7 Super Link Building Strategies to Get 1000s of Backlinks FAST

 

Let me guess:
 

You want your website to rank high on the first page of search results, right?
It's a good thought, but how exactly are you going to pull that through?

Well, one thing you MUST do is to generate backlinks to your website.

Why? Because links, along with content, are the bedrock of search engine optimization (SEO). While SEO has evolved over the years, backlinks remain one of the most important and influential SEO ranking factor. This means to gain serious traction on Google and other search engines, you have to build backlinks. The more links you have pointing to your website, the better your rankings will be.

But just as with anything in life, quality has to eclipse quantity. The quality of the links you build must be good. Gone are the days when you could build low-quality backlinks to your website as a means of bettering your rankings. If you do this today, you'll end up doing more harm to your website than good.

Don't get into any shady link building schemes… except you want your site penalized.

 

 

So what are some decent strategies to build quality backlinks to your website?

That's what this guide is about, and in it, we'll talk about some effective link building strategies to use this year:

1. Use Link-Generating Content Formats
 

So, BuzzSumo recently conducted a study in which they analyzed 1 million blog posts to see how they perform with links and shares in focus.

 

In the study, they found that the majority (75%) of online content had zer0 backlinks and 39 or fewer social shares:

 

 

You definitely do not want to be found in that category!
But here's the bright side of things: The study found that certain types of content formats performed superbly in terms of generating loads of backlinks and social shares.

Want to know what those content formats are?

Here they are:

• List Posts

• Quizzes

• “Why” Posts

• “How to” Posts

• Infographics

• Videos

 

 

These types of content can generate you 1000s of backlinks, if done properly. (Take “properly” to mean consistently and correctly.) For example, you'll find that on this SEO blog, some of our most popular posts are list posts. This shouldn’t be a surprise! The BuzzSumo study found that list posts performed better than every other content formats. Here's their conclusion in quote:

“List posts appear to perform consistently well as a content format in terms of both shares and links.”

 

We are not saying go dish out a bunch of run-of-the-mill list articles. No!

If you want people to link to you, your content must be awesome. As a matter of fact, that's our next point…

2. Produce Long-form, Quality Guides
 

The first step to getting backlinks in a decent way, without asking anybody for them, is to continually create high-quality content that people want to link to and share. The more quality content you create, the greater chance there is that you will naturally receive incoming links.

 

 

One such quality content are ultimate guides. Ultimate guides involve creating long-form, thoroughly-researched, well-designed content that covers everything there is to know about that topic…so much so that when readers read it, they won't need to read any other article to understand the subject. And if people wanted to link to a content on that topic, they'll find the guide worthy of the link.

An effective strategy for creating superior content that's better than your competitor's work is this:

• Find a post in your niche that is already “the best.”

• 10x it to become bigger, better, or more updated than the first.

No doubt, long form guides take a lot of effort to create and can cost you more than your usual articles (in terms of writing and design time), but they can pay off in the form of higher rankings and quality backlinks to your site.
 

3. Run Strategic Guest Blogging
 

Guest blogging has seen some rockings over the years, but it still remains one of the surest ways of generating quality, orchestrated backlinks. The emphasis here is on “strategic” because the quality of the results you get will depend on how you run your guest posts. Back in the days, it was okay to publish hundreds of guest posts on low-quality sites and Google will recognize your links and send you to page one. These days, quality trumps quantity.

So instead of going with numerous second-rate sites, find niche-specific, quality blogs that will not only hand you quality backlinks but good traffic, too. On your guest posts, you can either add links within the body of the article, on the author bio, or on both. You can link to your homepage, relevant articles, landing pages, etc.

However, do note that some blogs do not allow links within the body of the content but only on author bio. In that case, be sure to use your byline intelligently. Keep it smart and to the point. Tell readers who you are, what you do, and what value you bring. And then, make a call to action.

Generally, see guest posts as a fair tradeoff being that you’re giving the host blog great free content in exchange for some links and exposure.

 

4. Publish Original Research and Surveys
 

Research and surveys may require an extra amount of time or money to conduct, but they can generate tons of backlinks as well.
Think of the number of bloggers and media outlets who will cite and link back to your findings.

If you are considering the cost and would rather not research by yourself or hire a researcher, how about reaching out to organizations that conduct research. You can obtain the go-ahead from them to publish their research in PDFs.

This way, you'll only have to write a short blog post that summarizes the findings, or summarizes parts of it, in exchange for a link to their landing page to download the full report. You’ll still end up getting lots of links and traffic, even if the data isn’t yours.That’s what most science publications do. They write reports to summarize the latest scientific research. After your report is published, you might want to reach out to relevant media outfits for possible mentions.

5. “Help a Reporter Out”

In your escapades for links, don't focus just on niche blogs. White hat backlinks from authority news sites can be just as useful if not more. Thinking it's hard to get published on top news sites? Well, not exactly so! With Help a Reporter Out (HARO), it can be easier than you think:

 

 

HARO is a platform that connects journalists and sources for possible contributions to news reports. You basically sign up and they'll email you three times a day with contribution opportunities from reporters.

To get started, first register as a source.

 

 

Next, choose a free or paid plan.

 

 

Then, keep an eye out for requests that you can contribute to.

Finally, when you find a request that best matches your interests, send the journalist a valuable and brief pitch.

6. Give Life to Dead Links
 

This strategy is courtesy Brian Dean of Backlinko and he calls it the “Moving Man Method.”

So how this works is this:

First, you have to find sites in your industry that have done any of the following:

• Moved to a new URL

• Changed their names

• Closed up shop

• Stopped updating a resource

• Stopped offering a service

Next step is to find sites still pointing to the old, outdated URL. You can do this using a tool like Backlink Checker by Small SEO Tools. Then, have a look at the sites linking to the old URLs. Focus on sites that have the highest Domain Authority (DA). And lastly, reach out to the people still linking to the outdated resource, give them a quick heads up about their outdated link, and gently suggest that they add your link to their site.

7. Leverage Unlinked Brand Mentions

As you keep staying active online, publishing quality content and updating your presence, you’ll have lots and lots of people mentioning you online. Some of these sites won't link to you, even though they mention your company or name.

Why not reach out to them to ask for a possible inclusion of your URL. Since they already mentioned you, it'll only be easier for them to link. Moreover, it'll also provide more value to their readers as they'll be able to see additional resource through your link.

Conclusion

 

Backlinks are very important for achieving top page rankings. Google and other search engines determine how trustworthy a website is based on the quality of links it has.

The search engines see each link as a sort of recommendation, so the more quality links a website has pointing to it, the more credibility it holds, and the higher it'll rank in search engine results pages (SERPs).

Not to mention other benefits like higher domain authority (DA), increased traffic, etc.

To get you started with link building, we have an array of premium quality free backlink tools:

• Backlink Checker: for checking how many backlinks your website has (or that of a competitor), plus the value of each link, using Google protocols.

• Backlink Maker: for generating a large number of high value backlinks in a matter of seconds.

• Website Link Analyzer Tool: for analyzing the links on your website. It analyzes external links (links going out of your websites) and internal links (links within your website).

• Reciprocal Link Checker: for keeping track of reciprocal or mutual links for up to five sites per check and saving time from manually checking individual sites.

You can learn more about link building and general SEO over at our SEO blog, or join us on Facebook and Twitter for the latest SEO tips and tricks.