When you want to know if a product or service is worth buying, you will often look for reviews and testimonials. This habit is a normal human behavior in which we all participate.
In the online world, websites work on the same principle. The more websites that link to your site, the better the ranking for your site.
Many businesses want to increase their online presence through organic traffic, and backlinks to their site are a great way to do this.
The reality is that the quality and number of referring domains pointing to your site make a difference in your SEO results.
The first thing to understand is that backlinks are not measured with the same weight. A hundred backlinks from one website are no more valuable than a hundred backlinks from different referring domains.
To grow your SEO success, you need to acquire some referring domains (ie other websites) that link to you. More backlinks will mean more traffic sources and an increase in unique site visitors and page views.
So the question is: how do you acquire high-quality referring domains? It's not a simple answer, but it all starts with consistent content marketing and link building strategies.
Read on to find out how to improve your search engine rankings and increase visibility with your target audience.
1) Find your best performing pages
Identifying the main pages of your website is one of the best ways to find out how to attract more backlinks. Instead of obsessing over getting links to new pages, see which ones are already getting a lot of traffic and what sources they're coming from.
Using a tool like Ahrefs can quickly help you see how your site is performing and how many other websites are already linking to you.
One section to use is Top Pages, where you can see which pages on your site have the most views and the volume of backlinks you have.
A high number of backlinks from referring domains means that your content is trusted among other websites and users online. So it's wise to know what people are already rating on your website so you can continue to provide more of the same content.
2) Identify content gaps
The more valuable the content on your website, the more links you will get from the top referring domains in your industry. Identifying the gaps in your current content will expand your potential target audience and referral links.
If people are already visiting specific pages on your site, the more you give people what they already value, the better your chances of getting more backlinks.
If you look at the pages on your site that are already ranked, you can consider how you can improve the pieces.
Take a look at the SERP results for other sites that rank for the same keywords as your pages. What information do they share that you don't? What are some areas of detail you can add to your content that might be missing?
Try to update your most popular pieces of content at least once or twice a year. Doing this will indicate to search engines that your content is up to date and worth upgrading the rankings.
3) Use a variety of content types
Variety is the spice of life, and that's true for your website content as well. If you can vary the types of content you share, you are more likely to attract more backlinks.
Here are some types of content to try to help you acquire more backlinks from unique referring domains:
- Create Case Studies – Create unique data-driven content that can help you get links from industry publications. This type of content may include trends and survey findings that you may produce yourself.
- Leverage your team's expertise: Leverage your team's industry knowledge and include direct quotes to increase the authority of your content.
- Create expert summaries: These types of posts are common on sites like Forbes and Linkedin, where different experts in a field offer their views on a specific topic. They are relatively simple to create and you can contact people to get a quote which can then be used as part of the summary. Many people who appear in the summary will also be happy to link to the article from your website.
- Infographic Design: If you have an article with a lot of data or instructions, try creating an infographic that explains visually. Other websites will often share your infographics and link to their site at the same time.
4) Write for other sites
It may seem counterintuitive to share your ideas and experience on other sites, but it has a significant benefit. Guest blogging offers multiple benefits for growing your online reputation, but it can also be a great way to get links to your site.
Another method to share your ideas is through the Help A Reporter Out (HARO) site. It is a free service website that you can use to share ideas with journalists and writers who need information for their articles. Very often, they will offer backlinks to your site and that helps increase online traffic.
5) Keep It White Hat
One key to improving your online ranking is to make sure you follow search engine guidelines and best practices.
Remember that if you purchase multiple backlinks from the same domain, the value of those additional backlinks after the first placement decreases significantly. This ranking factor is set so that sites do not exchange links with each other.
It can be tempting to delve into black hat strategies that seem to work in the short term. However, over time, search engines will always remove any non-genuine site that tries to hack or cheat for backlinks.
More value = more backlinks
Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that getting backlinks is easier if you provide valuable information. Think of a site like Wikipedia – you naturally get links because it provides an incredible amount of free information on just about every topic imaginable.
You can replicate this same result on your site by focusing on sharing knowledge and resources with your core audience. In return, you will get more backlinks and visitors to your site and slowly increase your conversion volume from organic traffic.
Do you want to increase their attention and interest online? Brandastic is an SEO agency with offices in Orange County, Los Angeles, and Austin. We specialize in helping businesses increase their online reach and visibility. Get your FREE marketing audit to discover ways we can support and help your business grow.
Top comments (0)