Get Great Links: Your Guide to Better Link Acquisition

Every website owner wants to be at the top of Google. The problem is, it’s harder than ever to get the top position.

Even though content pays more of a part in ranking your website, getting backlinks is still essential to maximizing your chance for rankings. Studies found that backlinks were the most significant factor for sites that ranked the highest.

The problem is that it isn’t easy to find great links. Keep reading to learn seven strategies you can use to build backlinks to your website.

1. Find Broken Resource Links

Webmasters love to link out to resources their visitors can use. Unfortunately, those links can break over time. This will happen when the website being linked to goes under and disappears.

Your goal should be to find websites that have resource pages that have these broken links. Use the internet archive to figure out what content was on the domain that disappeared and try to come up with a version of your own.

Once you have your new content, reach out to the webmaster with broken resource links, and let them know about the problem. You have a replacement for them to link to, so ask if they are willing to replace their broken link with one to your website.

2. Look for Guest Posts

There are many sites out there that don’t write their content on their own. They rely on writers who want to gain visibility for themselves and their websites. These kinds of posts are known as guest posts.

Search other websites in your industry. Your search should include terms like “write for us” and “guest post.” Your results will give you a list of sites that are looking for writers.

Most sites have a pitch process. You need to come up with a blog idea that will give their readers valuable information. If you can give them great content, you can get a link back to your website for your efforts.

3. Find Mentions of your Business

A lack of backlinks doesn’t mean people aren’t talking about your business online. It only means that they aren’t linking to your website when they mention your company.

Search for yourself on Google to figure out who is talking about you. If someone talks about your business and doesn’t provide a link, reach out to see if they can add your website link to their content.

You can also use Google Alerts to get notifications whenever the name of your website appears online. Doing this will remove the manual work of keeping track of the people talking about your site.

4. Write Sharable Content

Are you looking for a way to grab links without doing all the outreach?

You need to have fantastic content if you go down this path. The good news is that anyone can do it if you are capable of creating the best resource on the internet about a subject.

This process is known as creating skyscraper content. Your goal is to find topics on the internet that doesn’t have useful resources. You want to create a blog post that surpasses everything else out there.

You can start reaching out to other websites once you create your content. They will send you links if it’s good enough.

As time goes on and your content starts picking up rankings, other sites will start linking on their own.

Of course, it takes a lot of work to find underdeveloped resources. Your SEO company can help you figure out the best topics to target with your writing efforts.

5. Monitor Your Competitors

You don’t have to do all the link prospecting work yourself. Your competitors are out there getting links for themselves.

You can see what tactics they are using and replicate it yourself.

You can use a backlink monitoring tool to see who is linking to your competitor’s websites. One of the most popular tools out there is Ahrefs. It will tell you the link profile and ranking information for any website out there.

Sort your results by the most recent link acquisitions to figure out the newest links for a website. See if there is anything you can do to get a link on the same sites.

6. Talk to Journalists

Do you have a story to tell? There is likely a journalist out there that wants to listen.

Reporters are always looking for sources to contribute to their stories. If you can give them valuable information, you can get a link back to your website as a contributor.

Luckily, there are sites out there that match reporters with contributors. One of the biggest out there is HARO.

It’s a marketplace that gives reporters a place to post requests for information. Look through their listings often to see if you have information that’s worth reporting.

7. Link to Other Websites

It might sound counter-productive to link to a website that you’re competing with. However, working together with people can help both websites benefit in the future.

If you find a resource on another website that is valuable for your visitors, make sure you post about it on your site. Once you do, send an email over to the owner of the other website telling them about it.

Doing this allows you to start a beneficial relationship with other people in your industry. If you are on good terms with others, you can find ways to work together that benefits both of you.

They might even give you a link in return.

Don’t Underestimate the Value of Great Links

You can’t always rely on great content to rank on Google. Make sure you put in the work to get great links for your website. If you keep a steady supply of high-powered links coming in, then you can expect your rankings to go up in the future.

Once you start seeing the results of your link building, you can start working on converting more of your visitors to customers. Head back to our blog to learn how you can optimize your site for more sales.

Adam Hansen
 

Adam is a part time journalist, entrepreneur, investor and father.