Do you want organic traffic? Do you want to increase your organic traffic? Are you working hard to get referral traffic? Then you simply can not avoid this post. If you are a serious online marketer or pro blogger then you definitely know what exactly link building is. It is because most of the time your online marketing strategy is focused on link building technique and you do a lot of hard work to get backlinks from authority sites. Getting quality backlink is very crucial job to perform for a blogger or an online marketer. It is probably only task under off page optimization because for almost every activity under this off page SEO technique you earn a backlink in return.
Many bloggers actually do a lot of activities for link building as a part of off page SEO strategy (except internal link building). So let us discuss about link building, it’s importance and steps to get backlinks .
What is link building?
What do understand about link building? It is nothing but a long term process to gain links from pages of other domains to pages of your blog.
But is it a long term process? Yes it is, because getting a backlink through sharing your page on different social media, blog commenting, commenting on forums may be easy but it is really difficult to earn a backlink from a good website with higher domain authority. Such quality backlink has more impact on ranking in SERPs. There is difference between those two backlinks, where one you get from your activities (social media sharing, blog commenting etc) another is what you earn from authority website due to your hard work.
There is another way of link building what is absolutely under control of blog owner, it is internal link building which is nothing but interconnecting your web pages (within same domain) through hyperlinks. Many blog owners actually neglect this part of link building strategy which needs less effort and not dependent upon other’s response. But many blog owners take this method very seriously and concentrate on internal link building to get higher rank on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).
Any link tag whether it is an internal link or link to any other domain includes four parts in it’s structure. These are start of link tag, hyperlink reference, anchor text, close of link tag.
Domain Name – an example of normal internal link (once you click on above link it will send you to specific page of FavCounter) <a href=”https://www.favcounter.com/choose-best-domain-name-hunting”>Domain Name</a> <a href=”web page url”>anchor text</a> |
Here ‘a‘ indicates start of a link tag and ‘</a>‘ indicates closing of a link tag.
web page url is a web address where you want to send readers if they click on that anchor text.
Anchor text is a keyword or similar word of that keyword (or just a word) of the page where you want to send your readers once they click on that word.
Such internal link will help your website easy to navigate. It offers your readers more options for further reading and you increase page views of your blog.
How to choose best #domain name for your site? #Domainname hunting #blogging https://t.co/Txrlfa05as
— FavCounter (@Fav_Counter)February 13, 2017
Is link building important for your website?
If you have to invest time and effort in any task then you definitely want to know that it really important for you or not. If it is important then what are the benefits you will gain from that. These two questions will certainly come in your mind. RIGHT?
Now forget about your blog for sometime and take an example of a product what suppose you want to introduce in market. So how will you sell your product from your exclusive store when nobody knows about your product?
Firstly, you will offer sample items on various points of your locality to people (assume those are like internal link building, sharing on social media, blog commenting, forum commenting for blogger like you 🙂 ),
Secondly, you will make available your product in small local retail stores (assume those are like link exchange with other blogs, directory submission for blogger like you as it is relatively more difficult 🙂 ) and
Finally, you will try to convince big departmental stores to keep your product along with other big brands (assume those are like getting back link from authority websites for blogger like you 🙂 ).
Due to your all such activities people will start believing in your product and will visit directly to your exclusive store also (assume it is like Search Engines give you higher ranking on SERPs and you have started getting organic traffic 😀 )
So till this point you definitely can understand that link building is very important for your blog. But there are two aspects, one is internal link building and second one is, get backlinks from other authority websites, social media, blogs, forums etc. Impact of each back link is not equal. Sharing blog posts on social media has less effect on SEO but it gives you free referral traffic but a back link from authority website has high impact on SEO and improve page rank in SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).
5 benefits of backlinks from other websites
Referral Traffic : When you get a back-link from other blog, there is a possibility that somebody will click that link and will be landed on your page. This is what everybody can understand and you can call it as direct benefit of getting a backlink. Other benefits are indirect and for that you have to understand people behavior (for next three benefits) and also working functions of search engines (for below mentioned last benefit).
Reputation Building : We often ask our friends or relatives for feedback about a product (or service) what they are using. It is because we trust them and if they recommend something then automatically trust will build up on that product or service. This logic is also useful for a blog. Once a loyal reader of another blog is landed on your page after clicking a link on that page then same trust automatically will work on that reader’s mind for your blog also. He (or she) will definitely believe that your blog is worth to read and he will find something useful in your blog too.
