Backlinking is arguably the hardest part of SEO. Essentially good backlinking is getting high quality websites pointing to your site from a link to you shown on their site
The more links you get from high quality sites, the better it is for your SEO.
Generally speaking though, you can’t just ask any website for a link. There must be something in it for them to link to you.
A great way to get a link is with guest blogging where you create a blog for another website to add to their site which includes a link to your site. The blog needs to have value so needs to be interesting, valuable or useful to their site’s visitors.
Backlinks can also be sourced from directories who are more open to offering this however configuration can be time consuming and they may want to charge for a website link.
Backlinks from social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube etc are valuable. Furthermore if you post regularly in social channels then these links can be a great source of ‘recency’ i.e. a recent signal to Google that a link was built pointing to your site.
With link building being so difficult, complex and time consuming we challenge our clients to think laterally on sourcing links. If your company has sponsored an event / charity make sure you get a backlink off that. If you have sister companies you’re affiliate with then interlink them. Get links from your suppliers, delivery partners, your resellers, even your clients!
Tip – free tools like the Moz chrome extension is a great way to easily see the SEO power of a website. It’s a number out of 100, the higher the number the greater the SEO power of the site (and of any backlinks they provide)
Tip – Be careful of your ratios – a high number of links from a small number of low quality domains could mean you are affiliated with a spammy network. In these instances, the spammy sites can be found and ‘disavowed’. Disavowing tells Google that you no longer want to be related or responsible for that site linking to you and thus not penalised for their relationship to you.
