Learn about how to get quality backlinks to your website from high authority sites in your industry. This article will help you find the right way.
So you have just found out how backlinks from high authority sites can be useful for your blog. Maybe someone just told you how backlinks from authority sites can help you improve your search engine rankings.
Or maybe, you’ve just read an article on the importance of high authority links.
Now you are interested. And, you are so interested that you would like to invest most of your time now to build more backlinks from high authority sites, in your industry. But very soon you recognize a quite serious problem.
Nobody knows about you or your blog.
Why would they even consider linking to your blog? Then, how to get these links?
The problem is that you need a hell lot of backlinks to rank on the first page of Google. And even the tenth position requires over 12,000+ backlinks [in case, you are targeting a very competitive keyword].
Even if you are in a low competitive niche, you need at least 50-100 external links to show Google, you have some authority in your industry.
Of course, useful contents are crucial. But if nobody is linking to you, how would the world know that you have something special to share?
So backlinks from authority sites, are super important.
Just as the benefits of contextual linking cannot be ignored, you can’t ignore the fact that the number of linking domains also has a big impact on your search ranks.
You don’t only need lots of backlinks, but also need lots of different authority sites to link back to you. It will take years to build these backlinks, naturally.
But it doesn’t mean you cannot start today.
The good news is that you don’t need thousands of backlinks. You’ll need thousands of backlinks only if you target a highly competitive keyword.
In most cases, a few quality links from authority sites can boost your search rankings within a few months. So there’s nothing to be discouraged about.
If you want to do it without all the hassle of finding new link building opportunities and paying a little money, you can use SEMrush Backlink Suite. It doesn’t only help you find new link building and outreach opportunities, but also maintain a healthy and SEO-friendly backlink profile for your blog or website.
But if you want to do it yourself, it’s hard but still awesome.
You don’t have to be a celebrity to be able to get quality backlinks from authority sites. There are many different ways to get backlinks.
But before we talk about the various methods of getting backlinks, let’s look at why you should focus on the quality part of your links.
You may be tempted to hire a black hat agency to build backlinks for you. But you should remember that there’s a reason why people call it “Black Hat”.
Because it’s the dark side of SEO [search engine optimization].
These black hat SEO techniques are highly risky, unethical, and don’t improve your search rankings significantly. It hurts your blog.
Getting many backlinks using these black hat techniques will only hurt your blog. So if you are into your business with a long term perspective, you should focus on building links using only white hat strategies.
But, what is black hat SEO?
In short, Black hat SEO strategies trick search engines like Google to give your blog a better ranking on SERP [search engine result pages].
For better understanding, below are some black hat SEO techniques:
- Duplicate contents
- Keyword suffing
- Irrelevant keywords
- Link farming
- Cloaking text &/or links
- Redirecting to different website
- Blog comment spam
- Hidden/Invisible links or texts
- Article spinning/Content automation
- Scraped content
- Private blog networks
- And a lot more…
Razvan did a great job of explaining 40+ black hat SEO techniques that can easily ruin your website’s SEO completely. You may be able to get away with this for some time. But eventually, Google will be able to find out.
Google makes hundreds of algorithmic changes every year. So you’ll definitely be caught sometimes in the future.
And once you are caught, your blog will be punished for doing unethical SEO practices. As a result, the ranking of your blog will be significantly reduced and you’ll probably never be given a second chance to get up.
Some people even prefer to buy backlinks from other authority sites. But, this is not something Google prefers or recommends. In fact, if you buy backlinks in order to improve your website’s authority, it can be dangerous in most cases.
Moreover, buying backlinks can be expensive. If you have the right budget, you can get tons of high-authority links quite easily.
So, should you buy backlinks?
Well, it’s a controversial topic. Semify has an excellent post on whether you should buy backlinks or not, which you can read here.
Things are confusing, right?
The fact?
You should stick to white hat link-building techniques. White hat techniques strive to build backlinks using only the right techniques.
So, how to get started with link building the right way?
At first, use the SEMrush Free Site Audit tool to check if your blog has any SEO-related errors that can be fixed. Then you can focus your attention on building quality links from high authority sites in your niche.
There are different factors Google considers while ranking a blog (or website). However, the most important factors are your backlinks’ quality, linking domains’ authority, and the anchor texts used while linking to your blog.
You may be tempted to build these links using shady black hat methods, just to rank your blog faster. But it doesn’t work that way. Building links takes time.
Yes, it will take longer to get quality links from authority sites. But the risk of destroying your blog and your business won’t be there anymore.
That’s why you should really focus on the quality of your backlinks. This article on the most essential factors that make a backlink high quality should help you.
How does it help?
When you understand what determines a high-quality backlink, it gets simpler to create backlinks as you wouldn’t waste your time on spammy techniques that don’t work.
