Earning high quality backlinks: Our best techniques
Learn how to manage your backlinks profile with Positionly and get the best results for your business’ position in the SERPs.
Agenda
What we’ll cover today:
1. Introduction to backlinks2. Establishing the quality of a backlink3. Black-hat vs. white-hat techniques of earning backlinks4. Our best techniques
Let’s start! :)
Our example
What are backlinks?
What are backlinks?
A backlink (an inbound link) - a link that another website posted about you and that is leading to your website
Thanks to backlinks, search engines can determine the popularity of your website
Why earning links is important?
Quality of backlinks
Quality of backlinks
Majestic provides quality scores based on Trust Ratio
Trust Ratio = Trust Flow / Citation Flow
Trust Flow - a metric that predicts how trustworthy a link will be
More high-quality links, higher TF
Citation Flow - a metric of the amount of link equity (link juice) it carries
More links, bigger CF
Backlinks earning techniques
Black-hat techniques of earning links
Black-hat techniques• Aggressive tactics purely to boost rankings without benefiting the human audience
• Paying for links• Guest blogging for the sake of it• Link exchange schemes• Spamming other sites for backlinks
🙅
White-hat techniques of earning links
White-hat techniques
• Optimizing sites for humans, not search engines• Following search engine guidelines
Some good examples?
💁
Sponsoring events and donating to charities
• Sponsor a non-profit organization, charity or an event• Google “become a sponsor + name of the city”, “donate”, “our supporters”• Make sure the event is relevant to your business and can link to you
Great for local businesses
⚽🏆✌
Sending thank you to the people you link to
If you use somebody’s article in your own blog post, make sure to thank the author for the content they published and you could link to
People always have the need to pay their debt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:All_articles_with_dead_external_links
Finding broken links and replacing them with yours
• Google Chrome extension: Check My Links• Screaming Frog Seo Spider Tool• Wikipedia (site:wikipedia.org [keyword] + “dead link”)
• niche/keyword + resource page• niche/keyword + recommended links• niche/keyword + links
• site:http://www.domain.com/ + keyword
Finding broken links and replacing them with yours
Screaming Frog Seo Spider Tool
High quality guest blogging
• Publish articles on popular and RELEVANT websites• Find where influencers contribute• Google: “keyword + inurl:guest-post-guidelines”, “keyword + inurl:write-for-us"
• Advantages:• A high quality backlink• Wide readership• Increasing online reputation• Increasing social media followers 📰👨👩👧👦👨👩👧👦👨👩👧👦
Getting inspiration from your competition
• Keep track of their newly found backlinks• Reach out to similar places• Set up Google Alerts for “site:yourcompetitor.com”
Seeking out brand mentions and ensuring they’re linked
• Google yourself• Set up Google Alerts for your site• You’re mentioned, but not linked? - just ask 🚨
Writing testimonials
• Write testimonials for softwares or websites you’re using• Prepare a list of all apps you’re using• Reach out!
Writing a case study
• Write case studies for softwares or websites you’re using• Prepare a list of all apps you’re using• Reach out!
Building relationships with industry peers and experts
• Reach out to influencers in your niche• Tweet them• Share and tag• Email them - personalization!
Do not get discouraged!
✍👥
Reaching out to sites linking to outdated resources
Brian Dean’s “The Moving Man Method”: http://backlinko.com/high-quality-backlinks
Reaching out to authoritative sites (in your niche) that are linking to outdated websites
Step 1: Find websites that rebranded, moved to a new URL, or shut down
• Google: “rebrands as”, “service not available”, “page no longer exists”
Technique from Brian Dean: http://backlinko.com/high-quality-backlinks
“The Moving Man Method”
Step 2: Find websites that are linking to that outdated page• Put the outdated source into the backlinks checker tool
Step 3: Reach out regarding outdated link and ask for linking to you• Personalized emails work wonders!
Technique from Brian Dean: http://backlinko.com/skyscraper-technique
“The Skyscraper Technique"
Step 1: Find content that’s already generated a lot of links• Google• Majestic• minimum 25 domains
Step 2: Create better content• More in-depth• More updated• More engaging
Step 3: Reach out• Referring domains - export (Majestic)
• Already link to related content• Offer yours instead
Getting the link juice
• Filter the “no-follow” links of high/medium quality• Reach out to the webmaster and ask for deleting the no-
follow tag
Things to remember
• Optimize the anchor texts• Check the target to find out if the webpage another site is
linking to is the correct one• Check all the lost links and reach out to a webmaster to
regain them