As was discussed in another article on this site, there will come a day when backlinks aren’t a part of the algorithm that search engines use (or they have diminished significance), but that day isn’t in the near future. For now, building genuine links is the best way a website can increase their SEO visibility. There are no tricks for building quality links, because any trick will be noticed by Google eventually and will become the source of a penalty. However, there are tips and strategies for content marketing that can help business owners get their linked. Here are four tips for a quality link-building strategies.
Write High-Quality Content
It’s best to start with the obvious. Search engines use backlinks as a metric in rankings because if people link to content that means they found it useful. If a business owner wants more people to link to their site, then they need to make the site more useful to the public. Blogs are an excellent example of how business owners can create content on their site that is linked to by others. Every business should be able to write a blog since they should be subject matter experts in what they do. Writing articles that answer consumer questions or address other needs means people will link to the content. There are other ways marketers can make their content more shareable, such as the suggestions listed in another article on this site.Social Media
As was discussed in a previous article, social media can be a powerful tool for SEO and link building. The benefit for link building is two-fold. First, the many social networks out there offer marketers numerous ways to distribute their content and build links. Search engines index the publically accessible parts of social media networks so if the link can be viewed on a public profile, then the link helps the site’s SEO. Second, and perhaps more importantly, social media can have a multiplier effect. If a fan sees an article and shares it what other people, it can start a chain that gives the content far more reach than relying on people to just stumble on the content through a search engine.Web Directories (Use with caution)
Directories can be dangerous for SEO but there is still room for some of them in an SEO strategy. For example, listing a business in a local directory is a good idea as is using a directory for a high-quality, niche-specific site. However, the days of a general directory site the exists primarily to boost the rankings of other sites is gone. Being attached to a directory that violates Google’s policy on link sharing can result in a penalty for a small business website. Marketers need to vett the directories they want to use very carefully. The main question marketers should ask is: “Do I really believe that consumers use this directory to search for websites, or am I just adding it for SEO?”Create an eBook
Creating an eBook is an effective way to build links, promote a business and its easier than it seems. While the idea of writing a book may seem daunting, it doesn’t have to be War and Peace. Writing the equivalent of a 10-page paper and turning it into an ebook would give the company a 20-page ebook that they could market on their site. By linking to the site in the book, marketers can drive traffic to the site and search engines track those clicks. Additionally, there would be links to the site on the channels where the ebook is distributed and these listing would be indexed by search engines.
There are a lot of tactics that business owners can use to boost their site’s backlinks without running afoul of Google and other search engines. Marketers can build links by creating original, high-quality content and distributing it often and strategically. For more tips on building a more profitable website, read this article on building a better landing page.