link building helps increase traffic and exposure, but getting those high-quality links can be difficult if you’re a new company.

1) Use Guest Blogging For Quality Backlinks

In a 2021 survey, 60% of bloggers said they write 1 and 5 guest posts a month. Guest blogging is an effective way to develop relationships with influential people and expose your content to their audience. While guest posting on high-quality, authoritative sites helps you gain new audiences, it also allows you to link back and strengthen connections with your existing web presence.

The more credible links you have pointing toward your content, and thus your website or business, the higher it will rank in search results. There’s a lot of value in guest blogging; some bloggers make thousands of dollars per month from guest posts. Get started by reaching out through a mutual connection and starting a conversation about an opportunity for collaboration.

Although it’s not a quick fix, building relationships with influencers and writers online can pay off over time. Use tools like Followerwonk or BuzzSumo to find influencers, and then reach out directly via email or social media.  There are a few strategies you can put into place that will help you on your way to effective guest blogging.

Here’s how:

  • Find a niche-specific site with high-quality content;
  • Identify a suitable topic that your target audience would find interesting or relevant;
  • Pitch an idea or write a post using your writing style and voice;
  • Promote your guest post on social media with some link-building tactics outlined below;
  • Keep track of which sites do not include a link back, then follow up!
  • Rinse and repeat.

2) Take Help from Social Media

Social media is a powerful tool for content marketing. It allows you to interact with your customers on a regular basis, share brand updates, and drive traffic back to your website. Social media is an indispensable resource if you’re serious about building an audience that engages with your brand and becomes loyal followers.

Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are great for sharing new posts, images, and updates. These platforms should be a part of your marketing strategy. Like every other aspect of your business, engaging on social media can have short-term and long-term benefits.

It’s important to post relevant content and follow new followers; if you don’t, you could easily get lost in a sea of competition. And while it may seem like social media is an ideal place for small businesses due to its inherently personable nature—particularly Facebook—your competitors are likely using these platforms too, so don’t expect to rank organically without doing some extra legwork first.

3) Start with Broken Backlinks

Broken link building can be a great way to get high-quality backlinks and increase your website’s authority. Semrush study shows that about 42.5 percent of websites have broken links; therefore, the broken link strategy is one of the best ways to go.

How does it work?

If you create an excellent resource that answers questions or offers advice, you may find broken links related to the same topic on other sites. Then, reach out to the site owners and ask if they would like to link to your information. If they agree, you will get both a link from their domain and the domain authority of their page—meaning there’s potential for big SEO wins!

This tactic is great if you have resources offering value or solutions, but not necessarily content people want to share (like how-to articles). It’s also less aggressive than typical outreach strategies.

It’s far easier to find any broken links on your site first before doing any link building—and here are a few quick tools you can use: AHREFs, Screaming Frog, Bing Webmaster Tools, etc. will help you find problematic URLs. Ahrefs will help you find all those pesky backlinks that are no longer good ones.

Good Read: The Ins & Outs Of Online Reputation Management

4) Always Use Resource Links From Top Websites

Always use resource links from trusted sites. If a website is not trusted, then it won’t be likely that you will rank well with an incoming link from that site.

Keep your efforts where they count; a few goods and targeted links will help you improve more than hundreds of useless links. In addition, seek out review websites and email content writers who are in your industry, and try to get them to post a short review on their site.

The chances of getting your link trusted are more when you are using links from top websites. There are several free tools available like AHREFs that help you find quality resource links for better SEO results.

Make sure, that if you want someone to trust your business, then make sure that it has a web presence and created a positive user experience so people will be interested in linking with you on their website.

5) Try to Grow Your Personal Brand

Growing your personal brand is something that all marketers need to consider. Personal branding is a popular term these days, but it’s one thing many marketing professionals don’t seem to take very seriously.

According to a recent survey by Jobvite, only about 30% of people in their 20s say they think about personal branding often or occasionally, but among those over 40, 47% say they often or occasionally think about it.

To build links and grow your personal brand, create content that’s informative and/or helpful. For example, writing a guide to help your readers understand a particular pain point can go a long way toward helping people—and showing search engines that you’re an authority on that subject.

