Building backlinks is time-consuming and tiring, especially with prior knowledge. You can only build high-quality backlinks effectively if you are well-prepared and informed about what to do. This article will discuss tips for successful backlink building required to save time and increase the chances of getting quality backlinks.

Before I talk about the tips, you need to understand that all links are not equal.

It is a common misconception that all links are equal. While in reality, search engines do not consider all links equal. They give more value to quality links than ordinary links.

For example, Google does not consider all links equal and may penalize your site for any bad links you have placed on poor-quality or spammy sites. Therefore, you must pay special attention to the quality of backlinks and focus on getting links that can be valuable for your site.

Here are the 15 simple tips that can help you get high-quality backlinks effectively:

1. Target Valuable Links

Backlink building is one of the most complicated SEO tasks, and the quality of links makes it more challenging to achieve.

Several factors make a link valuable for your site, such as:

• It is from a high domain authority website: The authority of sites referring to your page significantly affects your rank. It is because the backlink carries the authority of the site. Therefore, high domain authority websites pass more power onto your site.
• It comes from a relevant website: Search engines check whether the backlink is coming from a related site. A valuable link comes from a site that is relevant to your niche. For example, if your niche is digital marketing and you get a backlink from a food blog, it cannot benefit you.
• It is unique: One mistake new site owners make is gaining multiple links from the same site. However, backlinks from different websites are more beneficial not only for SEO but also for diversified traffic. Therefore, get backlinks from different websites to improve your search engine ranking and expand your audience base.
• It comes from a site that has not previously given you a link: Unique links from different websites are much more beneficial than multiple links from the same website.
• It is natural: Links are neither paid nor sponsored.
• Dofollow links: Although dofollow links are more valuable, nofollow links also benefit you with increased traffic and exposure. However, for SEO, search engines consider only dofollow links. In addition, dofollow links pass authority from the referring site to the destination site. In contrast, nofollow links do not pass any authority to you.

All links are dofollow by default, except links coming from social media. Some other typical sources of nofollow links are:

• Blog comments section.
• Discussion Forums such as Quora and Reddit.
• Platforms with user-generated content, such as YouTube, Medium, and Twitch.
• Press releases.
• Paid advertisements.
• Wikipedia.
• Widget links.

2. Focus on How Target Websites Will Benefit By Linking to Your Site

Before you follow any backlink-building strategies, you must understand what your target websites want. Highly authoritative websites will only link to your page if you have something valuable to offer.

Most sites seek the following benefits when they link to your site.

• Content relevant to their niche and of their audience’s interest.
• Detailed content covering every aspect of the topic in depth.
• Up-to-date content with the latest data trends.
• High-quality, authoritative content.
• The legitimacy of the website.

3. Stick To a Format That Attracts More Traffic

Specific content formats are best for earning backlinks, such as:

• Why post: For example, why do you need backlinks to improve your ranking?
• What post: For example, what are the most successful backlink-building strategies?
• How-to-post: For instance, How to write a post that can get you backlinks?
• List-post: For example, Top 10 backlink-building tools to use in 2021.

Creating content formats that are popular and widely searched leads to more backlinks. Therefore, the above content formats will get you more backlinks and increase organic traffic to your blog.

4. Create Competitive Content

Millions of web pages compete for backlinks, making it a challenging task. However, webpages having more high-quality content than their competitors get the most backlinks.

The quality of external links affects your posts too. For example, I only include links to the posts offering the most relevant, highly engaging, well-written, and competitive content.

To make your content competitive, you must:

• Discuss the topic in more depth than your competitors.
• Include high-quality images, videos, slide shares, screenshots, and other visual assets.
• Cover content that your competitors have ignored.
• Use better headings so that it is easier to read.

5. Create Long-Form Content

Long-form content gets more backlinks and shares. It provides better value to readers than short-form content, as it is frustrating to go to multiple pages for missing information. They prefer content that covers all aspects in great depth.

However, do not write overly long posts; it may be equally frustrating for the reader. The following factors may help you determine the ideal length of the post:

The topic covered: Some topics require more in-depth information while others don’t. The easiest way to determine the ideal content length is to analyze the Google search results for the keyword. For example, if you are writing about how to build a website, you can explore the top 10 search results to see the average content length.

Competitor’s analysis: You can compare the progress of your competitor’s posts with yours to see if you have yet to include some valuable information they have provided.

6. Conduct Original Research

You must have seen websites that publish the results of surveys or analyze trends. Those results and trends get shared more quickly than any other information. Authentic websites also often link to original research that is not published before.

Therefore, conduct surveys or use your website data to find patterns and publish the results.