Relationship Development : Developing relationship with other blog owners (through blog commenting etc) of your niche is always beneficial. It will enhance your knowledge and increase visibility of your blog. Your relationship will also be realized by readers of both blogs, they will start following both blogs and both blog owners will be mutually benefited. That is why many bloggers often get involved in link exchange (DoFollow links) activity to deepen their relationship..
Brand Recognition : When a person notices a poster of a new company at a popular mobile shop in his locality, next time he will definitely recognize that company associated with mobile. That is called brand recognition. Same way if you find a blog from popular blog on tour & travel then next time when you will hear about that new blog you will identify that blog something related to travel too. So a backlink from authority website of a particular niche helps reader to recognize your blog associated with that niche too. It also helps you to develop brand of your blog.
Improve Page Rank : This is ultimate goal of getting backlinks from other websites or authority blog of same niche. If a webpage earns some good quality back-links it indicates that webpage is worth to read and it has some useful content. Search engines prefer webpages with more back links. So it helps webpages to get higher page rank in SERPs.
How to get backlinks for your blog?
Getting backlinks to your blog is important but all those are not equally effective for your blog. Interesting thing is that it is as hard to get as much as it is effective. So if a back-link is worth for your blog then it is difficult to get also.
There are some ways to get backlinks based on there difficulty level (Easy, moderate and Difficult).
Easy |
- Sharing blog posts on Facebook page is most common task for every blogger. It does not have significant effect on your ranking but still most easy way to get backlinks to your blog and you will definitely get some free social media traffic as an immediate effect.
- Tweet your blog post regularly. Life of any tweet is very short, so tweet same blog post multiple times but not on same day. All twitter users are generally consumers and influential. It is an easy way to get some social traffic. So no harm in tweets. Tweet regularly and do fun.
- Share your post on Google Plus page. Create a brand page to get more traffic and it will look more professional. Google Plus is a great platform to get backlinks to your website and earn some social traffic.
- Stumble your web pages. StumbleUpon helps its users to find various contents of their interest. Most of StumbleUpon users love to read content in detailed. This unique social networking platform is best platform to reach a huge number of readers almost effortlessly. So stumble your webpages twice or even thrice. This is a smart way to get free traffic and a social backlink.
- Be redditor and submit link of your favorite blog posts on Reddit. It is another social platform for smart people. Share informative and relevant links here. Do not try to share link only from your blog as redditors are smart enough. So they can understand that you are only there for promoting your stuffs. In such case you will not get any traffic from there.
- Pin pictures of your blog regularly on Pinterest. Backlinks from social media is not effective for SEO point of view. So Pinning images from your blog will not have a significant effect for getting organic traffic but you can get good amount of referral traffic. But it will be wrong to say that social link has no role to play in SEO, still you can get benefited due to links from social media in longer run.
- Post some articles on LinkedIn and a link back to your blog. LinkedIn a social media platform for professionals, so not all niche bloggers can use it to get significant traffic but still one or two articles with a backlink to your blog will not harm you 🙂 .
- Comment on various blogs of your niche and attach links of your webpages. It is a smart way to interact with other bloggers, build reputation and leave your footprint on every blog from your blogging niche. But never forget to add some useful information, story from personal experience or your honest onion in your every comment. If you do not add any value to your comment then nobody will notice your comment, not only that even moderator can reject your comment to publish. So avoid casual comments, invest your time to write some good comment and build positive reputation among fellow bloggers and readers.
- Start commenting on different forums and attach links from your blog whenever there is an opportunity. This way you can get backlinks but those are mostly NoFollow links. There are some DoFolllow forums and those are very few in number. So put some effort to find out those. If you do blogging on webhosting services then try webhostingtalk.com etc. But finding a DoFollow forum in each niche is difficult and more difficult is, getting approval to publish a comment with backlink of your webpages.
- Be active on question and Answer website. This is like a forum but follow Q&A format. Your active involvement in such activities will help you to get backlinks from such forums and build reputation. It is again not a DoFollow backlink but still worth to have some to get some referral traffic and also effect in SEO in longer run.
Moderate |
- Internal Link building, it sounds very easy task to do as it is in your hand and you do not depend upon other’s response. But effective internal link building is very difficult and it needs proper planning from the beginning. Selection of your main keyword and similar other words for using as an anchor text is very important. It is nothing but a smart job to get backlinks to a webpage from other webpages of same domain. So it needs planning, time and proper execution to get benefit from internal link building.
- Submit your domain in blog communities. Blog community is an online platform for all bloggers to hang out ha ha. I mean it is a place where bloggers can build relationship with many other bloggers, share their content and also read others too. So you can do what others are doing and also offer your content to read. This is a nice platform for all bloggers to share their content and get backlinks along with some free referral traffic.