If you’re known as an expert on certain topics, people will want to link back to your site, driving up its ranking. It can also pay off more indirectly: If you know what’s important for boosting search engine results, chances are you’ll use those skills with clients or peers when pitching yourself for new business too.

That will help expand your professional network even further – and make it easier for potential customers to find you online through either link-building strategies or SEO strategies.

6) Get Strategic with Your Competitor Analysis

Your competitors are a great resource for learning how you can stand out from other businesses and gain an edge. When it comes to link building, strategic competitor analysis is key. How can you effectively analyze your competitors? Look at what they’re doing right or wrong and learn why. And by right, we mean getting links—and by wrong, we mean not having enough.

What’s their link profile like? Who are they linking out to? Where are they getting backlinks from? Dig into those questions and more with a bit of competitive analysis. This can help inform your content strategy, the outreach process, link requests, on-page SEO, and more.

For example, find that your competitors are regularly appearing on social media sites like Facebook and Pinterest but aren’t actively building links or mentioning influencers as a way of reaching out with requests for collaboration. That may be an easy opportunity for you. Why shouldn’t you give it a try if it’s something they don’t actively do (and would likely yield results)?

Search for keywords associated with your business and see where you rank against these competitors. Your aim is to show up higher than them on search results for those keywords, which will help drive more traffic your way and (hopefully) translate into more conversions or sales.

7) Replicate Your Competitor’s Best Links

When you’re looking for links, you want to replicate your competitor’s best ones. Why? Because these links are already working well for them, which means they might work well for you too. There are no magic tricks here; your goal is simply to find out what sources link consistently and directly with that competitor’s site.

Use tools like Open Site Explorer, Majestic SEO, or Ahrefs to see who is currently linking with them. Then, try replicating those links for yourself and see if it helps move your rankings.

Simply search your competitor’s website name on Google and look at the top sites that come up. Then look at their backlinks and try replicating what they’re doing. Of course, be sure that these best links don’t break any SEO rules – they could quickly undo all of your hard work!

It’s also important not to target low-quality websites as they won’t do much good for your website rankings. Instead, focus on strong domains with high authority when looking for links from other websites (don’t forget about guest posting too!).

8) Keep Track of Your New & Lost Backlinks

The problem with link building is that sometimes you don’t know how many backlinks you have until they disappear. Keeping track of your new and lost backlinks can help determine where link opportunities are coming from, so you can double down on what works and stop wasting time on things that don’t.

Backlink tracking allows you to enter all of your links, including social media profiles and guest posts. Then, when you lose a link or get a new one, Backlink Watch will notify you instantly. This makes it easier for you to find high-quality websites that are linking out to authority sites relevant to your niche.

Keep track of how many links come in each week and how many are lost by week. This is better done through Majestic SEO, Ahrefs, Backlink Watch & Open Site Explorer. These can give you a solid idea of where you stand and what’s going on behind the scenes.

9) Skyscraper and modified skyscraper

When looking for links, you’re not looking for links; you’re looking for relevant links with a lot of juice or link popularity. One of my favorite link-building techniques is what I call the Skyscraper technique or modified skyscraper technique.

This is a compelling approach that works and gets results. When done right, you can rank higher than your competitors using more popular keywords! Instead of sending people to your homepage, you direct them to a particular page on your site.

The strategy is to find those pages and get them to reference your site. Creating high-quality content that uses your keyword effectively is crucial in ensuring they will reference your site.

The modified skyscraper technique involves creating a new page on your site that incorporates many elements of an existing popular page; then, you submit it with a 301 redirect. Many sites with great success have used this technique, but it has one drawback: It can involve stealing content from another source.

Conclusion

As you can see, backlinking is integral to how most search engines work. More often than not, sites that rank at or near the top of SERPs are those that have established link-building strategies. So no matter what kind of content you want your site to rank for, getting started on a solid backlinking strategy is a must.

If you’re looking for some high-quality links, it’s probably time to start thinking about professional SEO services. A good SEO company can help you create a custom plan based on your unique needs and goals — they’ll even track your progress and help measure ROI over time.