Below, I have discussed some of the most powerful ways to get backlinks.
Instead of focusing on all of the methods, focus on a few ones that you are most comfortable with. Pick a method that you know you can do well.
Most people waste most of their time focusing on all of these methods. It’s much better to become the best at one strategy than to be average on all.
1. Blogger Outreach
Blogger outreach is the process of sending emails to influential bloggers with an expectation to receive a link back to your content/page on your blog (or site).
It’s considered a white hat link-building technique. Because you are not using any spammy techniques to manipulate SEO. Instead, you are using your blog content as an asset, in order to get brand mentions from other sites. It’s a form of marketing that you must do to grow your business.
The primary purpose of blogger outreach is to convince established bloggers to talk about your brand or link back to your website, in a relevant way.
Why does this type of marketing makes sense?
Because a single brand mention by an established blogger can result in massive exposure for your blogging site.
Even if the blogger decides to give you a nofollow link, you end up getting massive exposure which could result in additional natural links.
So it doesn’t matter whether you are running a small website (or blog) or a large one, blogger outreach should be a part of your link building campaigns.
2. Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is an excellent way to get new links from authority sites.
This is a form of content marketing where you convince an established blogger to publish your article which includes a link pointing to your blog.
But, there’s something wrong with this approach.
Guest blogging is not just about slapping your name onto a piece of content to get those quality backlinks. It’s much more than that.
When you write an outstanding piece of content for an authoritative blog with thousands of followers, people will notice you. They will visit your blog or website and see what you have to offer. And if you’ve done a great job they’ve never seen before, they’ll naturally consider linking to your blog posts.
The sole purpose of guest blogging should be about getting massive exposure for your blog, instead of just trying to get backlinks. High-quality guest blogging usually results in tons of quality backlinks. And that’s how it should be.
To be successful at guest blogging, it’s crucial to be selective about where to pitch. Pitching to one authoritative site is much better than 100 wrong ones.
3. Build Relationships
The most powerful factor that will help you grow your backlink profile and set you up for the future is building relationships with influential bloggers.
You believe it or not; building relationships is the ultimate way to get backlinks from high authority sites in your niche. What you need to understand is that it will not immediately increase your backlinks or improve your ranking.
But what it does is that it sets you up for the future.
You’re prepping the wood for the fire rather than lighting it. But you can’t light a fire if you don’t first prepare the kindling.
So I would like to suggest you follow this technique if you are after building backlinks to your blog continuously without any effort.
The best way to build relationships with others in your industry is to be active on social media and prove yourself as an expert.
As an example, take a look at the following post from Michaela Alexis.
Did you see what she’s doing here?
She shares about herself and what’s going on in her life. You just don’t post something that’s boring on social media. Instead post something about yourself too. Let people get an opportunity to know more about you.
Share who you really are.
Share what’s going on in your life.
Just be transparent and honest. Believe me, your audience will appreciate you. It will make it easier for them to connect with you.
She has built her following over 92,000 by posting this type of contents.
Being active on social media allows you to meet many different types of people in your industry. Get connected with them and you may even post guest articles on their sites. Guest blogging has the power to quickly establish you as an expert in your industry. You also get a highly powerful relevant backlink from your articles.
As you build your following, it’s time to build your email list. The more subscribers you have on your email list, the more opportunities you have for backlinks.
Wondering where to host your email list?
GetResponse is a great service I use. It’s free to start.
Now you may ask how an email list helps in building backlinks. As you already know the most powerful way to build backlinks is by building relationships.
With more followers and email subscribers, you get more opportunities to interact with others. More people will know about you and your work. People will naturally link to you getting you the most desirable type of backlinks you deserve.
4. Write Outstanding Contents
Great contents are the source of great backlinks.
If your blog doesn’t have quality content that’s useful and helpful for readers, nobody would like to link to your blog. It’s as simple as that.
Bloggers would only like to link to your blog if it provides value. So your blog is of no use if it’s contents don’t help anyone in any way.
People only link to contents they see the value in.
When a blog is full of articles that don’t provide any value to the readers, people would naturally not like to link. That’s why it’s essential that you focus on creating only valuable content that users would love to link to.
You need to create content better than the others in your industry. That’s when you can expect people to link to your blog.
But the problem is that just writing awesome content doesn’t help. You need to write the right contents. The right contents are the contents that people need.
You need to analyze your competition, in order to find out the type of content you want to create. So how to analyze your competition?
Type the main keywords of your topic into Google and look for the results. Open all the sites you get on the first page of your search.
Look at the following factors:
- How many images does the article use?
- How the title is written?
- Is there a featured image?
- How many words does the article contain?
- Is there a title tag and meta description?
Your job is to analyze all the factors that helped this article to rank on the 1st page of Google. Now use the following techniques:
- Create a much better article with better information.
