Sometimes it feels like everyone has an opinion on the best way to invest your money.
You can be out to dinner, or having drinks at a bar, when you overhear the guy at the next table start going on loudly about a certain investment strategy.
You might roll your eyes and try to ignore him as you enjoy your drink. Or you might listen with one ear, wondering if he’s saying anything useful.
Now, imagine your aunt or sister is with you. She’s a financial advisor with a successful company and makes a lot of money for her clients. She notices the guy as he starts speaking and says, “Oh, that’s So-and-So, he knows all about this stuff.”
Now you’re going to be more interested in what he has to say, aren’t you?
A backlink is the equivalent of your aunt or uncle or [insert friend or family member here] who knows what they’re talking about recognize and back up the random person talking about their topic of choice.
Google works with similar assumptions. It knows that you can give all the advice you want on whatever topic you want. The question is, why should we believe you?
Google uses various strategies to determine this, one of which is backlinks.
If people are using you as a reference, that’s an indication you know what you’re talking about.
But there’s a big IF that comes with it … IF the person using you as a reference also knows what they’re talking about.
Going back to the example of some random person in a bar talking about investing, what if you were with your uncle who has lost money in the stock market over and over again and never managed to recover it?
If he says, “I know that guy! He knows all about investing.”
Are you going to perk up your ears to listen to the table next to you? Or are you going to ignore both of them and try to change the subject?
Google also works on similar assumptions in this manner.
If Google already respects the people using you as a reference in their content, that will be a vote in your favor.
If Google has little or no respect for the people using you as a resource, that will work against you.
So, it’s not enough to get backlinks to your website, you have to get the right backlinks.
Table of Contents
- Internal vs External Backlinks
- Linkable Assets
- Become a Source for Reporters
- Create Skyscraper Content
- Take Advantage of Broken Links
- Coin a Term
- Create a Tool
- Create an Authority Resource Page
- Give to Get
- Do Not Buy Backlinks
- Need Help with Your Backlink Strategy?
Internal vs External Backlinks
Internal backlinks are when you link to a page of your website from another page on your own website. Google track these, too, and they can help your SEO, but they don’t get the same weight as external backlinks.
External backlinks are when another website links to your website from a page on their own website.
Getting internal backlinks is easy. But how do you get external backlinks when you can’t control what other people do on their websites?
Linkable Assets
Start by giving people a reason to link to your website.
What’s on your website that could be valuable to their audience?
This is where SEO once again all comes down to content.
By consistently creating valuable content over and over again, not only will you get Google’s attention, but you’ll also build a library of content. Each piece in that library is an opportunity for people to provide you with a backlink … assuming it’s a thoughtful, authoritative, well-written piece of content.
Examples of linkable assets include:
- blog posts
- videos
- tutorials
- webinars
- original research
- original tools
- online courses
- books/workbooks/journals
- infographics
- podcasts
- downloadable PDFs
Become a Source for Reporters
I used to get daily emails from HARO (Help A Reporter Out) with opportunities to provide journalists and reporters with information on a topic they were covering for an upcoming article.
You find an upcoming piece that’s relevant to your area of expertise, provide the information (and contact information) requested, or reach out to schedule an interview if that’s what they were looking for, and hope they use you in their article.
There was never any guarantee they would use the content you provided, but if they did, they would use your name, the name of your company, and provide a link to your website. All for free, although it does take time to read through the pitches and respond to the ones that are relevant.
Assuming they do use you as a reference, not only do you get a backlink for your website, you also get to promote that all over your socials and your newsletter.
Those emails no longer get sent out. Instead, you have to go to this website to see how you can help a reporter out.
Create Skyscraper Content
A piece of skyscraper content is a very long, in-depth piece of content on a topic in your industry that’s already performing well. Search the topic to see what ranks at the top, then create a piece of content that covers the same topic, but is 5-10X better than the top-ranking piece of content you found.
That means it needs to be longer, but don’t add words just for the sake of adding words. The content needs to be longer than anything else on the topic because you are diving deep and covering everything there is to cover on the topic.
Then, you need to promote that skyscraper content all over the place. Yes, Google will eventually figure out how valuable it is and do its part to get it in front of searchers, but you need to give Google some help first, and one of the best ways to do that is to start by asking for backlinks.
The best place to start is the people you mentioned in your skyscraper article. If you used them as a source for a claim you made, they’re going to want to promote it to their audience because it makes them look like an authority in the industry. So start with the easy wins by asking them for a backlink to your new article.
You can also look at the pieces of content that are already covering that topic to see what backlinks they already have. Reach out to the editors of those websites, mention that you have a new-and-improved article on a topic they might be interested in, and ask them to consider including a link to it on their website.
