7 Best Ways to Generate Backlinks to Your Website
Backlinks are one of the most important strategies in SEO because they demonstrate your website’s authority and trustworthiness to search engines.
But what are they, how do they work and how do you generate high-quality backlinks?
Infoserve’s SEO team are here to help:
What are backlinks?
Backlinks are created when one website links to another. They are also known as ‘inbound links’ because they often refer to links external to your website that send users to your web pages.
Why do you need to invest in backlinks?
Backlinks are vital to building your website’s authority. They are the online equivalent of word of mouth advertising, and establish a level of trust in your business from other companies, blogs and online magazines.
Google values this form of SEO because other companies wouldn’t want to lose the confidence of their own customers by sending them to an unreliable or even spammy site. Therefore, they can have a hugely positive effect on your placing in the SERP (search engine results page).
When we say ‘invest’, we mean investing serious SEO time into sourcing backlinks. Some blogging websites, journalists and even companies will request payment for backlinks, but this doesn’t mean that all non-organic backlinks are paid for.
How to generate backlinks to your website
1. Prioritise Authority Over Quantity
You may hear quality over quantity a lot with reference to SEO but this ethos is never more important than with seeking backlinks.
Why?
Because some backlinks are considered ‘toxic’.
Google gives every website a toxicity score and if the toxicity score is high, seeking backlinks from them can actively harm your rankings.
A link may be considered toxic if:
- It comes from a website that has been created simply for the purpose of giving out backlinks
- The content is low quality or shallow
- The content of the website isn’t relevant to your product/service
- It comes from a website without an SSL certificate
- It exists across all pages of the linking website
- It is hidden somewhere in the blog, including a footer or link list
- Doesn’t follow anchor text rules
- Links are obviously sponsored
In Google’s link scheme guide, they state:
“Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site's ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site.”
2. Allow Credit on your Website
People are always looking for ways to build a portfolio of work online and this may be an opportunity to link back to your website. From designers and copywriters to collaborations, giving credit to work creates an excellent opportunity to ask for a backlink.
For example, at Infoserve, we’re not only proud of the services we provide, but proud of the relationships we build which is why we display our clientele (with approval, of course), on our Business Directory. This not only helps us by displaying our work, but brings them backlinks from our website.
In response, the website’s we’ve designed often contain a backlink to us in order to give us credit.
Relationships where both parties can benefit from crediting work are mutually beneficial and a strategy we strongly recommend.
3. Seek Guest Blogs
If you are an expert in your field then there may be professionals or bloggers within similar fields that are willing to provide space for informed content that you create.
This is a strategy that takes a little more work as you will need to find, approach and pitch yourself in order to gain valued space on their website.
However, the rewards are worth it.
4. Create Shareable Content
One of the best things you can do across the board when it comes to generating backlinks is create content that is valuable and shareable.
This will not only bring more organic links to your content but also makes people more likely to take backlink requests. People only want to link to websites that are relevant to their audience and the more appealing your content is, the more likely they’re willing to give you the time of day.
5. Collaborate
When you collaborate with another business, you open up the opportunity to boost each other’s image and customer base whilst reaching a wider audience.
There are many ways to collaborate, for example:
- Creating a new product together
- Starting an industry related podcast
- Create an interview series
- Host a competition that combines your products/service
- Collaborating with influencers
6. Network, Network, Network
You may have noticed a running theme within our ways to generate backlinks, all of which involve building relationships with other businesses, entrepreneurs and bloggers.
Another way to do this effectively is to network. It is quite easy for someone to ignore an online or email request for a backlink, but when you attend networking events you can build foundations and open even more opportunities.
Always stick to events within your niche. This will help you find the most beneficial connections.
7. Offer A Benefit of Your Own
Often people are more likely to accept backlinks if there’s something in it for them so offer something in return.
Not sure where to start?
