Love it or hate it, but backlinks still maintain a stronghold as one of Google’s core ranking factors. Alongside content and Rankbrain, search systems use links to signal the website’s credibility to ramp up its positions.
This means that marketers (if they are worth their salt) are dying to establish a solid link-building strategy and remain in Google’s good graces.
Behind the Beast
Essentially, backlinks are links from a page on one website to another. The formula is simple: if someone references your site, you get an inbound link from them. If you mention another platform, then they have a backlink from your platform. The more inbound links you gather, the more credibility points you get from other website owners. The more credibility points you fetch, the higher your credit is in the eyes of the mighty Google. This increased authority reaps major benefits like increased brand awareness and boosted organic traffic.
However, not all links can work wonders and flick your website to surface the first. If you join the dark side and holster up secret weapons, you’ll likely end up in the cheap seats on Google. So you’d better choose your methods wisely and use proven techniques.
The high-quality inbound links can elevate your SEO strategy. But how to figure your way out through a billion ways to get proper backlinks? And what is your starting point for getting do-follow links?
10 SEO Link Building Methods for 2020-2021
Buy quality links
Don’t jump to conclusions. We are well aware that it’s a slippery SEO slope in 2020. But let’s face the truth: buying backlinks is a thing many people still do but don’t talk about. It is still the quickest way to enrich your backlink profile and get the extra revenue generated by good rankings. Besides, not all paid links are created equal. Inbound links obtained from cheap Fiverr gigs or other low-cost markets do have a high chance of shattering your rankings and murder your friendship with Google, so resorting to the best SEO companies is the move to make to ensure that your rankings are built with quality.
However, when you liaise with an experienced SEO consultant or professional backlink service like Linksmanagement, your inbound links come from relevant web pages with top-quality domains. Links from LinksManagement give you a tenfold increase in rankings since all links are hand-picked and embedded in your content.
Resource Link Building
If you are ready for some work, resource link building is another effective method to whip your SEO into shape. This method essentially refers to the practice of building links from platforms that have cherry-picked lists of links to resource websites.
To cream off benefits, you need to specify the value you can drive to the readers. After that, you need to create or reach out to niche-specific resource pages and fetch a couple of quality backlinks from suitable authorities.
You can search for relevant resource pages via Google search operators. In case you’ve never heard of them before, these are basically advanced search modifiers that narrow down your search.
So, let’s say that you own a design-related website: You’d go to the search system and type something like design inurl:resources intitle:resources. And voila! Enjoy a curated list of the best design resources handpicked from the web.
Broken Link Building
This is another tactic that keeps its foot down in 2020-2021. This method boils down to finding non-functioning external links and recreating the lost content. If you are able to find 404 pages and offer another piece of content that features the same topic, people will be queuing to get an alternative replacement.
This method is a win-win situation since nobody benefits from broken links, and you exchange great content for a free inbound link. This will help you to build some excellent links very fast.
Convert Unlinked Brand Mentions Into Links
Whether it’s a mass media coverage or a product review featured on a local radio station, sometimes published sites do not link back to your brand website.
Although Google takes stock of unlinked brand mentions, you get far more SEO-benefits by turning these citings into actual links.
Besides, with such mentions, you’re already getting closer to increasing your rankings. All you have to do is to contact the site owners and ask them to turn that reference into a link. You can find such mentions by using the SEMrush Brand Monitoring Tool or Content Explorer by Ahrefs.
Make Use of Business Association Membership
If you are a part of any business association, you automatically get an excellent opportunity to improve your online exposure. Start by curating a list of all associations you participate in. After that, go to their ‘Members’ section and make sure your company is listed there. If not, contact a person in charge and ask how to get included in the section. You can also leverage this tactic and search for local organizations that offer a mention in their ‘Members’ page as part of their membership.
Listicles
‘Best of’ or ‘Top..’ List posts, also known as listicles, are a super-effective form of ‘ego bait.’ A list post is a surefire method to showcase your services and products to your target consumers. Today, the Internet is overloaded with best-of lists that are likely to get more comments, social shares, and, most importantly, backlinks.
You have probably come across popular listicles in your industry that link back to your competitors but may not feature you. You can either reach out to the website owners to include your link or generate more backlinks by creating your own list post. Just make sure that you are delivering value and not just fudging vague and hard to understand lists.
Link Gap Analysis
An SEO link gap analysis is the quickest way to hunt for natural links based on competitor analysis. In theory and practice, if the platform references your competitors, it has already shown interest in the niche. All you have to do is win their attention by proving that your resource is head and shoulders above your rivals.
With a plethora of handy tools available, it shouldn’t be too hard to run the analysis. Backlink Gap allows you to enter up to five domains, and you can see the domains that feature your competitors.
Execute The Skyscraper Technique
It’s in human nature to be attracted to the best. The skyscraper technique takes advantage of this trait and helps your backlinks shoot up like a rocket. In practice, this SEO method breaks down into the following steps:
Step 1: Find shareworthy content.
Step 2: Create an even better piece.
Step 3: Get in touch with the platforms that mention the original piece and ask to swap the link for your superior content.
Unlike broken link building or digital PR, this technique is scalable and is not limited by a number of sites and mentions. Also, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to garner attention and links. All you have to do is to deliver an in-depth pitch-perfect copy.
Harness Digital PR
Digital PR and SEO go hand in hand like peanut butter and jam. Promoting your brand in an online publication can help your business grow credibility and establish trust in a particular sector.
When we hear the word ‘PR,’ we tend to think of local papers or glossy magazines. While print publications are still a thing, most marketers had to shift their gaze towards digital PR. Digital PR is not only an effective strategy to amplify your online presence, but it’s also an easy way to get more backlinks. Okay, it’s not easy to gain top-tier links from reputable websites and online publications, but it’s surely worth it.
Create or Get Featured Roundup Posts
Put simply; a roundup post is a compilation of expert answers to a particular question. Roundups help you skyrocket your traffic to high heavens and get a reference. These compilations are likable for readers because they get aggregate expert opinions in one place. The post also ramps up traffic because many of the experts will share your post with their audiences.
This is an excellent chance to establish bridges with the niche experts since you’ll have to reach out to them anyway. Roundup posts take a while to create, but the benefits you’ll reap will offset the efforts.
The Bottom Line
You can’t hide from the fact that backlinks remain one of Google’s favorites and that it is unlikely to fade away soon. The need to master this art and implement quality links is essential if you will make an appearance on the competing landscape.
As you can see, backlinking is part art, part science. Beyond digital PR and link gap analysis, there are other proven ways to fetch some juicy links and score your covet position with the search systems. If you don’t have the time or diligence to get into the nitty-gritty of this technique, you can always hire a professional agency like Linksmanagement to maximize the power of backlinks. The service will bring essential experience to the table and reinvigorate your website.