When it comes to doing link building in SEO, there are several strategies and tactics available. The trouble most people have is implementing the right link building techniques that makes a high-impact on their organic search rankings. It is even more challenging for people to execute effective white hat link building that can be scaled effectively. We want to help you take out the guesswork and implement link building strategies that will actually make your website rank on the first page of Google, just like the pros in the industry.
Here are 10 white hat ways to earn links that you can start implementing in your SEO campaign and that should help boost your website’s SEO ranking performance.
1. Guest Blog on Authoritative Sites in Your Industry
Guest blogging on authoritative sites yields links, web traffic and credibility. By contributing content to authoritative websites in your niche, your site can earn qualified web traffic, enquiries and citation links. Posts on these high traffic websites can easily expose your content to relevant audiences who may share your post and even link to your website. You can use the following link building guide to identify authority sites in your niche and then pitch to contribute posts to their site.
2. Earn Mentions from Thought Leadership
This method is a favourite of Rand Fishkin, the founder of Moz. Thought leadership positions you and your web business as the experts in your niche. Because you deliver valuable and insightful information, people will want to link to your content naturally. Rand has successfully done this in the following ways.
Hosting online hangouts, such as his famous ‘Whiteboard Fridays’.
3. Get Featured on Link Roundup Pages
This is one of the favourite methods from Backlinko’s Brian Dean. Many high authority websites in your niche should have a web page dedicated to resource links. These types of pages are usually established and have Page Authority that can be filtered through to your site fairly quickly. There may even be opportunities for new link pages, which should also gain authority fairly quickly. The types of pages you should look out for include:
Useful links pages
Roundup pages
Expert roundups
Newsletter articles
Bulletin articles
Resource pages
The ‘Best of’ pages
List pages
4. Submit Testimonials
This tactic is under utilised, but can earn your site a valuable link from an authority website. It is likely that your business is using products or services from another business. If you are happy with your relationship, then forward them a testimonial that they can use on their website. Many site owners publish their testimonials on their product pages, home page or a dedicated testimonial page that will usually have a high page authority. Simply send an email with your endorsement of their products or services to see if they are happy to publish the testimonial on their website.
5. Conduct Backlink Searches of Similar Businesses in Another Geographical Market
If your business only operates in one geographical market like Australia, conduct a backlink audit of similar websites in other English speaking markets such as the United Kingdom, United States, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa. Conduct a keyword search on Google in those markets to find the sites that rank for those keywords. Then place those keywords into a tool like Moz’s Open Site Explorer, Majestic or Ahrefs to collect a list of websites that you can try to secure links from.
6. Invite Influencers from Your Niche to Post on Your Website
Peter Attia from Pingboard believes that one of the best ways to expose your web content to your relevant audience is to partner with an existing influencer in your niche. By inviting influencers to publish content on your website, it is easier to build up a blog following since the content will be exposed to their existing audience. It is much more efficient to generate web traffic and exposure. It will also create more opportunities for your website’s content to be exposed on their website and social media channels.
roundup
7. Feature Other Influencers on Your Website
Alternatively, you could publish content that features influencers and share the content with them once it is published. You might reference their website, work or activities. Or you could get in touch with them beforehand and ask them to contribute a quote that you can feature in your content. When the post goes live, you can then share it with them and they might share the content with their followers and on their website.
8. Build Backlinks to Your Existing Backlinks
The backlinks that are pointing to your website should pass on as much authority as possible. If the linking web page provides valuable content, it is worth building up the authority from that linking web page so it will pass on more authority to your website. Some simple ways to achieve this include:
Sharing web pages that your site has been featured on to social websites such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Google+ and LinkedIn.
Sharing content that features your website in guest blog posts.
Sharing content that features your content in web discussions.
9. Reach out to Educational Institutions with Incentives
Getting links from educational institutions such as schools, universities and colleges doesn’t need to be difficult. Some of the ways you can acquire links include:
Providing the educational institution with a success story about their former student.
Providing benefits to graduates and alumni. (For example, discounts on products or services offered by your business)
Providing the educational institution with excellence rewards.
Featuring students or staff from the educational institution on your website in a story and getting it shared on their website.
Offering the educational institution scholarships for their students.
10. Publish YouTube videos
YouTube has over 1 billion searches a day on its platform. Publishing videos is a great way to get in front of your target audience. It is usually easier to rank videos on YouTube and to have them appear alongside other videos as recommendations.
By publishing videos on YouTube, you can acquire links in the following ways.
Linking your website in your channel profile. (This link will be no followed)
Linking your website in the video description. (This will be no followed)
The video gets shared onto another website or web platform. (The link that is shared can be followed or no followed at the discretion of the web editor.)
If people start commenting on your video, it will get shared on Google + and can potentially create more content baited links for your website.
There are several ways to build authoritative links naturally. These ten are just scratching the surface of link building activities that can be implemented in your SEO campaign. I’d love you to share some of your favourite link building methods.
Nathan is the branch manager at Digital Next, a full-service digital agency based in South Melbourne specialising in responsive Web design, SEO, PPC and social media marketing. He's a passionate digital marketer specialising in business development and long-term strategy, with experience from a multitude of SEO disciplines combined into a role which supports and progresses online businesses.
