Strategies For Developing High-Quality Backlinks
Now that you know what a backlink is about and how you can recognise high-quality backlinks, here are some general approaches to help you further target useful, high-quality backlinks:
- High-quality content
As well as including high-quality backlinks, the essence of a successful website is good content. This means up-to-date, relevant content that offers your readers true added value. High-quality content is by far the most important thing to focus on to ensure the success of a website; it’s even more importnat than securing good backlinks. The type of content you create for your website depends on the theme of your website, but you should always strive to create compelling copy that your users will return to.
For example, if you run a sports-related webpage, you could create a category where you write about different training exercises for different sports. You could also include a category for sports accessories, in which you publish product reviews. In any case, your content should be varied. Avoid filling your website with product reviews that include too many Affiliate links. Too much of a hard-sell approach will result in readers and search engines treating your content as though it’s spam. Always ensure the content you include is diverse and targeted.
- Vary your posts
To keep your content varied, there are different types of posts you can write. Here some examples:
Informal, conversational posts
Product reviews
Product comparisons
News posts
Tutorials and how-to articles
Opinion or comment pieces.
For each of the post-types mentioned above, the following rules should be followed, to ensure quality content and to avoid the possibility of being punished by Google and co:
Rule 1 – Do not copy contents of the competition
By copying and pasting third-party content, you are committing a copyright infringement. Also, search engines can recognise duplicate content and can penalise your website by removing your site from their rankings altogether.
Rule 2 – Write unique posts
Don’t hesitate to represent your own views and opinions in your articles. After all, this is your website – and your readers will appreciate your forthright approach, so long as you justify your views in a sensible, balanced and not sensationalist or inaccurate way.
Rule 3 – Disregard ‘minimum length’
Keeping your posts to within a certain ‘minimum length’ in order to ensure they’ll be well placed on search engines is a myth. Write content that will provide your readers with the information they are looking for – the number of words doesn’t matter.
Rule 4 – Use your own pictures and videos
Using your own bespoke imagery and videos to supplement and illustrate what you’re writiing about is a huge help for creating compelling content. This can be applied to all types of content, too, not just product reviews.
Rule 5 – Publish new posts at regular intervals
Make sure new posts appear regularly on your website. A high frequency of new posts is recognised by search engines and helps you to achieve better ranking in the search results.
Rule 6 – Write what you would wßant to read yourself
While we’re on the subject of backlinks, always remember that your content should be so good and thematically comprehensive that you would link it yourself, if you were to read the content on another website.
- Use social-media channels
Securing backlinks for quality content requires that you do more than just create and publish articles on your site. Social networks offer you the opportunity to bang the drum and to attract potential readers to your site. Create profiles on Facebook and other social-media platforms where you can post articles which include links to your new articles and content. Be active on Facebook or Twitter, and always be mentioning your articles in your posts and tweets. In doing so, you build up followers who may share or re-tweet links that you publish.
By doing this, you’re helping to spread your content and links far and wide, and increasing the likelihood of securing backlinks. Unfortunately, links posted in social-media accounts are NoFollow links, but they help you to build up a good mix of different links. However, it’s a case of give and take: it’s not enough to promote your own content – you should also comment on, like, share or re-tweet the contributions of other users. You can also integrate voting buttons on your website by using various social media plug-ins available in WordPress, to encourage your own readers to help disseminate your content across the social networks.
- Guest article
If you manage to arrange for a ‘guest article’ to be published on a well-known website or blog, you will not only get a lot of attention, but also a valuable backlink. And if you’re the owner of a smaller website, providing guest articles as an expert often helps your own site to be regarded as an authentic, user-friendly website with high-quality content. A good guest article will not only cover a complex topic in an expert way, but will explain complex concepts and information simply and vividly, offering added value for the operator of the host site. So make sure you do your research when writing guest articles: ensure you don’t repeat a topic that’s already been covered.
- Blog comments
Another way to build backlinks for your own website is to leave comments on other websites or blogs. Make sure you write something more in-depth than merely ‘great article’ in a blog’s comments: instead, take a few minutes to read the article you’re commenting on carefully and then comment directly on its content. This will make it more likely that your comment will be published and that you receive a backlink. Generally, most blog comments are set to NoFollow by default, but a decent NoFollow backlink is definitely better than no backlink at all…
- Provide a free download
Offering something for free is often a very effective way to secure backlinks: be it a comparison table, a checklist, an eBook or the like, free offers are often linked to by website owners for the benefit of their own users. Again, ensure you provide true added value and that your content is relevant to the subject of the website.
- Web directories
Simple, but effective when it comes to the subject of building backlinks, is linking to a high-quality directory, which contains thematically appropriate websites. With relatively little effort, you can have your website listed and receive a high-quality backlink in return.
- Interviews
Interviews are a welcome change of pace from most website content, and if your website is already well known, you’ll often receive a positive answer for any interview request. Depending on how well known the person doing the interview is, you could also receive backlinks from other websites among the host site’s readership, because website owners often link to interesting interviews. And of course, as the interviewee, you can also link to the interview and you can call another backlink your own.
- Contact the manufacturer
If you’re running an affiliate website that features detailed test reports or high-quality review content, it’s an especially good idea to contact manufacturers requesting that they link to your review or test report – manufacturers are often willing to link you as a reference for their product. this doesn’t mean that your review has to be 100% positive, either; manufacturers often prefer a credible test report which may include criticism or suggestions for improvement. However, a professional-looking website is a must if you’re hoping that your request is rewarded with a backlink. When you’re starting out, approach smaller or lesser-known manufacturers, as they’re most likely to grant your request.
- Link exchange
Another way to secure backlinks is via link exchange, in which you agree with another website operator to exchange a link. To avoid being penalised by search engines, you should never exchange links directly, because this will result in an unnatural link exchange. For example, website A should link to your website B and in return, you should link back to website A indirectly, from your thematically appropriate second or third website. By using this method, no direct link exchange has been established. A link exchange is a good way to secure a backlink, especially if you have more than one relevant website.
- Private links
Are there people in your circle of friends who run their own websites? Ask around; questions cost nothing and with a bit of luck, you may secure a backlink.
- Question portals
There are a number of well-established question-and-answer sites online, such as Quora, Ask and others. If your website specialises in a topic, you can be notified by these Q&A sites as soon as new questions about your topic are asked. Again, as with the blog comments we covered previously, write detailed and helpful answers – not just a short sentence. If you answer lots of questions over a longer period of time, your profile will gain authority and trust and you can begin to add links to your website to relevant questions.
- Self-linking
If you habitually create many links to other relevant sites on your own website, in order to provide your readers with information on a specific topic, you will usually get many backlinks in return, as the owners of the sites you link to will become aware of you.