In this blog, I will present some great link building tips, which will help to boost traffic to your site or blog. These tips work well both for B2C and B2B, large enterprise sites or small personal blogs

If you apply famous 80/20 rule to SEO, it will look something like this:

Spend 20% of the time on creating content and 80% on building links

Of course, your content should be of top quality. But, even the most amazing content has a little chance to rank if you just post it and wait without link building campaigns.

Link building is the “secret sauce” of SEO. Also, it is an essential and non-missable part of any SEO campaign.

Seriously, many content writers and SEO specialists have this one common mistake: they never build links. Mostly, they focus on creating content, on-page SEO (including keywords in meta tags, titles, headings, alt tags) and tech SEO setup.

Link building is often considered as a spammy, black hat SEO technique.

In fact, your site just won’t get any serious traffic without active link building. In my own experience, if I just posted content (even with amazing content, great on-page SEO and tech setup) – traffic was reaching a “plateau”.

You should be in constant “link hunt” – think of all the ways to get more high-quality backlinks to your site.

Here are the top tips, which will help you to build more backlinks and get more Google traffic.

1. Outreach

Outreach is the “bread and butter” of link building.

Every time you publish a new blog post, you should find relevant blogs and reach out to them, asking to include a link to your source as well.

Here is a template you can use:

Hey, I stumbled your nice blog about … Great job!
Recently, I created something similar: url
Would you mind checking it out and maybe, linking in your blog or sharing on social?

Cheers,

Andrew.

Now, it all depends on the WOW effect of your content – if it is another 400-word blog post from Fiverr, of course, it won’t be linked. But, an impressive, visual long-form blog with infographic, video – have all the chances to earn a link this way.

2. Register on relevant sites

In every niche there some portals, directories, forums, sites, which can offer you to create a profile with a link to your site. Do that. It is more an old-school SEO technique, but it still works, as the majority of these older domains might have great authority.

3. PR campaign

Especially, if you are a business, consider some sort of online PR campaign.

You can start by sending some press-releases online to thousands of publishers – however, it doesn’t work that well in 2019.

What creates high-quality backlinks – is an overreaching PR campaign, which can get the attention of top journalists and publishers in your niche. And as a result, you can earn mentions in top sites with high domain authority (DR).

4. Utilize newsworthiness

You released a major product update, created a 10000-word study, published unexpected findings – all these are great opportunities for creating powerful backlinks.

Again, consider the PR campaign, notify top publishers and bloggers in your niche, spread the word. You will get more links.

5. Guest posts

One of the fastest ways to get backlinks is by creating guest posts. It works like a charm in 2019.

You will need a unique and engaging piece of content and then send it to relevant bloggers in your niche. Include one or two links to your site.

You can use something like this in the outreach email:

Hello,

Just found your nice blog …

I would be really happy to contribute a guest article.

Here are some ideas …

Take a look at some example of my previous work …

Looking forward to your reply.

Cheers, Andrew.

Remember, the best links are those, which are getting clicks. Don’t try to fool Google by creating hundreds of spammy referrals or buying links on Fiverr. They just don’t work and can harm your site or even lead to a Google penalty.

6. Link building via influencer outreach

Influencer marketing is one of the hottest things right now.

Create a list of top influencers, thought leaders, journalists, bloggers in your niche.

Every time you create a new blog post in their area – reach out to influencers and ask them to mention on their blog.

To identify top influencers you can use Buzzstream, Buzzsumo or just Google research. Try to tweet them, send a dm on Twitter or Instagram, @mention on social media. Try to provide some value first.

Offer them free content, free product sample, trial or discount, ask for an expert opinion, create a blog about top influencers in your niche and so on.

Just one backlink or social media share from a well-known person in your area can open many doors, create hundreds of referring domains and of course drive huge amounts of traffic.

7. 3-way link exchange

Link exchange means you create a link to the second site and second site links back to you. It is the easiest way to get backlinks – just by asking bloggers to do link exchange – but, it doesn’t work.

What you can do, is find two other sites and do a 3-way link exchange.

Site1 -> site2 -> site3 ->site1

It is a safer way to get backlinks.

8. HARO

HARO (Help a Reporter Out) – a great way to get backlinks from top publishers.

You can signup for free for their service and receive daily emails with content offers. You add some insightful info – receive a backlink.

Here is how HARO request looks like:

9. Competitors research

Do a backlink analysis of your competitors – all these referring domains will be a good fit for you as well. You can use “Link intersect” tool in Ahrefs to quickly identify which sites link to your competitor, but not to you.

10. Ask your customers for a link

It is always a good idea to hint your customers to link to your site somewhere on their site(s). It can be an easy and fast way to get lots of referring domains.

11. Join SEO groups and forums

Join top Facebook and Linkedin SEO groups and top SEO subreddits. Avoid spammy link building ones. You can get tons of insight, upgrade your SEO knowledge and receive link building opportunities.

12. Constant link hunting

To be frank, link building is a tough process. Especially if you are doing it from a start.

And there are hundreds of other ways to build links. You should be in a constant “link hunt”, always think of how to get high authority backlinks to your site. You can find link building opportunities in most unexpected ways:

  • Maybe your colleagues/friends own high authority sites, which can link to you;
  • Attend events and ask for a link;
  • Network with SEO-colleagues, ask for a link;
  • And so on…

To sum it up

Link building is an exhausting and long term process. You won’t see immediate results and traffic spikes as in the case with Facebook or Reddit. Instead, in combination with high-quality content, link building will bring steady traffic growth from Google.

The good part is that organic traffic is evergreen – even your old blogs still attract clicks from Google. While on social media you attract traffic only for a few days.

Happy link hunting!

Author:

Andrii Gorh – SEO enthusiast with 10+ years of experience. He specializes in keyword research, rank tracking and tech SEO tricks. Check out his SEO blog: Online Hikes and travel writings at Museuly.