Having a presence online requires hard work and dedication. At this point, you’ve probably already done the basics of SEO and finding your niche for keyword phrases. However, this can only get you so far. While increasing SEO is great to start forming a path in the digital world, you also need the internet to do the work for you. One of the best ways to get this done is through link-building. You’ve probably read countless articles on backlinking and buying links on other sites, but Google has put a stop to this because it was producing false marketing and low-quality content.
Also, buying links doesn’t guarantee traffic to your site. It’s important to know that no service can guarantee backlinks no matter how much they charge or how many good reviews they have. Link-building needs to start with a solid foundation and then build up from there. Here are five link-building tactics that can genuinely help you build an online presence.
1 – Quality Content
One of the first link-building tactics is to write quality content. You’ve already done the preliminary research of keyword phrases, now it’s time to build your foundation. That foundation is quality content. You need to make sure your website is user-friendly, accessible, has all the keywords you researched and is aesthetically pleasing.
Another way to create quality content is to create a blog. Make sure that the blog links back to your website. This is a natural way to backlink without having to contact anyone else, yet. Build a platform that you can later advertise to people so that they can include you in their backlinks.
2 – Research
Another important link-building tactic is more research. You’ve already researched keywords and keyword phrases and you’ve been incorporating those in all the quality content you write and have splashed it all over your website. However, this isn’t the type of research you need to do for link-building. Now you need to figure who your competitors are, what they’re doing well, and what they’re not doing well. You need to not only emulate them but also make your content better and you need to learn from their mistakes and avoid making them.
The easiest way to figure out who your competitors are is to insert your keyword phrases in Google and look at the top ten results. Analyze what they’re doing, figure out if they’re being promoted on other sites, check the average word counts and reverse engineer their marketing strategy. You can also use Spyfu for this type of research. It will provide a detailed analysis of how they’ve been doing over time and what keyword phrases they’ve been using. Spyfu also lets you know what the competition’s ads look like.
Another important concept to research is to identify where competitor A is but B isn’t, where all the competitors are, and where none of the competitors are. From there, it’s important to organize where you can obtain value and begin your outreach strategy.
3 – Outreach
Now that you’ve built quality content and have done your research, outreach is probably one of the most time-consuming link-building tactics. There are several different people you need to contact: companies with similar content, bloggers, and people already promoting your type of product or service. Contacting companies with like content can help both parties by increase traffic and sharing information. The idea is that not everyone is your competition. There are times where you can work with someone to increase link-building.
4 – Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is a type of outreach strategy in which you contact other websites so that they may feature one of your writing pieces. If you’ve been building quality content, they’ll most likely give you a spot. Google has become increasingly strict with the type of content on guest blogs and ensures that there’s no false advertising. This is why it’s important to build a quality foundation first and then start reaching out to have your content featured.
5 – Be on a List
Many bloggers, news websites, and e-magazines feature lists. They are easy to read, get the point across, and quickly give the audience what they’re looking for. As part of your link-building tactics, researching doesn’t ever stop. Looking for lists and what bloggers are writing about in your field is another big part of researching. Once you figure out who is writing what list and when, call them and offer a demo or sample to prove that you’re better than the people on their short list. And since you’ve done the groundwork for building a solid platform for your company or product, they’ll believe that you have a good idea or product.
There are no easy link-building tactics. Each of these tactics is time-consuming and require patience. If you’ve built a solid foundation of quality content and useful research, then the rest will eventually fall into place. It’s important to remember that your competitors have either been doing this for a while or have a large marketing team. This doesn’t mean you should give up, this just means you need to take it slow and steady and incorporate these link-building tactics.