Backlinks are the vote of confidence your website displays to the SERP algorithm when they’re crawling the web and indexing you. The more the links, and the more high-domain the website referring to you, the better your SEO prospects. You’re looking at better rankings, higher web traffic, and a greater digital presence. 

In the world of SEO, getting backlinks from high-domain and authoritative websites is as important as content creation and mobile optimization. Since the search engine is a machine, it requires several signals from your end to map you out as a credible source that its users—people who are using Google, for instance—will find useful. If other websites are “vouching” for you by referring to you, that helps. 

The only question here is: who will bell the cat? That is to say: who will reach out to these websites and how can you ensure getting a link back?

A Word on High DA Backlinks

High DA—or Domain Authority—can act like a game-changer for your SEO gig. Getting a backlink isn’t all that difficult, to be fair. In fact, you can even pay for backlinks—and every SEO expert everywhere in the world would tell you never to do that. It isn’t just some random backlink that you should aspire to—but the best of the best: high DA backlinks. 

And what are those?

Domain Authority is a metric that matters when it comes to ranking your website. The higher the domain of the website linking back to you, the better your credibility. To put it simply, Domain Authority is a measure of the website’s popularity, which also highlights its usability. 

And what score exactly are you looking for when searching for a high DA website? It’s 80—or above. 

Popular websites with that score include The Huffington Post, NY Times, and other credible, already-established digital giants. It goes without saying that the New York Times won’t just link back to any business. But there have been people who have managed to get themselves mentioned and referred to on high domain websites—such as Neil Patel on Forbes. So, it isn’t exactly impossible—but it takes quite a lot to get to that point. 

Be Specific

It isn’t that a backlink from NY Times isn’t titillating as a prospect, it’s just that if you’re selling everlasting gobstoppers, you don’t want a backlink from NY Times—you’d rather get one from Tasty, Buzzfeed Food, or Eater. You have to look for relevance. 

Find your niche by running a Google search of all the keywords you identify with your brand—and observe which other websites are offering them. Then use a research tool, such as a site explorer, to find out their domain authority. For every website that has a DA over 80, shortlist it. 

Now get to getting them to link to you.

Quick Link Building Techniques

Revive Dead Links

Reviving dead links is just like finding a grave is empty, telling the grave keeper that you’ve dug a grave that is empty, and that you can take that place instead. Please don’t take that literally. What we mean is, run a search of all the links your shortlisted websites are referring back to. If any of them are dead or do not link back to any pages, write to the website, politely point it out, and provide one of your pages that they could link back to instead. 

Pitch Guest Posts

And we don’t just mean you should follow the same old guest post routine, looking for websites that post content (do that, too, though). Find a website that is (a) relevant to your business and (b) authoritative. Now pitch content to them. You’ll be surprised to find out this works. Let’s say you do sell everlasting gobstoppers—a site like Buzzfeed Food might be thrilled if you offer to write for them a killer piece about the making of gobstoppers. 

Offer these websites something they can’t get from anywhere else: mention of a secret ingredient, a detailed recipe, photos, videos, graphs, etc. Authoritative websites are always crazy about content. 

Testimonials

Finally, find businesses in your industry that are insanely popular with the masses. Remember, this isn’t competitor research—this should be something that is somehow related to your own business. If we stick to the everlasting gobstopper analogy, you might be a user of confectionary products, electronic devices used in the kitchen, baker’s goods, and so on. If you do find such a website, leave a testimonial—they love testimonials. 

And through that testimonial, you get a chance to pitch yourself, through a backlink, to everyone reading. Neat, no? It’s small link building techniques like these that will make you stand out. 

Getting a Backlink from HuffPost

Like we said, the NY Times might not be too interested in referring to web pages that have little to do with mainstream news items—but there are other websites, such as HuffPost, which aren’t exclusively news. Yet we think of them as news—because that’s how it started. However, over the years, HuffPost has covered everything from politics, satire, humor, technology, foreign exchange, and so much more. It is a true resource for the internet—and a source, perhaps, of earning high domain backlinks for the likes of you. 

The easiest ways to get a backlink from a HuffPost domain is to engage in guest blogging. HuffPost Opinion is one of the rare forums you can try breaking into. If your product/service helps people with money or everyday living, you can even try submitting to HuffPost Life. 

Of course, this isn’t easy. You might not be picked up by the website at all. But there’s no harm in trying submitting your content, right? If you do get picked up, you will be paid as well.

Create Great Content

There’s a reason we in the SEO sphere keep saying “Content is King” on repeat—because it really is. Back when we mentioned Neil Patel, we didn’t enumerate the reasons he continues to dominate the digital arena, and has managed to bag backlinks from the likes of Forbes. It’s because he has a history of creating genuine, informative, useful, readable, well-written content. His audiences have truly gained something from his content over the years. 

You, too, can take this route. It will require patience and time—but it is the most genuine way of earning backlinks that are truly earned from high domain third parties. DA 80+ backlinks earned this way speak for themselves since it indicates that you worked hard enough to be noticed by third party authoritative websites and they liked you well enough to link back to you. 

Much of the content being produced today—says a Forbes writer—is “simply not worth linking to.” Quality over quantity. Genuinely good content will automatically get you links. 

Staying on Top of Your Game

Whatever industry you’re working in, make sure you’re nailing it. Keep up with everything that’s relevant and that’s unfolding around you: whether it’s a new development or a pushback, a legal hurdle or a revolutionary new technology. The faster you cover it, the more your chances of being noticed and linked back to by DA 80+ websites. 

That’s how Navolutions did it: they found something interesting and decided to write their “fastest blog” ever. HuffPo noticed—and linked back to them. This earned them heavy traffic from the regular HuffPo audience, and changed things considerably for Navolutions.

There’s a market for new stories, and the trick is to keep up-to-date with your niche communities and the right social media websites to get to that. That’s how meme pages get so popular—Boe Jiden (or @TotallyRealJosephRBiden, as the page says) was a parody page up and running almost as soon as Joe Biden won the elections. 

Guest article written by: The author is an SEO and a link building expert at Search Berg who has worked with major American businesses, helping them with their SEO, PPC, and social media marketing campaigns.