If you want to have a successful website that features highly in search engine results for your niche or industry, you’ll need to take a closer look at backlinks.
Backlinks are links that come to your site from another site. This link (to Augiewildlife.com), for example, would be classed as a backlink to the Augiewildlife.com website.
Backlinks are used by search engines to work out how ‘good’ the site is: how much information it gives to readers, whether it’s trustworthy, and if it provides entertaining/informational/useful content.
They’re also useful to help search engines find new pages.
Lots of backlinks would suggest that a website is trustworthy and holds authority, making Google and other search engines believe that it is worth showing higher up in search results.
But there are a few rules that you’ll need to follow…
1 – DON’T buy backlinks
Click Here: Tips For A Great Link Building Campaign
Buying backlinks, either alone or as part of a ‘guest blogging’ package, is behavior that Google will penalize you for. You will struggle to rank highly in search results, or could be blacklisted from results completely.
Google specifically states:
“Buying links or participating in link schemes in order to manipulate PageRank is a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.”
Backlinks are more expensive than you’d think, too. Some websites/blogs can charge upwards of $500 or $1,000 for the addition of a link, or for a guest post that links to you. Most will charge between $50 to $500.
2 – DO create amazing, LINK-WORTHY content that people would naturally want to link to
Why Link Building Is Incredibly Important for SEO
Amazing content is content that gives an audience exactly what it is looking for: it answers questions, provides useful information, and hasn’t just been copied from another source. Creating informational, easy-to-read, entertaining, and unique content is the fastest way to get more readers, and also to get more backlinks.
Find a question that someone hasn’t answered yet, and then answer it.
Offer a suggestion to resolve a problem that you haven’t seen anywhere else.
Put together a full, in-depth guide that answers EVERY question a potential reader might have, but also add in a table of contents, plus bold sub-headings, so readers will have all of the answers in a format that makes each answer, individually, easy to find.
3 – DON’T ignore the importance of a blog
Niche SEO Is The New ‘IN’
While we’re on the subject of amazing content, you definitely shouldn’t ignore the importance of a blog. Posting on a blog consistently and regularly gives you a chance to create multiple amazing pieces of content, each of which could attract backlinks from other relevant sites.
Posting consistently and regularly doesn’t need to mean every day: you could blog once a week and still see huge results. Consistency is key.
4 – DO work with the local community
How to Find Local Link Building Opportunities
This applies to both the local community online, and in ‘real life’.
If you are a small, local business, your local community IS your job; the people around you are what keep you in business. Working with, and linking to/from, businesses that are local to you is one of the best ways to build links within both the ‘real life’ and online community.
If your community looks at you in a positive light, they will be more inclined to leave you with positive reviews online — and this applies to ‘regular’ customers as well as business customers. Those business customers probably have a website of their own, giving you the perfect opportunity to inter-link within your community.
5 – DON’T try to get as many backlinks as possible
Top Backlink Tips For Law Firm SEO: What To Know
Having lots of backlinks to your site is, obviously, a very good thing — and probably the target of your hard work; however, lots of backlinks only works in your favor when those links are high-quality and from relevant websites. If you get a high number of backlinks from domains that are considered undesirable by search engines, such as spam or blacklisted sites, you could find your site is penalized.