- Ask a known blogger to share your link. Once you started knowing other blog owners and started dropping emails on various issue. This is the best time to get some benefit for being socialite or building good personal relation with them. Just shoot another email and ask them for linking back to your domain from their domain. Just do some research about their post and find an opportunity to add link. Send them with such details. Notify them about the particular anchor text of a webpage from their domain and a list of some some webpages from your domain related to that anchor text. It is more easier than shoot an email to an unknown high authority blog owner. Here chances to get backlinks (DoFollow backlink) is more easier than other option.
- Be listed on popular blog directories in your niche. Blog directory is just a website where blog owners submit their website to get listed on that site according to niche, subject or type. This is relatively easy way to get backlink. It is really very difficult to get listed in some directories (Dmoz, Yahoo directories etc), otherwise you can easily get listed in any other popular directories.
- Share personal information, fun activities, short interesting stories of your life. Readers prefer all those things and other bloggers can add link of your webpages on their domain to share with their readers.
- Link exchange? Does it work? Why not? This is our practice since childhood, you give this then I will give that. Ha ha! It is another smart way to get backlinks. Logic is simple, if you are looking for some quality backlink then definitely somebody else is also looking for quality backlink. So approach each possible blog owner and ask for link exchange. I would recommend you to visit other blogs and check carefully to find a link exchange option. Send those blog owners with with all details like webpages of those domain, your webpages and anchor texts etc. If you blog is good enough and you can show your hard work by providing all details for link exchange opportunity then you will crack the deal.
- Share links within your own blogs. 😀 This is crazy but I do not think it as black hat technique at all. If it does not look spammy then you definitely can add links to your other blogs.
- Submit links of your webpages on other high authority social bookmarking websites. There are many other social bookmarking sites which can work excellently for your blog, so identify those for your blogging niche. Try some of those which are not mentioned above and observe their performance.
- Start offering professional service, create account on various online job portals (like freelancer.com) and add a link back to your website.
- Take interviews of other bloggers and add a link to those websites. In such cases bloggers whom you have taken interviews may link back to your blog. Generally they can add link to your blog on their press release, advertising offer page or about page. If they do not entertain your effort then you can request them gently.
Difficult |
- Guest blogging is not easy task, it needs continuous effort to pitch other bloggers, good writing skill, invest your valuable time in writing for others. Generally it is not a DoFollow link but still some bloggers add DoFollow links.
- Submit your blog on premium directories like Dmoz. It is really hard to get. So make your blog look professional, write so many excellent content and wait at-least one year to be your blog old enough 🙂 .
- Write something in detailed, well researched, well organized and useful, so that authority blog owners will get impressed and forced to give you a backlink in return. If you have wrote something really great and added value in your content then you will definitely get backlinks naturally.
- Write an honest and useful review of a product or service to draw attention of various potential customers. It will impress marketing people of such companies and they may share it on their official websites with a link to your webpage
- Write a blog post on controversial topic, controversial topic easily get viral and reaches to huge number of readers. It may reach to some blog owners who will like your blog post and may add a link to your blog post.
- Create your own WordPress plugin and make it public. Attach a link to your website. This is not possible for many people but if you have enough knowledge and have an idea to make a WordPress plugin then nobody can stop you to get backlinks from many websites who will install your plugin.
- Create a Wikipedia page and add a link to your website. It’s a big deal. Undoubtedly very difficult to create a Wikipedia page but if you are able to create one then you may definitely see an significant improvement in your organic traffic.
Checking Domain Authority of Wikipedia on moz.com - Start selling products on eCommerce site and add a link in seller profile or product description
- Broken link building technique is such a rigorous task that many blogger do not even want to try this. But it works very well. So if you badly need a backlink from a website with good domain authority then go for it. First you need to find broken links from some websites, then write some excellent blog posts related to those anchor texts whose links are broken. Then contact the blog owners and tell them about broken link. Contact at-least 10 to 12 bloggers, hopefully you will get some backlinks, if not then atleast one backlink you definitely deserve.
- Work for other website owners (outsourced works). Many bloggers are so popular that they are always under pressure. So they outsourced some tasks (or hire contractual people, ask for work from job, need part time assistance, attend sponsored tour etc). If you do some contractual or part time job for short period for them then you may get DoFollow backlink.
Conclusion
Link building is an important task for every blogger. It is not so easy and you can not do so in a short period. It takes time. Take care of your link building strategy from the very beginning. Gaining backlinks from irrelevant websites may effect your blog negatively. So earn backlinks from relevant websites with higher domain authority.
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