You have a growing company, a professionally designed and developed website, and a blog that you are maintaining with regular articles. 

No doubt, you are also marketing your product/service according to a strategic plan. 

If link-building is not a part of that plan, it should be. 

What is Link-Building?

Here’s a short scenario that will explain link-building. 

A company sells landscaping/gardening supplies and small equipment pieces (wheelbarrows, spreaders, etc.). it has a blog that is well-maintained and that sports lots of articles about gardening. An online nursery contacts the business owner and suggests that they collaborate through mutual backlinks. The nursery owner will include links to the landscaping/gardening company in its blog posts, and that company will do the same in its articles. Both companies now have what are called backlinks to their sites.

This is a perfect “union.” The two companies are in related business niches, and linking to one another is a logical move. Google likes these kinds of backlinking activities.

Why are Backlinks Important?

A business only grows when its customer base does. This is the goal of every business marketing plan – find new potential customers and nurture them.

What getting backlinks does is this: it opens up your company to another company’s customer base. And when that company provides links to you, it is like a recommendation for your business.

The more appropriate backlinks you get, the more Google notices, and the higher your rankings can become. Note the word “appropriate.” Those backlinks must be logical. A gardening supply company that gets a backlink from a cosmetics supplier will actually be “punished” for that behavior, because it does not make sense to Google.

It is important that you have strategies to obtain quality backlinks that will grow your customer base and please search engines like Google. Here are 10 of those strategies.

Find “Influencers” in your Niche

You can conduct a simple Google search with keywords that are relevant to your niche. You will find websites, blogs, and more that appear on that first page. These are the most popular destinations for consumers interested in the product/service that you offer. Now it’s time to nurture relationships with these influencers. Follow their blogs, comment on them, and participate in discussions. Follow them on social media. Again, comment and participate in discussions. You want them to begin to recognize your name. 

Once you have established yourself as a follower, you can ask them if you can re-post one or more of their articles on your blog. Chances are you will get a “yes.” Who doesn’t like free publicity? And then, you will want to send that influencer one of your articles – the best you have – and ask if he will publish it on his blog (with a link to you, of course). 

All of this takes time, of course. But it will be well worth it in the end. Be patient. These relationships are not established quickly.

Check Out your Competition

Your competitors are getting backlinks. Where are they coming from? Fortunately, there is a great technology that lets you do this. Check out SEMrush, a cool SEO tool. 

Here’s how you do this: Once you are on the site, go to “Backlink Analytics.” Then, enter the web address of your competitor, and you’ll get a list of their backlinks and the domains from which they come. If they look like solid, relevant companies, then begin the process of developing a relationship with them. Comment on their posts; follow them on social media – just like you have done with “influencers.”

Search Google for Related Niches

Use keywords that are most common for your business niche and search Google for other companies that are reputable and popular. Contact that business owner and suggest collaborative backlinking. Chances are, he is looking for reputable backlinks too.

Look for Broken Links

A lot of websites of companies that are related to your business have broken links – links that are no longer good for a variety of reasons. There is help to find these broken links through Google Analytics. Contact the owner or webmaster and offer your site as a replacement. Most companies do not like broken links because they are frustrating for visitors, and they will most likely honor your proposition.

Craft the Highest Quality Content Possible

Nothing substitutes for high-quality content, both on your website and on your blog. When you do this, you have a piece of writing that others within your niche want to get out to their customer bases too. Once you have published your amazing piece, send it to other related business owners who know that their bases will want to read/view it. Chances are, they will want to publish it, and, of course, there will be a backlink to that post and thus your website. Don’t send it to direct competition. Send it to related niches. If you are looking for the most popular content topics, there are any number of sources for this.

Write Testimonials

You have a list of reputable related niches that you want to give you backlinks. Rather than ask them directly for those, consider writing a testimonial for some tool or service that you use in your own business. For example, let’s go back to the landscaping/gardening company. It’s a retail operation, but it may purchase some of its supplies from wholesalers. Submitting a positive testimonial on that company’s site, with an include link to you, is an easy way to get a backlink.

Create Infographics that are Easily Shared

People love content that is reduced to easy-to-absorb visuals. If you can turn important content into an infographic, you can send it out to loads of related companies who will find it valuable for their audiences and publish it.

Use HARO

HARO stands for “Help a Reporter Out.” This is a site comprised of journalists and popular bloggers. Getting a backlink from one or more of these in a news article is worth a lot.

Here’s how it’s done: go to the site and register as a news source. There are pricing plans, but just sign up for the free basic account at first. Then, you’ll begin to receive emails from journalists looking for news, stories, advice, tips, etc. When you get one related to your niche and you have something of interest to offer, respond to that email. If your response is used, you will get a backlink.

Guest Blog

This will take a simple bit of research. Google blogs in related niches. You don’t have to begin with the most popular ones, because you may not be well-known. Send over some of your best articles with a short message of who you are, what your company is all about and a statement that you believe your article will be of interest to their followers. You have to be persistent and patient – don’t let rejections get you down. J.K. Rowling received over 250 rejections before she found a publisher for her first Harry Potter book.

White Hat vs. Black Hat

While this is not a specific strategy, be mindful that there are a number of sources out there that will promise to get you a huge number of backlinks for a fee. Many of these use “black hat” strategies, meaning they will throw your link out there to a myriad of low-quality websites, many of which have little-to-no relation to your niche. In the end, Google will “punish” you, and your ranking will hit bottom. There are also some “white hat” resources that will help you land reputable and related backlinks which will improve your ranking. If you choose to use an outside source, do your due diligence and be certain you select one with a white hat.

Acquiring backlinks is an important part of any marketing plan. It is a long-term process, so be certain you have both persistence and patience. Over time, as your number of backlinks continues to increase, you will acquire a steady growth in the customer base.