7. Create Infographics

Infographics, as the name suggests, is the visual representation of information. Visuals are easy to understand and take preference over lengthy text. So what does it mean? They are likely to be shared more often.

Infographics alone can get you a significant number of backlinks. In addition, other bloggers use infographics in their content while giving credit to your site.

You can use tools like Canva and Visme for creating creative infographics.

8. Create Internal Links

Naturally, some pages get more organic traffic than others. However, internal links give exposure to the entire website. They prompt users to navigate the whole website. For example, an internal link may take the users to a page of interest. Therefore, traffic will increase to all pages, leading to higher chances of backlinks.

LinkWhisper is a popular WordPress plugin you can use for internal link building. It uses artificial intelligence to suggest relevant links.

9. Track Your Competitor’s Backlinks

Tracking competitors’ backlinks is undoubtedly the most critical step towards backlink building for your website. You not only learn about new opportunities you may have overlooked, but you also get to know about what your strategy lacks.

A competitor backlink analysis can benefit you in multiple ways, such as:

• Improve your content by assessing which competitors’ posts get the most backlinks.
• Identifying the number of backlinks required to rank higher in SERPs by assessing the average number of backlinks competitors are getting.
• Target appropriate keywords by assessing which content is getting more backlinks.
• Target high authority sites by assessing the quality of sites linking to competitors.

If you want an all-in-one SEO tool that tracks your competitor’s backlinks, then SEMrush can be a brilliant choice. Alternatively, Linkody is another tool for backlink analysis that will notify you immediately once your competitor gains a backlink.

If your business has multiple people working on a backlink strategy, then Contentbird is a better choice. It has a team member collaboration feature to keep everyone on the same track.

10. Short Pitch While Reaching Out To Owners of Sites

While reaching out to a web admin, keep your pitch short and to the point. Avoid writing junk, whether you intend to replace a broken link or tell them about the testimonial you wrote.

Start with a single-line introduction and then explain the purpose of your email. For example, appreciate the product, service, or content before asking for a backlink if you have written a testimonial.

Additionally, please write in a natural flow to make it look authentic.

11. Build Relationships

Building relationships is essential to help you gain high-quality backlinks and learn from other professionals in your niche. You will also know the latest trends and news.

So how do you build a relationship?

You can build relationships by commenting on other blog posts related to your niche and participating in discussion forums. Once you start commenting on blog posts and participating in forums, you will know about many authentic and exceptional authors. With time, they will start recognizing you as an expert in the industry.

Another effective way to build relationships is to link to other blogs or sites. Linking to other sites makes your presence felt, and you will likely lead to a positive response when:

• Asking for a backlink.
• Pitching a guest post.
• Approaching to feature your site in the link roundup.
• Convincing to replace a broken or outdated link with your content.
• Asking to publish your testimonial on their site.

Building relationships will also help you establish your authority, a recipe for getting backlinks.

12. Focus On The Most Effective Relevant Backlink Building Strategies

You may have read about several backlink-building strategies, some of which may not work out for you. Rather than wasting time on strategies that do not work for you, use your efforts on those expected to get you better results.

For new bloggers, writing reviews or testimonials is not an ideal choice. Websites accept and display testimonials or reviews only from renowned bloggers. While building broken links and guest posting may give you outstanding results.

13. Stay Active on Social Media

Active social engagement gives more exposure to your content. More exposure leads to not only more shares but also higher organic backlinks. Use all social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.

• Whenever you write something new, please share it on Facebook.
• Tweet the results whenever you conduct a survey or carry out an analysis.

14. Focus on Editorial Backlinks

Editorial backlinks benefit your site the most in terms of SEO. They refer to links that are included in a piece of high-quality content and refer to your website as:

• Source of information.
• Creator of an infographic.
• Qualifier for a link roundup.

Editorial backlinks are proof that your content is highly authoritative. Therefore, the more editorial backlinks you get, the more authority you gain.

15. Monitor Your Backlinks

Most site owners make the mistake of not monitoring their backlinks. Unfortunately, just as you get credit for high-quality backlinks, you may also get penalized for low-quality links.

Following are the four main reasons for monitoring your backlinks:

1. Assess the quality of backlinks and disavow those that may get your website penalized.
2. Low-quality backlinks can affect your reputation, and you may lose traffic.
3. You are aware of what people are writing about you. Is it a complaint or a review?
4. Assess your backlink strategy to know if it is working or not.

Several backlink-checking tools are available that you can use to track and monitor backlinks, such as Linkody, Serpstat, and SpyFu.

Conclusion

Building backlinks can be time-consuming and nerve-wracking for many website owners. They may not see the desired results despite repeated efforts, which adds to their frustration. However, some tips can make backlink building easy and successful, benefitting your site.