These days link building is not as straightforward or inexpensive as it used to be, but its importance has not diminished. In an effort to improve the quality of content appearing on the web, Google’s algorithms have penalized sites with spammy links and other black hat SEO practices. Despite the large blow, link-building is still viewed as a powerful tool when done the right way. Today all businesses can benefit from white hat SEO tactics that are well executed and focused on the end user, but it’s important to note that SEO is much more complex and competitive than it once used to be.
1. Guest post with purpose:
As with just about anything in life, you don’t want to be known as the person who publishes their articles on every blog on the internet for the sake of link-building. Every blog site you post your articles on must serve some purpose to your business and marketing goals. SEO is only one piece of the larger strategy, and if you focus solely on writing posts for link building purposes, you’re missing out on other great opportunities, such as branding, building credibility in your niche, increasing quality traffic, exposure to relevant audiences, community building, authority, and the like.
The primary purpose of guest blogging should be to get yourself and your business in front of a new audience that will be interested in learning more about your products/services. With that in mind, here are some things to consider when approaching a site for guest blogging:
- Develop an ongoing, professional relationship with the webmaster;
- Pitch a series of blog posts instead of just one;
- Don’t contribute to sites that want you to pay for guest blogging;
- Stop thinking about links. Your focus should be on relevant and new traffic and exposure instead. Links have to be relevant and natural.
2. Use Google Alerts to find linkless mentions:
Many websites often write articles, with quotes from your articles, without linking back to your site. If you set up Google Alerts, you can know when someone mentions your name or the name of your company on their website. If they use your content without linking, politely ask them to add the link. Before you write the email, it’s important to make sure that the website is relevant to your niche.
3. Hot Topics:
Covering hot topics is a great way to attract inbound links and increase social sharing.
Your subject needs to incite debate from the inside out and not be thought provoking for the sake of it. A small percentage of your potential audience may differ with your views, but that’s the point of plurality in western society. Always ensure that you can back up your view. A good place to start your research is Google Trends.
4. Add your homepage link to all active Social Media Profiles:
Search engine optimization is often a waiting game. But what about the times when you just don’t have weeks to spare? One way of getting Google to index your site quickly is to engage with social bookmarking platforms. All you have to do is add your home page URL to all active social networks’ about us sections. Social bookmarking on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and the like will help you to gain your search engine visibility as well as views.
Before submitting any URL to a social media site you should check the best practices for adding DoFollow links on social media platforms. In the game of search engine optimization, a huge amount of focus is put on do-follow links. Do-follow links pass on juice from the linking website, whereas a no-follow link does not.
YouTube is the trickiest when it comes to DoFollow links. Click here for step by step instructions.
5. Attend local networking events:
Want to know the best way to get a quality inbound link? When it comes from another blogger! The more friends you make, the more often they’ll link to you, curate your content and share it with their audience. This is also the only time when it’s acceptable to swap links, when you’re both writing about each other and you trust that the quality of the other person’s blog is good!
6. Diversity is the key:
SEO is a life-long investment. The greater the diversity of links you have pointing to your site, the less risk your site carries of being crushed by one of Google’s killer animals.
Please, kindly share our tips on your social networking sites and with your audience. And if you know of other tips, kindly share them in the comment section below. We build environments that promote research, scholarly activities, and informed decision-making.
About iRISEmedia:
iRISEmedia.com is a digital media agency and SEO company, specializing in Social Media and internet marketing. Our team helps clients increase their reach and profitability by developing and implementing customized and targeted online and social media marketing strategies. We service clients in Toronto, Ontario, the GTA and throughout Canada as well as globally.
