We’re living in a digital age with myriads of websites competing to rank on search engines. Rankings help increase credibility, footprint, leads, and conversions. Buying rankings by adding more links sounds like a simple tactic but that is passé.
Google now considers such activities as spamming, ever since it rolled out its Penguin update in 2012. So you may wonder, what strategies are you left with now? Does link building even matter in 2020? Absolutely yes, link building will always matter for as long as rankings matter. The only difference lies in the approach and strategies you use.
Creating content is not enough, you have to ensure that you have an effective link building strategy in place. Moreover, your content must always have inbound and outbound links. If your content is informative but devoid of any links, you’re only limiting your referral traffic and hindering your ranking potential.
Here are a few link building strategies that Google doesn’t consider as black hat and that can take your business to the next level.
6 Best Link Building Strategies To Use In 2020
1. Testimonials
This is one of the easiest ways to boost your link building. It’s simple and can get you powerful backlinks to the homepage of your site.
For this, you need to reach out to services or products you use and offer them your positive testimonials. For testimonials to seem more authentic, several sites link back to the reviewer’s website.
You can look for websites of products that have helped you and have your testimonial published with a link back to your site. There you go, it’s a win-win situation for both parties.
2. Social Media
You might already be aware of the importance of social media for your business. However, backlinks you get from social media are important too.
Most people consider backlinks from social media as trivial, since they are no-follow links. Nonetheless, these links are the most genuine links a business can have.
Ensure you add your homepage link in the bio, link your “About“ page in the description section, and add your site link in all your posts.
You can also use page buttons linking to your website on platforms like Google My Business. Furthermore, your image descriptions on sites like Pinterest and Facebook could include your website URLs too.
You can easily increase your overall rankings by using social media backlinks if done the right way. So, no matter what other techniques you use, don’t forget to include social media as part of your link-building strategy.
3. Guest Posting
Guest blogging has been around for a long time, however, it is not as simple as it used to be. Several sites have upped their game to meet the current trends of requesting payment to publish posts.
And it’s pretty tough to find a site with a decent DA that allows you to insert a do-follow link for anything less than $150, in any niche.
However, try not to lose hope. Try doing some research to actually reach out to the right prospects. Use tools such as Moz and SpyFu for competitor analysis. Once you find sites with high domain authorities, approach them in a less spammy manner.
Try to build relationships with the people you reach out to. Create high-quality content for them with the right amount of links to your site. Remember not to overdo it.
Guest posting is not a completely white hat technique, as Google has always objected to posting your links on other sites in this manner. In fact, John Mueller has warned bloggers of do-follow backlinks via guest posts.
Thus, the more evolved way to go about guest posting includes no-follow links with an informative piece of content that garners direct attention to your brand.
4. Internal Linking
Internal linking is the easiest and most successful link building strategy you could ever implement. This is the primary reason why maintaining a blog is significant to your long-term success with search engines.
Wikipedia is the best example of the most effective internal link building strategy. They don’t run any SEO campaigns or use any other link building techniques. But they’ve created a strong internal web of links with all the information you need to find, without leaving their site.
You can try cross-linking your blogs on your site in a similar manner.
Niel Patel’s guide on internal linking helps you understand this better. He explains how creating consistent content that links to older articles, makes it easier for Google to crawl your site.
Moreover, internal linking helps Google consider your site as the most relevant for a specific topic, increasing your chances of ranking. Internal linking is a no-cost link building strategy that both old and new sites can leverage.
5. Interview Experts In Your Niche
Writing high-quality content is key to ranking. A quality blog must add enough value to be sharable. Thus, it needs to be informative and in-depth with citations, quotes, examples, and lists.
It’s implausible to think up new ideas for content regularly and to gain different perspectives on topics already covered by others. Here’s when interviewing experts in your space could take you a long way.
You first need to find top professionals in your niche and then reach out to them. Most of them would be busy to respond. However, ask them for their time to be interviewed and they wouldn’t deny. Ask them relevant questions based on what you think your users would want to know.
Then go ahead and put together all the information you’ve gathered from these experts. Quoting them and linking to them in your blog will, in turn, get them to want to share your published blog with their contacts.
If you’re lucky, they may even refer back to your blog post in their own content. It’s as simple as that.
6. Link Roundups
Much like the above pointer of interviewing experts and curating content with their opinions, this includes you being an expert contributing to other sites.
Link roundups are blog posts that feature links to other blog posts. These roundups take place on a weekly or monthly basis.
This is not only a high-quality link building strategy but also serves as great marketing for your personal brand.
All you need to do is find sites that host roundups. You can find these for every niche out there by simply searching “keyword + link roundup”. Once you find a relevant site for your topic, get hold of their contact details and approach them with your pitch.
Ensure you pitch high-quality content that adds value to the roundup or you won’t get in. Contributing to a roundup not only helps you with a link but targeted traffic as well.
Conclusion
Link building can be done in several ways, however, beware of the black hat techniques. Google prohibits these and you will be penalized for having practiced them.
You can save yourself from a lot of trouble by keeping an eye out for the latest Google updates.
Try following the aforementioned link-building strategies to grow your business. You could also get help from companies that specialize in SEO services in NJ if you need more guidance in implementing these strategies.
Final Tip: Keep your content informative, optimized, easy-to-read, and inclusive of inbound and outbound links. Work with high-quality domains and continually upgrade your content and link building approach.