Take Advantage of Broken Links
One of my favorite ways to take advantage of broken links is by using the Chrome extension CheckMyLinks, which allows you to check for any broken links on a page you’re visiting. By searching for articles on a topic you’ve recently covered, or related to a topic you’ve recently covered, then checking for any broken links on their page, you can create an opportunity for yourself in which you get to reach out to the author and say, “Hey, I noticed you have a broken link on your article about XYZ. I just happen to have published a new article on the same (or a similar) topic and thought you might want to replace your broken link with a link to my article, which is here.”
Alternatively, you can also use your favorite backlink checker to find all the sources of backlinks for a given piece of content. If a website provided a backlink to another article on a topic you’ve also covered, chances are pretty good they might want to link to your shiny, new content.
Another great opportunity for backlinks is if a competitor in your industry shuts down or rebrands. If they change their domain name and don’t use a 404 redirect, that could lead to a lot of broken links across the internet. The bigger and more influential the competitor that shut down or rebranded, the more opportunities that provides in the form of broken links just waiting to be replaced with healthy, working links to your website.
Coin a Term
I have a friend who tells people how to get effective testimonials.
We all love hearing that someone enjoyed working with us, but will that testimonial convince someone else to work with you?
Not unless it demonstrates the benefit you provide. How did you make their lives better?
My friend calls these “Yestimonials™,” which I think is brilliant.
She has trademarked the term, but she hasn’t taken advantage of the backlink opportunities by putting creating content all over her website talking about what a Yestimonial™ is, how to get them, and why you should get them. If she did, every time someone else (like me) mentioned “Yestimonial™” on their website, they would provide a link to her website, which would improve her search rankings. By the way, her website is here.
Create a Tool
Another cool thing my friend did is create a calculator that helps you calculate the value of your time.
Want to know if the networking event you’re getting ready to attend is really worth it?
Calculate what your time is worth. *hint: it’s more than the hourly rate you charge
Then calculate the amount of time you’ll spend going to this event (including traveling to and from, as well as getting dressed and presentable for the event). Multiply the number of hours by what your hour is worth to determine how much you need to make from the event to make it literally worth your while.
This tool is an excellent backlink opportunity because now, not only can she refer to it throughout her content, but any time someone else talking about the value of time wants to refer to it, they can provide a link to the tool on her website.
Create an Authority Resource Page
The only thing better than skyscraper content is a page full of resources.
Content creators create and use these resource pages all the time.
Here’s a complete list of tools that will help you with XYZ.
Here’s a comprehensive list of SEO terms you should know.
Not only will people use the entire page as a reference, but they’ll also use each, individual resource listed on the page as a resource.
Using a term not everyone is familiar with?
Here’s a link to a page that defines it for you.
You just have to make sure your resources page contains links throughout the page to make it easy for people to link to the specific resource they’re referencing, and not just a whole page the visitor then has to comb through to find the specific piece of information they need.
This works great, not only for external links, but for internal linking as well.
Tired of spelling out an acronym every time you use it?
Just link to your resource page.
You can do this over and over again as you create more content for your blog, creating a ton of internal backlinks to that one piece of content.
No, internal links aren’t as valuable as external links, but they do have value. And by consistently driving traffic to your resources page, you’ll make more people aware of it, Google will sit up and take notice, then other influencers in your industry will sit up and take notice, at which point they’ll start providing external links to the page.
Give to Get
Not only are people more likely to link to your website if you’ve linked to their website, but Google also likes people who play well with others.
If you consistently provide links to other relevant, high-quality websites, Google will notice that, assume those links make your content more valuable, and give you a little boost in the search rankings as a result.
The links should also make your content more valuable by pointing your visitors to other resources and information that can help them out. If you’re just giving backlinks for the sake of getting backlinks without making sure you’re providing something of value to your audience, you won’t get the results you want.
Similarly, you can have a backlink partnership with someone else in your industry or in a related industry. You can provide each other with backlinks, but again, only do so if providing those links will provide value to your audience. If it doesn’t provide value, find someone else to exchange backlinks with.
And never rely on just one source for backlinks, either to or from your website. Google has caught onto this tactic, and if it notices you keep giving backlinks to and receiving backlinks from the same one, two, or three sites, it will assume those backlinks are part of a content partnership instead of being there to provide value.
So, yes, you can take advantage of a content partnership, but only if you use it sparingly and you don’t rely on it as your only source of backlinks.
Do Not Buy Backlinks
Technically, buying links from other websites is an option. It’s not a good option.
One option is to reach out to individual websites and offer to pay them in exchange for a link leading to your website from their website.
Best case scenario is it works out.
Worst case scenario is they report you to Google for engaging in black-hat SEO tactics, which could get you blacklisted.
The middle option is they take your money without giving you a backlink.
Or maybe they put up a link to your website and only leave it up for a short while before taking it down.
If they do, you have no recourse.
Buying backlinks is not illegal, but it is against Google’s policies, and if Google catches you, they will blacklist you.
Need Help with Your Backlink Strategy?
Whether you need help coming up with a backlink strategy, or just creating linkable assets to make it easy for influencers to give you those juicy backlinks, we can help. Just give us a call to start the conversation.
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