Ordinarily, a link is simply a joint that connects two points. In the world of websites, a link is what connects one web page with another.
By clicking on a link, you move to another site, which may be a video, image, or text. A link is usually clothed in a descriptive and relevant text to help you figure out what to expect when you click it.
There are internal links (connecting you to a web page within the same site) and external/outbound links that take you outside, different domain.
What is a Backlink?
A backlink is what an outbound link becomes when you are on the receiving end. You call it an external/outbound link if it’s coming from your site, but it’s a backlink if another site is directing it to your site.
Simply put, a backlink is a link created by another website to yours.
What’s the Value of Backlinks?
Backlinks are critical for your business if you are into digital marketing.
When your website receives more backlinks, it signals to a search engine (Google, notably) that your website has more authoritative, essential, and relevant information.
Therefore, your website will rank high on the SERP. With high traffic to your site, the conversion rate will shoot up. If you’d like help building white hat backlinks, click here for more information.
Different Types of Backlinks
The following are the different types of backlinks you can employ in your website:
- Editorial Backlinks
An editorial backlink is when another website with high-quality, original, and useful content attaches a link to your website page.
The linker could be a journalist, blogger, lawyer, doctor, or publisher looking for an irrefutable backup to some opinion. He need not know you personally or even remotely. He has only been impressed by your particular content.
Such linking is a signal to the search engine (read Google) that your domain is a trusted authority in a particular niche. The more editorial backlinks you get from reputable websites, the more Google continues to trust you.
You can only get valuable backlinks if you produce meaningful content worth citing or sharing. No reputable organization would want to be associated with a bogus website with half-baked, poorly-researched, misleading contents.
Whether your website is about tutorials, how-to guides, Do-It-Yourself, or case studies, be at the top of the game.
- Guest Blogging Backlinks
With guest blogging, you reach out to the owners of reputable or authority websites/blogs with niches similar to yours and ask them to post your content with a link to your website/blog attached to it.
The primary aim of guest blogging should be to popularize your brand by reaching a broader audience. It should not be all about building backlinks.
Google discourages guest blogging as a strategy to create backlinks and not to provide useful information to readers.
Use guest blogging to promote yourself while subtly providing links to your site. Do not sound like your sole aim is to drive traffic to your site, otherwise Google may penalize you.
Ensure that the website owner adds the HTML to your backlink. The dofollow and nofollow options will determine whether Google gives attention to the link attached to your guest post.
Also, ensure the backlink is in the main body, not the header, footer, or sidebar of the web page.
- Free Tool Backlinks
The audience you target won’t mind a free thing here and there. You can offer a free but useful tool. You then find sites with the right audience for your free tool. Ask those sites if they would want to feature your tool.
To use the tool, the users will have to link back to your site. Once there, one thing could lead to another, ending up with a sale or inquiry about your services.
You can also include a call-to-action button so that the potential customers could sign up for the pro version (payable) of the free tool.
Some of the free tools you can design include a tax calculator, loan calculator, etc.
- Business Profile Backlinks
Traditionally or before the Internet’s advent, businesses placed their profiles directory books, and any office worth its name had the latest directory somewhere.
Much has changed. Directory listing has gone digital. What’s more: the links from directories such as Australian business directory can help raise your domain authority. You only need to go with the relevant niches.
Some of the search engine business directories are:
- Google My Business — if you want to optimize your business presence on Google search results and Google maps, you need to set up a Google My Business account.
You will include a link to your website, which is then prominently placed in the search results for web users to easily get it and click.
You will also be able to post updates related to your niche (up to 300 words). With Google My Business, your customers can also leave reviews, which helps raise your ratings.
It would be best if you tried to interact with the GMB audience to show that you care about their concerns or compliments.
- Yelp.
- Foursquare.
- AboutUs.
- Local.com.
- Better Business Bureau.
- Clasione.
- Seek On.
- Pick N Buy.
- Bing.
These are mainly niche directories, meaning they gear towards particular topics, industry or subjects. Choose one or more that are relevant and fill up the necessary details.
Provide a catchy business description that your potential customers will find useful. They will then click the links and be led to your site.
- Forum Backlinks
You have heard of or been part of some of those internet forums where users hold serious discussions on particular topics or subjects. At times, some debates generate more heat than light.
Some of these forums include:
You may join some of these forums, create a profile and provide useful posts or comments, with a link to your site along the way.
When a member asks a question that falls within your niche, provide an in-depth, high-value answer packed with evidence and examples.
Somewhere, place a backlink to your website. Make it natural with the most relevant text anchor. Soon, you’ll be witnessing loads of traffic to your site.
Note that Google is not comfortable with some of these forums because they are prone to misuse by spammers. Hence, backlinks from them could be considered spammy.
But you can still moderately use them to generate tonnes of traffic to your site. Just ensure you post high-quality content and only provide a link where necessary. Don’t go about throwing links up and down.
- Webinar Backlinks
One digital marketing strategy is to start Webinar recordings. Many websites have outbound links to webinars to reinforce a given argument or point of view.
Imagine if it’s your Webinar a reputable company has linked to its landing page. You should create a valuable Webinar on your website that other sites will want to link back to. You will be getting free brand mentions.
To attract attention to your informational Webinar recording, make fair use of blog promotion strategies like posting the link on your social media posts.
And talking of social media…
- Social Media Profile Backlinks
You can take advantage of social media to increase your internet visibility. Open different social media platforms and create official accounts for your brand.
Some of the popular social media platforms to consider are:
- Instagram.
- Facebook.
- YouTube.
- Twitter.
- LinkedIn.
- TikTok.
- Snapchat
Instagram, Snapchat, and TiktmTok are mainly for youngsters, while LinkedIn is for corporates. So choose accordingly depending on your target audience.
Some of these platforms have niche-based communities or forums you can join in answering questions (like an industry expert) to build your business reputation. Sprinkle some of the answers with backlinks to your website.
Most of these platforms let you add a link to your website. Hence, some people who check your business profile will click through to your website.
The more people get engaged with your brand, the more they click to find out more. Yours could be a small online business but will still be able to generate a reasonable chunk of backlinks. A user-friendly website with proper navigation can also be created with help from an eCommerce SEO company.
While at it, kindly ask your employees to list your business as their employer on their Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram accounts. They should provide a link back to your site.
At the end of the day, you have more backlinks and high website authority.
- Image/Infographic Backlinks
Creating an infographic may be time-consuming. It is a kind of case study. But your efforts will be rewarded because many websites could be seeking simplified case study you did. You soon witness double traffic to your site because many sites have backlinked to yours.
That’s the simple beauty of an infographic. You employ colors, graphs, images, and well-researched data that your audience can easily consume and use as a citation to bring home a point on their websites. You may check Localclienttakeover for Citation building.
Be creative and design engaging, fun, digestible, and colorful infographics.
Wrap Up
Backlinks are essential if you hope to increase your domain credibility in the eyes of the search engines so that you could rank higher.
But you should also beware that not every backlink is valuable or acceptable. Some will get you penalized or even blocked.
Use every backlink in moderation so that you do not create the impression that you are all out to drive traffic to your site. Google wants you to focus on providing useful information with no strings attached.