Building back links for clients as an SEO specialist in San Francisco was originally quite daunting. We came to the same conclusion that just like ranking well with good SEO, we needed great content to improve our link profiles and domain authority.
I researched and found at least 50 ways to get additional back links and I’ve filtered them down to 8. Why? Because much of those tactics were complete crap and out of date. Most sites are now providing no-follow links as opposed to do-follow links, which has changed the back link building game.
I actually think no-follow links count more than other SEO marketers, but that’s another conversation. Below are the most legitimate ways to build back links – as of 2014.
Create an embeddable graphic for your customers:
This is a strategy that allows your users to be your link builders. You supply HTML code to a well designed (company X) graphic for your customers that has a link to your website inside it.
Example: The code below will reveal a (company X) logo when embedded on articles and web pages. When someone clicks on the image, it will take them to the (company X) website.
When people sign up for a new account, you can provide them HTML code with a message encouraging them to let their web visitors know they’re using your service by embedding the graphic.
Finding high authority blogs to submit your guest content:
The best way to do this is to do a Google search using “blog:” This will only return blogs, which naturally want content.
For your business, go to Google and type in “blog: (service or product).”
Tips on submitting guest blogs.
Create a your own unique industry graphics:
Infographics are shareable content that other bloggers in the industry like to insert into their articles. By creating your own infographics, or making an info graphic out of your own case studies, you have content that you can submit to writers and can ask if they want to use it in their next blog.
Run a sweepstakes or promotion:
Give away a prize (like 75% off an annual subscriber plan), but make the requirement for entry posting a link back to your site, following you on Twitter or becoming a fan of your Facebook page. You’ll get backlinks, friends and followers all at once.
Have a guest blog Call-To-Action on your blog page:
This encourages guest blogging with others. You’ll get great content which helps with SEO, and you can do a blog exchange to get a link back from their site.
Write reviews on your customers websites:
The link back will come from your signature. In this scenario, you’re actually reviewing companies who are customers and writing about how you enjoyed working with them, they have a great product and provide solid customer service.
Then you simply sign off at the bottom, “(Your Name), Co-founder and CEO of (company X).com.”
Blog commenting: (company X) can get do-follow links from certain blogs by commenting on articles.
Not all blogs will give a do-follow link and there are best practices for this strategy, including:
- Make sure your comments relate to the article
- Provide a link to your site in the sign off portion of the comment or in the intro to establish your authority
- Responding to other comments is generally a good idea, and shows you’ve been reading what others have to say
To comment on the latest articles about your industry, product or service, set up Google alerts for various relevant phrases. Select the category ‘News’ and ‘Blog.’
Social media sites to post content:
You can get link backs from these social media domains for articles/webpages you post. Profiles will have to be created to submit content. Not all of them are do-follow.
- StumbleUpon
- Digg
- Squidoo
The best website for learning more tactics on back link building is http://backlinko.com/. Also SEOMoz provides really good link reporting – probably the best anywhere – and even offers back link acquisition software.
Feel free to ping me with SEO and inbound marketing questions on Twitter @CortTafoya. You can also request a consultation below. Take care.
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