How to build backlinks is something that you’ll need to know if you want your site to rank in Google. Many people don’t know this. It wasn’t all that long ago that I didn’t know it. I mean, I knew that some backlinks helped, but I didn’t realize that the more competitive your keywords are, the more or better backlinks you need in order to rank well for that keyword or keywords in the search engines.
I’ve said much this before in other posts, (so go read that after you read this) but I’ve decided to do an entire post on getting backlinks, because I’m good like that.
So, if you want to know why any webmaster or blogger should know about how to build backlinks, read on. The old adage, “Build it and they will come” DOES NOT apply to blogging and website building. You have to advertise and syndicate, and backlinks are the proof of that process.
Before You Learn How to Build Backlinks You Have to Know Why You Must Build Them.
Okay so you need backlinks. the overall birdseye view of the process goes like this. You get a concept for your subject matter, you research that subject matter and part of the research involves learning what keywords that have to do with that subject matter are being searched for consistently in Google. You have to know what the monthly search volume average is, but you also have to figure in the competition. The higher the volume the more competition there usually is, and the harder it will be to rank well for those keywords.
You then build out your article with all of the on page SEO best practices in place. Here I mean things like keyword density, URL structure, meta description, main keyword in title and heading tags and also a sprinkling of things like bold, italics, etc, 500+ words (1000-2000 optimal), picture alt tags, spelling, punctuation, and the article has to flow and make sense like a real article should. Aside from all of this SEO stuff, the article must be readable by humans and make sense. It has to provide some value. Providing great value is even better.
Okay, have you done all that?
You have?
Good!
After you publish your mini masterpiece, you should syndicate it out to as many Web 2.0 and social platformas as you can. You can also get some Web 2.0 backlinks through creating articles that link back to it from those sites. Sites like Blogger, Ezinearticals, Goarticles, WorPress.com, Hubpages, Tumblr, and sites like that. There are many more, but I’ve listed a few. You can also get some backlinks from the video hosting sites. Many of these sites are changing from dofollow to nofollow links. Only dofollow links count as backlinks. You should use the Firefox browser and the NoDoFollow addon to check the links. Once enabled through the right click popup menu in the browser window, the dofollow links show highlighted in a blue grey color and nofollw links show in a pinkish red highlight. This is a good way to test what kind of links the site allows and where. Some sites only allow one dofollow link in a profile and none in the general site. Some allow none to control comment spam. You have to hunt around. There are many articles out there on many blogs that can point you in the direction of dofollow link granting sites.
It’s that easy?
If only it were.
Easily gotten backlinks from those sites won’t get you far. They’ll just allow you to lay the groundwork. They might be enough for a non competitive keyword, but not for anything serious. Search engines see these backlinks as votes of support for your content, and they use that in their ranking algorithms. So, you’ll need links from third party sites that don’t trace to you. If you’re placing the links, or placing them as you, then forget it. Another thing is that Google doesn’t like it when you try to manipulate the rankings, so if they figure out that you are placing or buying backlinks and trace that back to you, then your site could be hit with a penalty and deindexed completely, so be careful. They also don’t like link schemes or some other methods that involve trading links. So, even some non purchased links are frowned upon in this fashion. When acquiring links you have to be measured and careful. Other considerations are that you don’t want to build links too fast, because that can be detected and set off alarms and put your site under scrutiny. You also want to stay away from black hat tools like SENuke because the kind of links that that will build would be considered link spam by search engines like Google.
There are “grey hat” link building techniques, but I’m not even going to go into that since anything other than white hat could put you in Google’s crossairs, so let’s not even go there. Besides, there’s PLENTY written about that on other sites. You can actually, Google it, bwahahahaha.
Some terms that you can look at are link pyramids and link wheels, but be careful. What is safe SEO today could land you in trouble tomorrow.
The tool that I use to do my keyword research and find out about how many backlinks I’ll need to reach first page of Google for a given keyword is Market Samurai, which is a one time fee (not monthly like so many others), and it’s updated regularly, is now compatible with Google’s 2 step authentication, and is just a badass product that you should have in your arsenal. It’s cross platform too (PC & MAC) The disclaimer here is that I am an affiliate for that tool, so I have an incentive to send you there, but I really use this tool and love it, so that makes it all kosher.
How To Build Backlinks? Guest Posting on Medium to High PR Blogs
In spite of Google’s Matt Cutts recently being quoted as saying that guest blogging is dead (which he kind of retracted), guest blogging is key. Getting dofollow links on medium to high PR blogs is currently the best way to get links back to your content. The backlinks should be relevant. What this means is that if your blog is about gardening, then your backlinks should primarily come from gardening themed sites and articles. Getting lots of backlinks for a gardening site from auto mechanic sites is not going to help. Get it? Okay.
The hardest part about guest blogging is that you have to be able to write good enough content that others will allow you to publish on their sites. The process of reaching out to them can be awkward for many, but this is the online world and doesn’t require you to place a phone call (email is obviously fine), so it’s not THAT bad. Just be prepared to reach out to many and get few replies. Don’t take it personal. Many just won’t return the emails. Some may. It’s not a guarantee, but when you get that break, make sure the articles that you offer are really good and haven’t been published before. Use photos from free stock sites for which you have the rights to redistribute.
The Long Term Approach
The long term approach for how to build backlinks here is to turn out the best content that you can turn out on your own site. Blog regularly and put much heart and enthusiasm into it. As your site grows and gets more traffic due to your syndication and other efforts, one would hope that there will be people, perhaps some of them other bloggers, who will link to your content and provide more and more backlinks, over time. Blogging is a long term strategy. It doesn’t happen overnight, and that can be a problem for many who are too used to our instant gratification society. The good thing about it is that the lazy and impatient will drop by the wayside and leave the jewels for us real consistent and dedicated bloggers to win. This is where the size of your site, age of your domain, and built up trust as an author all conspire to increase the likelihood that your site will rank well for not only your chosen keywords, but whatever keywords that Google finds in your content as it crawls your site.
How to build backlinks is not only a short term strategy for actively ranking your site, but a long term strategy for ensuring that your site gets lots of traffic in a consistent and dependable manner. It’s always harder in the beginning, and we all struggle with low traffic when starting a new blog. It just goes with the territory and it’s something that you have to be prepared to endure and work through. As I said earlier, blogging is not for the faint of heart or the lazy or the impatient. If that’s you, don’t even bother. That’s not meant to sound mean, it’s just the truth, and I tell it straight.
As you can see from this and other articles, how to build backlinks is more a strategy than just an act. Sure, there are little things and individual things that you can do, but it’s a long term process that you must engage in which will pay the best returns to you and your site over the long haul.
Till next time…
