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Jason Hennessey is an entrepreneur, internationally recognized SEO expert, author, business coach and CEO of Hennessey Digital In search engine optimization (SEO), link-building is the process of acquiring links from other websites to your own, called backlinks. When these backlinks come from high-quality and reputable sites, Google sees them as endorsements of your own content and ranks your pages higher in search results. While Google has stated that backlinks aren’t important to ranking content as they used to be, all of the SEO experts I know, including myself, disagree. Backlinks are a powerful tactic in your SEO arsenal, and the highest-ranking competitive sites have a solid history of high-quality backlinks. Link-building is not the easiest step in building your SEO, and many people seem to feel confused about how to get backlinks in the first place. But the process isn’t rocket science, and it can be done by anyone with a little dedication. Link-Building Is About Credibility Even if you have fantastic content that gives your readers exactly what they’re looking for, Google won’t know how fantastic your content is unless someone else vouches for it. That’s why the quality of the backlinks you acquire is extremely important. The more popular and reputable the site that links to your content, the more that link will boost your SEO. If you’re not certain where to start, take a look at what your top competitors are doing: Where are they getting backlinks? Where might you find opportunities to build links they don’t have? What are their top-performing pages, and can you create content that’s even better? Building Links Takes Time And Legwork Link-building is one of the most time-intensive projects in your SEO strategy, and it’s an ongoing process, not something you can do once and be finished with forever. Yes, the links you build will remain valuable, but the power of link-building is in its cumulative effects. The more backlinks you earn, the better your reputation becomes, helping you earn more backlinks, and so on. While there are a variety of strategies to build links, they mostly fall into three categories: First is creating awesome, high-quality content that people naturally want to link to. Second is reaching out to sites that may want to link to your content. And third is building relationships that lead to links, often by creating content for other sites. Outreach Look for relevant sites to contact that may want to link to your content. Industry-related resource pages can be a great option—curated lists of helpful content—to reach out to and suggest including a link to your site. You can also monitor mentions of your content or brand online that don’t include a link, then reach out to the site owners and request that they add a link. Try searching for broken links of topics related to your own on websites, and suggest your own content as a replacement, which benefits both you and the site owner. I also recommend signing up for HARO (Help a Reporter Out) to receive requests from journalists looking for expert sources, which can earn you backlinks from highly credible news sites. Networking Guest-blogging, guest podcasting or creating cooperative content such as videos are all fantastic ways to build links through networking with other site owners. This type of link-building is mutually beneficial because the site owner gets content out of it while you earn a link. Another fantastic way to get backlinks is by writing and submitting articles to reputable publications. If your article is published, it creates a highly valuable backlink. Attract Links Through Your Best Content If your content is valuable and interesting, other websites will naturally want to link to it. You can maximize your chances of earning organic backlinks like this by creating highly linkable content. Infographics are one example of content that people love to share, and interactive content, such as quizzes or calculators, can also attract backlinks. The skyscraper technique is another method of gaining organic backlinks, and it works by finding high-performing content in your niche, then creating an even better (or updated) version of it. You can even reach out to sites that linked to the original content and suggest they link to your improved version instead. One of the best methods for creating linkable content is actually hiding in your own analytics. You already have a great deal of data at your fingertips, whether that’s your website data or data from your industry. That’s a gold mine of information that can be turned into shareable content. Other methods of creating highly shareable content include capitalizing on topics people are talking about and likely to link to, such as current events. Mentioning specific people in your industry can also encourage them to link to that content. A large part of link-building is about building relationships, which takes time. Keep consistently reaching out and building your network. And in the meantime, create fantastic, shareable content, and don’t forget to post it on social media!