- Use more images in your article.
- Use more words. Longer articles usually rank better. Sites ranked on the first page of Google usually have an average of 3000 words content.
- Write a more focused meta description.
- Write a compelling title for your blog post.
Indeed, you have to make your content better in every possible way. Once your content is published, share it on social media and with your email subscribers.
More reach means more backlinking potential. Since you’ve just created a much better resource for the topic, people would most likely link to your content.
5. Do a Research
Doing your very own research is certainly a wonderful way to generate lots of relevant backlinks. If you have some specific information that nobody has on the internet, people would love to link to you as a source of the information.
This type of backlinks are highly relevant and powerful.
But most of the time, doing your own research may seem a lot of work. But what you need to remember is that it is worth a lot.
6. Create an Infographic
You may already know the fact that infographics are highly popular nowadays. In fact, you may have seen one last month only.
Established high authority websites usually use Infographics that attract so much attention from people. These infographics get viral most of the time on social media. High-quality infographics usually result in lots of new backlinks.
There can’t be a secret formula that can make your infographic go viral. But you can surely follow a few strategies to make sure that your infographic goes viral.
Below are some of the techniques you can follow:
- Your infographic must have a wonderful design that attracts eyes.
- It should have well-researched data that are useful and help people.
- Promote your infographic actively on social media.
- Send emails to your subscribers about the new infographic you created.
If it provides value, people would add your infographic on their site and link it to your blog as a source. As a result, you get an awesome backlink in a relevant way.
Below is a good example of an Infographic.
There are plenty of infographic creation services out there. The infographic above has been designed using Canva, which is absolutely free to use.
So, create an infographic and get it published on your blog and also make sure you include your blog URL on the infographic.
Share it on social media and your subscribers as well.
7. Write Testimonials
You can write testimonials for other websites in return for a link back to your blog. You may not want to do this. But it can be very useful for backlinking purposes.
When you write a testimonial, most sites will include a link back to you. This is a powerful way of getting new backlinks from authority sites.
By writing testimonials you not only help other businesses generate new clients but also help yourself get quality backlinks from relevant authority sites.
So if you have recently used a product or service that you found useful, why don’t you just contact them to share your feedback. You may ask them to mention yourself on their testimonials page if they want to. If they do, they will most likely link to your blog as well. And, that’s how you get a new quality backlink.
It really works. Because most businesses will want to publish the testimonial on their website and link back to the person who wrote it.
Just reach out to service providers that you use and offer to write a testimonial.
8. Link to External Websites
You may be surprised to know that linking to other authority sites can actually generate links pointing back to your blog.
You may be thinking that linking to other websites is not helpful for you.
But do you know that, by giving backlinks to other sites, you actually help yourself?
Your job is to link to other sites with quality resources and contact them to let them know about it. Tell them that you’ve liked their contents so much that you’ve decided to link to it. You may use the following script while contacting them:
“Hey John,
I have to say I am a huge fan of your work on (yoursite.com)
So much so, that I even linked out to you in my latest post.
You can check it out here: (insert link)
Cheers,
(YOUR NAME)
P.S. If you share the post it will make my day.”
Since these websites are already established with high domain authority, they usually have a huge following on social media. If they decide to just share your post as you linked to them, you just increase your chances of getting other people to know about you and probably link back to your blog.
This is how you don’t only build your brand awareness, but also build relationships.
The more people know about your work, the better. It’s a powerful way to build healthy backlinking relationships.
9. Make Comments
Making comments on relevant blog posts is one of the oldest strategies to create new backlinks to your blog or website.
Although comment links mostly use nofollow attribute which doesn’t help SEO much, it can still be included in your backlinking efforts.
Comments links should be used not to get a backlink, but to build a mutual relationship with the blogger. So it’s crucial to leave comments only on blogs where you have something valuable to share.
Really read the blog post and share your ideas or feedback with the author.
Many people like to spam comment in order to get a backlink.
These types of techniques don’t work anymore. Now technology is far more advanced to filter out spam comments automatically.
So trying to get backlinks using spammy techniques don’t work.
And if you make your comments primarily to get a backlink only, most authors will recognize your purpose. They might just delete your comment.
Making comments and getting them approved is an art.
If you can learn this art, you can pretty easily get build relationships with your fellow bloggers and improve your chances of getting backlinks from them.
So you can see there are tons of different ways to get backlinks to your blog.
If you think that you are new in your industry and nobody wants to link to you, it’s time to change your thoughts.
You can always get new backlinks. You should focus on building relationships and improving your reach as much as possible.
As a result, you only improve your chances of getting new backlinks.
And if you can pay a little money, SEMrush Backlink Suite can take all the hassle of finding new link opportunities while saving a lot of your time. It has a risk-free 7-day trial which you can take advantage of.
