web backlinks

Web backlinks have long been a basis for a solid SEO strategy. These external hyperlinks leading into your website or blog act as pathways for new traffic and digital recommendation letters to Google and other search engines.

It’s important to build these links correctly, because choosing the wrong sources or using black hat techniques will do far more harm than good.

Today I’m going to show you my top two strategies for building web backlinks. These methods work extremely well and they’ll help you earn high-quality web backlinks that will benefit your site in both traffic and SEO.

The 2 Greatest Ways to Build Web Backlinks for 2016 and Beyond

Web backlinks are important, but earning them in the right way and from the right places is perhaps even more crucial to your success.

Using the wrong strategies and earning spammy links will get you a penalty from Google, which is something you want to avoid at all costs.

So, what defines a quality backlink? Look for these characteristics:

• It comes from a relevant source
• The anchor text is varied and unique
• The link is within the page’s content
• The site has a high trust ranking
• Your backlink sends consistent traffic
• The source is different than your other links

Keeping this in mind, let’s take a look at two strategies that are guaranteed to help you find and build these types of links.

1. The Skyscraper Technique

Our first tactic comes from the king of backlinks, Brian Dean. Known as the “Skyscraper Technique” this strategy is simple but powerful. It consists of three steps:

Step 1: Find Link-Worthy Content

Your first step is to find content in your niche that’s already earning links. The best way to do this, is to look at your competitors. Look at their content on social media and find articles with lots of shares and likes.

Another way to double-check this is to use a tool like Majestic to analyze their backlinks and find the pages that are getting the most attention. Consider this your inspiration stage.

Step 2: Build upon Their Content

This step is where the name comes from. They have a pretty good skyscraper, but we’re going to build one that’s bigger and better. No one cares about the 2nd best article; they want the best one the internet has to offer.

Take apart the content you found and look for holes or areas of improvement. Research the keywords and topics they used and go deeper than they did. A sure-fire step is to make yours significantly longer. If they did 10 things, then make yours 25, and so on.

Make it look better too. Employ all of your design skills and organize the content so it’s easier to read or digest, compared to the original source.

Step 3: Show Your New Content Off

The final step involves showing the right people what you’ve done to improve on the original topic. The best place to start with something like this is with the websites that linked to the original article.

Go back to Majestic and this time create a spreadsheet to use alongside the tool. Gather the contact emails for sites that linked to the article that inspired you. We know that these sites are interested in this type of content.

From there, expand your research to include general sites within your niche or sites that cover the topic of the post. Look for sites with high PageRank and Domain Authority and vary your sources. Remember, the worst they can do is say “no.”

Create a simple email template that will allow you to reach out to them quickly. Introduce yourself and your site before giving them a short description of the post. Ask them politely to check it out and link to it if they think it would benefit their followers.

It’s as simple as that! And you’ll be surprised how many people are grateful for the opportunity to link to high-quality content.

2. Good Old Guest Posting

The other tactic I use consistently is guest posting. Countless blogs and websites accept guest authors who want to produce content for their site.

Once you’ve finished starting your blog, this is the best way to start building links. What’s more is that you’ll also be improving your writing skills for your personal posts. In return, many blog owners will provide you with a backlink, so everybody wins.

The best way to find these opportunities are to visit your favorite blogs and look for their guest post guidelines. You can speed up this process by going to Google and typing in your niche or topic, plus one of these search strings: “Guest posts”

• “Write for us”
• “Guest author”
• “Guest post guidelines”

These same search strings can be used on Twitter or Facebook to find social media posts from websites who are looking for guest authors. Some sites prefer that your link is in the author bio, while others will let you place it in the content.

Keep this in mind, as web backlinks inside content carry more weight than those outside of it. Follow the guidelines of the websites you choose and be sure to pitch topics prior to writing, if they allow you to do so. That way you’ll know your topic is of interest to them.

Conclusion: Wrapping it up

Web backlinks are an integral part of any SEO strategy. Building them can be done easily with these two strategies.

What is your favorite web backlinks building tactic?

How do you target high-quality link opportunities?

Let us know in the comments!

About the Author

Joshua Lewinson is an SEO consultant who has worked on countless blogs and websites. Backlinks are always part of his strategy, and they should be part of yours as well.

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web backlinks

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