What are backlinks and why are they important?
While backlinks are some of the most effective ways to generate interest in your site, creating them can be a time-consuming process. A deliberate strategy must be employed for you to properly find and insert backlinks that are right for your website.
Understanding what they are and why they work will help you focus on getting the best ones for your site. So what are backlinks? This is when another site links to your website somewhere in their content. It could be anywhere on their site from the service page, product page, or even in their blog. Backlinks are a vital part of search engine optimisation and digital marketing if they are high quality that is matched by the overall quality of your site.
What follows are some of the best practices available to generate and locate backlinks for your site.
Highlight Content that You Share
If you have products, services, or use information from other sites, be sure to provide your own backlinks in recognition of what you have done. By giving a shoutout to products, information, or services that help make your life easier, you may generate the same by those who have helped you along the way. So, start by highlighting the content on your site that you share.
Create Content That Can Be Shared
This may sound like simple advice, but it is true that content that can be shared often will be assuming the quality is high and the subject is of interest. By creating content that can be shared, such as an infographic, blog post, or eBook, you should distribute it with a call-to-action or CTA that allows people to share it as they see fit.
You can use social media sites such as Pinterest to help create backlinks in this regard as well. For those who find your work of interest, they may create a backlink that when posting that content on one of their pages. Start by using your social media sites to help create more backlinks through sharable content.
Be a Thoughtful Guest
One of the simplest and best ways to generate backlinks of good quality is by creating guest posts for blogs you enjoy. It will need to be an interesting, informative, and well-researched guest post. In other words, something that a blog or website will be proud to have on their site.
However, by doing that you will have generated a good reputation that will help serve you by generating backlinks that boost your search results. If you want to have backlinks generated, start by working for others by creating guest posts.
Allowing Others to Credit Their Work on Your Behalf
People simply like showing off their work, especially when it helps them garner new business. Quite often such portfolios will have a backlink to sites like yours for viewers to review the work of a service provider. Backlinking helps businesses who have helped one site to be helped themselves. The result is that your site is now more likely to appear higher in search results.
Take Advantage of Who You Know
The old saying, “it’s not what you know but who you know that counts” is certainly true when it comes to generating good backlinks. Networking is crucial to the success of any business, whether it is online or not. By networking within your own industry or community, you will have the opportunity to share your content with others.
And in return, you will have the opportunity to have backlinks created for your work. Start small and work your way up when you first start networking. The dividends will be impressive if you work at it day-by-day.
Collaborate
This is a popular method of backlinks that is only growing on the internet. Collaborate with others on projects that work to your mutual benefit. For example, you can create a podcast that highlights what you offer in your industry. However, if you bring aboard a competitor or perhaps an influencer in your industry on your podcast, you have just created a collaboration that works for both of your benefits.
Find ways to engage in collaborative efforts when it works to you advantage. Remember that your competition is looking for ways to increase their market share as well, so why not work together when both of you can reap the rewards?
Shared Content
In addition to working within those in your industry or niche, you can also conduct interviews or be interviewed. Interviews are a great way to provide valuable information while still keeping your audience on the subject. If you cannot find a podcast partner or want to diversify your programming, consider conducting interviews or having them conducted with you.
And finally, you should stick to your own industry or niche when creating ideas for backlinks. Backlinks only work when they can attract those who are looking for your products, services, or information. There is no need to create backlinks when they are not going to generate the results that you want.