Backlinks are simply the word given to when someone else’s website has a link to your website. They’re important to have as google looks to serve its users with useful content. Simply if you have lots of links, google thinks that the content is beneficial and will then start to return your page in peoples search results. building backlinks should be part of your search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy.

No. There’s a difference in the quality of backlinks you can get, and it’s important to try and get as many high-quality links as possible. The higher the quality of the backlink, the better it is for your website.

There are a few things that make a backlink high-quality, such as the following:

– The website linking to you is of high authority (has lots of links from other high-quality websites)

– The link is relevant to your content

– The link is from a source with good Domain Authority (DA)

What’s Domain Authority?

Domain Authority is a metric that was developed by a company called Moz that helps you visualise the performance of your website. The higher the DA the better.

It is important to know that Search Engines do use DA as a ranking factor, but the higher your DA the better you will show up in search results. You can check the DA of a website by using Moz’s free tool https://moz.com/domain-analysis

There are a number of ways you can go about getting backlinks, but some methods are better than others.

The best way to get high-quality backlinks is by creating content that is so good that people will want to link to it from their own website. This means spending time on your research, making sure your writing is of the highest quality and then promoting it.

Competitor Research

A good way to start it is to look at your competitors. Have a look at what links they have to their website and from where using an SEO tool. They’ll be industry-specific companies that you can reach out to to see if you can get a to your website from theirs. Why reinvent the wheel?

Guest Blogging

Blogging is a really great way to get high-quality backlinks. Reach out to other bloggers in your niche and offer to write a guest blog post for them. In return, they’ll likely give you a link back to your website from their blog post.

You can also do this by commenting on blogs that are related to your industry. When you leave a comment, make sure you include a link to your website. If you don’t want to write a blog yourself, you can buy in guest blogging services typically they start at £99 upwards depending on the DA the blogger has access to, I’d always recommend doing it yourself though.

Press Releases/Journalist outreach

If you have some big newsworthy news, why not release a press release? This is a great way to get links from high-quality websites. Just make sure your content is newsworthy and interesting enough for people to want to read it. News sites usually have a high DA and a decent amount of traffic.

Journalists are always looking for content created by industry experts, the best place to start looking for these opportunities is on Twitter. When you get in an article the journalist it has two beneficial effects. People will see you’re an industry expert and therefore more likely to come to you and the article will usually pop a link to your website and a short bio about you.

Business Directories

There are loads of free directories you can get your site listed on, most have further paid ways to add more links but you don’t have to if you are on a budget.

Make sure you fill out as much information as possible and use the same keywords in your title, description and business categories.

If you want to pay to make sure they add a link you could be looking at anything from £5 per month up to £100 a month.

Social Media

Social media can be a great way to get backlinks, but only if you’re using it correctly. Instead of just sharing your own content all the time, share other people’s content too. When you do this, they will be more likely to share your content and give you a backlink.

When you share somebody else’s content make sure you use the following:

– @their_username – so they get notified

– #keyword – so it shows up in Twitter’s search results

– Retweet – so other people can see it

– Comment – to add your thoughts and start a discussion

Infographics

If you’re good at creating infographics, this could be a great way to get backlinks. Reach out to websites in your niche and offer them to publish your infographic on their website. In return, they’ll likely give you a link back to your website.

Ready to get started?

We always get asked about a few quick wins so I’ve rounded up sites below to get you going on the right track:-

Google Business Profile

Google Business profile (formally Google My Business) is a great way to get started. This will allow you to shop up in maps results (local SEO) when some one searches for you or a phrase such as ‘plumbers near me’. The great thing about Google Business Profile is that you can collect reviews, add photo’s, offers that appear directly in the search. Best of all, it’s completely free. I wrote a guide that explains in a bit more detail.

You can sign up here: https://www.google.com/business/

Thomson Local

Remember the old blue Thomson phone book? Well, it’s now online. The site has a reasonable DA, again fill out the free business profile with all your keywords. You have to pay for the backlink but it’s only £12.00 per year so won’t break the bank.

You can sign up here: https://www.thomsonlocal.com/product/freelisting

Yell

Yell is also another phone book provider that’s now online. Yell offers lots of free tools through their business listings.

You can sign up here: https://www.yell.com/sign-up/

Other directories

Conclusion

Backlinks are one of the key factors in an SEO strategy and are essential for getting your website ranked higher on Google. There are lots of different ways to get backlinks, but the best way is to create high-quality content that people will want to share.

We offer a completely done for you SEO service where we’ll build a strategy and backlinks for you. Or you could opt for our SEO platform that breaks down SEO tasks in easy to manage chunks – learn more

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