It’s no secret that link building is essential to the success of organic ranking. If you want to improve your positioning in the search engines, you need quality backlinks.
Your blog or website will not be in the top 10 of Google search result unless you have “quality” links. Links are one of the most important factors in today’s SEO strategies. The topmost ranking contents on each search results page usually have several links pointing back to them.
These links define the pages which Google considers as authoritative and powerful. Google will regard a page with 1,000 links less than the page with 100,000 links pointing to it (even if they are of similar quality), and that’s where the problem is.
So, how do you get quality links when more than half of the collaborating requests you receive are asking for links instead? It seems almost impossible to join and win the link building war. In fact, many of the marketers around have stopped doing link building campaigns because they feel it is “insulting” or “disrespectful.”
However, you need these links if you want to increase your organic traffic.
Your link building should, therefore, remain a priority. Fortunately, there are ways to run campaigns to get backlinks that will produce results. Here are a few link building tips that still work for 2018.
5 Simple Link Building Tips That Will Carry Forward in 2018
Request for a Backlink
This is a good start, especially if you are just starting the daunting task of link building. Just think about your relatives, blogger friends, colleagues, partners, customers who have a blog or website in a similar industry or niche. All you need to do is make a simple request for a backlink. Request links in the content rather than links in the sidebar or side footer. Google prefers in-content links.
You must ensure that these backlinks are coming from websites which are relevant to your website otherwise, they will have next to zero impact and might even be harmful to your site.
Build Relationships in Your Niche
You have to build good relationships with a good link building campaign. There are many ways to get new contacts and people who will potentially link to you. You might start with communities related to your niche. Find forums, social groups, blogs, and use social media groups (maybe on Facebook).
Take steps to contribute interesting and relevant comments. Make publications or posts that add value to every discussion.
When you actively participate in these niche-oriented online communities, you not only get good backlinks but you always also have access to the latest industry news and interact with interesting people who share your passion.
Guest Blogging
Writing guest posts is one of the best ways to push traffic to your website, especially when it is relevant and industry-specific. It affords you the opportunity to project yourself as one of the industry experts and a great thought leader.
To make posts on your blog is great, however publishing as a guest on other websites which already have lots of fans is a great and easy way to attract such traffic that you would not otherwise have had access to.
Many pro webmasters do this. They became authority figures in their industries by sharing their knowledge. It is literally free promotion. All you need do is, write a good article for publication as a guest post. In exchange for the work done, you will receive valuable links. The important thing is to only write guests posts for high quality and high profile blogs or sites. Do not waste time writing guest posts for sites without authority. You’d be better posting on your blog.
Leverage Broken Links
Leveraging on broken links has been for a while now. It’s an old technique which still works.
The system has existed for many years, and most definitely it still works even in 2018. It is an idea that’s quite simple. You visit a popular blog in your industry. Browse through and scan the pages for broken links. If you find one, you can then send an email to the blogger in charge of the site to inform him that his site or certain post has a broken link.
Then in the email, you can input a link to your blog posts to replace the broken link. You can write something like: “I noticed that the X-Link is broken, I have an article (or a post) on this topic that you can replace it with.” You obviously shouldn’t be aggressive while you do this. But that is the basic thing to do.
So how do you get this? You might use SEO Profiler, Open Site Explorer or even Ahrefs to get sites with broken links. These resources are very useful for scanning a web page for broken links quickly. Visit and crawl blogs in your industry to get opportunities.
For the email to send out, here is a simple demo:
Hello, __,
I read your X post and discovered or found that the X-Link did not work.
I loved the article, and I just wanted you to know so you can solve the problem.
In fact, I have an article (insert the link) that I wrote concerning this topic. If you wish, you can replace the broken link with it.
All the Best,
Lorie!
Try to be honest, real and friendly with your email.
Do not try to play on people’s intelligence. Simply enter your link as a simple solution to the problem(s).
Use of Infographics as a Link Bait
Infographics are among the most used and shared content on the Internet. In fact, there are some sites that are entirely dedicated to publishing contents using infographics.
You wonder why people love and share infographics?
This is because visual contents convert better. People do not want to read a blog post of approximately 6,000 words before they can find a piece of information.
They’d rather scan your infographic and get all that information within a few seconds or few minutes. Many people who use infographic have testified that it converts best. People would love to share images of your infographics on their blogs, which means you will have many links pointing back to you.
- Related: 5 Reasons Infographics Should be Part of Your SEO Strategy
- Related: 5 Forecasted SEO Trends for 2018
It is well known that people understand and digest visual content more efficiently than they do others. For instance, to get the message in a 5,000-word post, readers might get lost along the way, get bored or even not understand the point. But mere looking at one infographic image, you can understand the information that you see almost immediately. Fortunately, there are now quick and easy ways to create an infographic. You are not necessarily supposed to be an expert in design.
You can use freelancing websites to hire people who would create affordable information. If your infographic is informative, people will share and link to it a lot. These methods are how you build links in 2018.
These are simple tactics and remain effective methods to build backlinks even in 2018. The long-term benefits of your website optimization will be well-worth the investment. There are many other tools that will get you more backlinks, you just need to do your research first. Be sure that you’re taking advice from a reputable source.
Do you have an SEO strategy to boost your search engine rankings for 2018, and is link building part of the plan? What other link building tactics do you employ in your business, share with us in the comments below. We’re always on the lookout to share best practices that work for others.
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