As a new business owner, it’s understandable you’d seek cost-effective advertising and branding strategies. However, one such option, known as SEO, could be problematic. There are SEO firms today that employ unethical ‘black-hat’ tactics, which essentially try to trick the system. They might create hundreds of poor-quality links on spammy websites or generate pages overloaded with keywords to the point of being virtually unreadable.
Although such methods may have been effective in the early days of the Internet, search engines have continuously updated their algorithms to disallow these practices from achieving high rankings. Moreover, those employing such tactics have also faced penalties from search engines.
It’s advisable to contact a link building agency to help you with the strategies. If you’re considering handling it personally, here are some guidelines.
- Outreach
Firstly, it’s essential to understand that consumers and other businesses will only link to your website if you make your presence known. If you’re a newcomer to the business or the digital landscape, you must initiate outreach efforts towards others in your industry. Although this process may appear tedious and time-consuming, it’s a crucial first step towards link building.
Businesses operate under the misconception that they must fill their websites with content before initiating contact with others. However, this is not necessarily the case.
What your website needs is content that is worthy of being linked. This could be anything from your brand, the services/products you offer, or even your unique personality. The key is to present something distinctive on your site that compels others to link to it.
A prime example of link-worthy content could be a free tool available on your website. In today’s digital age, businesses can incorporate usable tools, such as a word counter, emoji database, personality quiz, image compressor, etc. Highlight the unique aspects of your site, even if you still need to create a plethora of shareable content.
Moreover, remember that even if another business doesn’t link to your site immediately, they might in the future. Outreach is often viewed as a brand awareness strategy in marketing. Once you’ve established your name among others in your industry, they will likely keep track of your activities.
- Repurpose Content
To build links, one useful strategy is to convert your content into various forms. Consumers have different preferences regarding content consumption – some prefer reading, others enjoy watching videos. Therefore, adapting your content to different formats becomes necessary depending on the audience you currently serve or aim to reach.
With the help of a link building firm, you can create internal links within your content and also submit your content to other websites that align with your content’s format.
While posting content on content-sharing sites might generate less robust backlinks for your business, it’s an initial step towards promoting your brand and its content. Link building might be slow, but you will likely observe improvements in this area with regular and consistent efforts.
- Utilize Local Collaborations
Engaging with people in a specific location could open doors to form alliances with local entities, which can subsequently lead to acquiring backlinks from their websites. If you already have such partnerships, contacting these partner sites for link placement becomes straightforward.
Focus on locally established franchises and businesses as opposed to large-scale corporations. The initial strategy of building links by contributing to local blogs can be duplicated. Besides local business blogs, there might be official community blogs and local news blogs that are open to guest posts.
Additionally, consider sponsoring local events aimed at small businesses. This can earn you backlinks from the event’s sponsorship page.
- Feel Out or Pitch
Pitching can be challenging for some, while others may not experience unease when crafting and dispatching these pitches to potential blogs. Regardless, it can generate stress and opposition when you’re in the early stages.
Nevertheless, there’s no cause for concern as most issues can be easily addressed, and some tasks, like establishing a backlink network, simply need to be tackled.
There’s a technique where you don’t have to directly forward offers or cold pitches. Instead, these emails can be utilized to understand the blogger’s mindset without immediately presenting a proposal.
From their feedback, you can infer the blogger’s openness towards receiving guest posts from your field and their specific needs. After assessing the situation, create a pitch they would find too compelling to reject.
- Reclaim Lost Links
Constructing links can be overwhelming, and you’re likely shedding numerous backlinks every day or even hourly. However, the good news is that you can stave off this loss by continually generating new links. This approach, though, is quite time-intensive. An alternative could be to recover your lost links.
To optimize link recovery, it’s crucial to adhere to the correct procedure. Initiate by examining your lost backlink reports using resources such as Ahrefs’ Site Explorer. Look for links tagged as “link removed” to understand why your links are lost.
Generally, links are lost when the linking page undergoes an update. If this happens, contact the website owner and inquire if they can reintegrate your link into their updated content. At times, your links vanish when a page is removed. However, if you believe the page was accidentally deleted, you can request that your links be restored.
- Organize a Giveaway/Competition/Promotion
The allure of freebies and winning prizes is universal, making it a reliable strategy for gaining new links in your specific niche. The versatility of this approach is its strength – there are countless creative ways to enhance your site’s exposure.
For instance, consider running a photo contest on social platforms like Instagram or Pinterest. Alternatively, offer a free product or service to the first 100 subscribers to your email list, or provide a discount code in exchange for a retweet.
Contests or giveaways that deviate from the norm tend to attract more attention than something as commonplace as a free pen set. When you create such a buzz, your competition or giveaway is more likely to be shared by your audience, thus increasing its reach.
Final Thoughts
For the growth of your business in the digital world, it’s crucial to dedicate time and resources towards developing and implementing an effective link building strategy. With a strong link building strategy, your business will see improvements in online rankings and attract the necessary customer base.
Regardless of your financial limitations or the time you can devote to link building, various strategies are available to elevate your website’s search engine rankings. Among these, link building stands out as it allows your site to acquire inbound links from other websites, enhancing its online visibility.