5 Effective Strategies to Take Your Backlink Portfolio to the Next Level

When it comes to building backlinks for your website, quality is as important as quantity. 

High-quality backlinks are a reflection of the quality of your content and can help you improve your page’s organic reach and ranking.

The rules of organic search engine page rankings are forever being redefined, keeping SEO specialists on their toes to figure out what works and what doesn’t. 

But if there’s one strategy that has stood the test of time, it’s the practice of building link authority for your pages through backlinks.

What are backlinks?

Backlinks, also known as inbound or incoming links, are links to your website from other websites. 

The value a backlink adds to your organic search rankings depends upon the reputation of the website linking back to you. In the minds of search engines, the more links you have from popular and topically relevant sites, the better your content is.

Building valuable backlinks requires a strong SEO strategy that focuses on creating stellar content, forging meaningful relationships and maintaining an active presence on relevant channels.

How do domain names affect the quality of backlinks?

One of the questions that SEO experts around the world are trying to answer is - do domain names have an impact on SEO?

The answer to that is, yes they do have an impact. But unlike before, this is not a direct impact. So, getting a domain name such as www.ihopethiskeywordheavydomainnameranks.com will not do the trick.

A study on the impact of new domains on SEO explains how a keyword-rich domain name can help websites get on-topic backlinks that help with SEO.

For example, if www.kindle.store gets backlinks on the anchor text ‘kindle store’, then overtime it helps the website rank for the keywords ‘kindle store’.

Domain names on new and contextual domain extensions such as .TECH, .SITE, .ONLINE, .SPACE, etc. allows a business to get a relevant and keyword-rich domain name.

Read on to learn about five practices that can entice and encourage high-quality websites to link back to you: 

1.  Create skyscraper content

In order to earn backlinks from authority websites, you need to create content that is worth linking back to. 

By creating ‘skyscraper content’, you are increasing your chances of earning backlinks by offering exactly what authority websites look for in a backlink — unmatched popularity and quality.

The skyscraper technique involves finding the most popular content piece on a particular subject and creating similar but better content that is capable of outperforming it. While examining the content you’re planning on “skyscraping”, ask yourselves the following questions:

•       What is missing in this content piece?
•       Do you have any information or expertise that can fill in the gaps in the content?
•       Are there any ways in which you can make the content more readable or visually appealing?

These are the issues you need to address in your own content piece to make it skyscraper-quality and improve your chances of being featured high up in the search engine results page (SERP).

The advantage of using this technique is that you’re creating content on a subject that is already in demand, and by offering something that is better than the best, you become an attractive backlink option for other websites.

2.  Build relationships with authority websites

Backlinks from authoritative websites with great, credible, content and a large number of users will help you improve your own content’s search rankings. On the other hand, paid links or backlinks from spam websites will harm your online reputation.

To ensure that you earn quality backlinks, reach out to such authority websites and request them to link back to your content pages. Such websites could be those who offer accurate, unbiased editorial coverage, influential bloggers or popular high-end brands with a loyal user base. Linking back to another website is a way of vouching for the authenticity and quality of its content.

An easy way to spot such websites is to look for backlinks of your competitors. Pitch your content to them and convince them of how linking back to you could improve their user experience. Scour the Internet for broken links and offer publishers your own content to be linked to instead. 

3.  Monitor the latest SEO trends

To begin, check if you’re meeting the following criteria:

•       Is your content in sync with the best SEO practises in terms of keywords usage and tagging?
•       Do you have enough content on your website that focuses on subjects that are trendy, topical and among the most searched?
•       Is this content in a format that is engaging, easy to consume, and visually appealing?

Checking all the boxes above will ensure you attract more users and quality backlinks.

When a website links back to you, it is relying on your SEO game and content quality to boost its own. Improve the SEO-friendliness of your website with an optimized and easily navigable website architecture and fresh content featuring credible sources and collaborations with influential bloggers. 

Staying on top of trends need not always mean creating new content. You can also revamp your existing content to make it fresh and exciting, even promote it on social media to make it more appealing to users and other websites.

4.  Maintain an active social presence

Hosting great content and not promoting it enough is as bad as hosting poor content. 

In order to entice authority websites to link back to you, you need to convince them that your content is brilliant and has the right amount of visibility. While the jury is still out on whether social impressions impact SERP rankings, social promotions play an integral part in driving users to your website. 

Merely posting on social media channels is not enough. In order to make users keep coming back to your website, you also need to engage with them in a meaningful way. Respond to their likes and comments and reward them with mentions on your own pages. Social mentions are also a great way to encourage websites who are linking back to you. 

5.  Use your team’s expertise

Best-in-class content is a result of the expertise and passion of the team that creates it. When promoted in the right way, this can be a useful asset for earning high-quality backlinks for your website. 

Channel your knowledge and creativity to come up with compelling and exciting content pieces, such as podcasts, how-to videos, tutorials, guest posts and talks at events and seminars. When hosted on other platforms, request a link to your company’s website and also offer them backlinks on your own website. 

Another way to set your content apart is to offer something niche. 

For instance, if you have a competitive graphic design team, you can populate your website with high-quality infographics, which other websites can link to as a source to support their own content. 

Other unique content types can include white papers, glossaries, charts, case studies, and reviews.

Conclusion

Backlinks are important for any website that wants to establish itself as an authentic, trustworthy and relevant source of content. With a few smart content creation and promotion tactics, you can enhance your domain authority by earning the validation of other authority websites in the form of backlinks.

Alisha is a Senior Content Marketing & Communication Specialist at Radix, the registry behind some of the most successful new domain extensions, including .STORE and .TECH. You can connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.