Let’s admit it; link building is probably the least fun part of SEO. Most webmasters don’t even bother with it, and this is evident as up to two-thirds of all web pages on the internet have zero backlinks.
If this sounds like you, we have bad news for you. You need to build links (and sometimes loads of them) to succeed in the highly competitive organic search traffic space. The good news though is that this process doesn’t always have to be hard – if you know a few tricks.
In this post, we go over seven of the most efficient link building tactics that we’ve used to land ourselves hundreds of quality backlinks without breaking the bank. If you can perfect on 2-3 of these strategies, there’s no way you won’t crush your SEO results in 2022.
Let’s dive in!
Gather industry statistics
Website owners are always looking for relevant industry stats to back their data-driven content. If you can create pages with well-researched and accurate statistics that others in your niche are interested in, you should easily attract backlinks to your website.
Do you need to conduct research to gather this data? Absolutely not. You can just cite secondary sources and create a hub of links that both content creators and searchers will find useful. The goal is to help them save on research time; which some will pay back by linking to your page. Win-win situation!
Repurpose and syndicate your best-performing content
Say you have a blog post that keeps bringing in hundreds of visitors every day. What this means is that the content inside it is in demand and users are finding it helpful.
With this in mind, you can recreate it in other formats to fit different audiences and channels and potentially get it in front of even more eyeballs. For example, you can repurpose a blog post to create an infographic or a video.
Syndication entails third-party websites that pick up content from other websites, usually images and infographics, write a short excerpt of your content and acknowledge the source by linking back to it.
Reclaim lost links
Picture this; you’ve worked hard enough and built tens or even hundreds of backlinks to your site. Then a few months down the line, you notice that number has gone down. Don’t fret just yet.
Losing backlinks is something you should always be ready for and this is why. Webmasters are constantly revamping their websites, changing URL structure, redoing content and sometimes even deleting non-performing pages. If any of these happens, a page with your link could be affected and your link lost.
More often than not, you only need to reach out to the owner to try and see if they can reinstate the lost link. Remember to be courteous while making your request and where possible, offer a small favor in return.
Claim unlinked mentions
This mainly applies to already popular websites which are engaging massively on social media, creating top industry content that trends or those using PR campaigns. Chances are that your website will get mentioned, sometimes without the mentioning website linking to yours.
This presents an excellent opportunity to build links using the simple strategy we’re about to share with you.
First, create a system that monitors any unbranded mentions on the internet. You can implement tools such as Google Alerts, IFTTT or Mention to automate the process.
You should then reach out to anyone who’s mentioning your website or brand and request them to add a link to your site if they haven’t already.
Comment more on blogs
Blog commenting as an SEO strategy keeps getting a bad rap, but is it that useless? We don’t think so. In fact, blog comments are one of our favorite link building strategies and we don’t see this changing any time soon.
To stand out from the crowd (read spammers) and get your comments accepted by the site owner, you need to lead with value. Write well-thought-out comments that complement the content of the original post. We’ve found 100-150-word responses to work best for comments; they’re not too long yet give you enough space to put your point across.
While at it, drop a link to a relevant piece of content in your website that offers more insights into what you said in your response.
Reach out to local bloggers for local SEO
If you’re looking to rank your local business on top of search engine results, here’s a simple strategy you should use more in 2022.
Start by identifying local bloggers whose websites appear active or attract some traffic. You’ll find that most cover viral niches such as fashion, food, travel and tech to name a few. Also, don’t forget to check popular social media channels such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook to discover potential opportunities that aren’t necessarily indexed in Google.
Once you have a list ready, try to find if there’s a connection between their site and yours. Steer clear of spammy sites and those that are hardly updated.
Finally, reach out pitching them a piece of content with a link to your website in it. Alternatively, offer them an incentive – money works magic – to add a link in one of their existing or fresh content pieces.
Pursue high-quality guest posting opportunities
A lot of SEO experts want you to believe that guest posting is dead, but nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, some of the most powerful backlinks we’ve acquired for our business have been through this old-age building tactic.
The trick lies in understanding how to unearth relevant and high-quality prospects that are not link farms or blatantly selling links. Our rule of thumb is to avoid websites with “write for us” type of pages –unless we determine that they have strict editorial guidelines to discourage the masses.
Besides, we prioritize websites which fall in our niche or related verticals for higher link relevance in the eyes of Google.
Conclusion
Link building has changed rapidly in the past few years, with more focus now being on quality and relevance than on quantity. Our advice is to be consistent, be strategic about how you create your content, and pick only 2-3 link building tactics from this guide and get really good at them.
Good luck!