SEO: 10 free ways to build your backlinks
If you’ve populated your website with good quality content, taken care to add keywords and got your URL and meta-description sorted, you’re well on the way to pushing your website up the search rankings – but one ingredient you can’t afford to ignore is backlinks. Backlinks are links from other sites that lead back to your site, and they’re one of the most important things Google looks at when deciding how to rank your site. Ideally, you need not just plenty of links, but links that come from high authority sites. Here are 10 tips to help you achieve this.
1. Link between websites your company owns.
This is one of the easiest ways to build links. Make sure all websites that you own contain links to each other.
2. Create internal backlinks
This is another one of the simplest techniques: create links between relevant pieces of content within your site.
3. Create link roundup blog posts
Write helpful blog posts that contain links to useful tips, insights and experts on your chosen topics. Make sure the experts you’ve linked to know about it, and some of them are likely to share the link to your post or put a link to it on their website.
4. Add links to forums and comment sections
Look for places where people are discussing a topic relevant to your work – ideally one you’ve written a blog post about. You can then join the conversation and helpfully share a link to your article.
5. Give interviews
Look out for opportunities to be interviewed by journalists; some of them will be able to include a link to your website in their articles. You can sign up for free to JournoRequests to receive a daily roundup of journalists’ requests for interviewees.
6. Become a guest blogger
Pick out some reputable websites that might be willing to take free content and offer to write for them. You can send them a pre-written blog post on a hot topic, or find out what sort of material they would be interested in and pitch some ideas.
7. Provide testimonials
Think of products or services you have used lately and see if there is an option to leave a glowing testimonial. If the company uses it, they will probably link to your site to prove you really exist.
8. Create great content that people will want to link to
Make sure your site is packed with really useful content that people will want to link to. Use statistics and case studies to create authoritative blog posts with real value. Share them on social media to help others discover them.
9. Network online
Join social media groups focused on your type of business; you can build connections with people who might give you backlinks and even share some of your blog posts with the groups.
10. Get bloggers and journalists to review your products
Look for bloggers and journalists who might want to review products that you sell and offer them something for free in return for a review with a link back to your site.
