10 Link Building Hacks For SMBs & Startups That Actually Work
In today’s digital world, a solid online presence is a must, especially if you’re a small business or startup just starting to find your footing in your niche. With the rise of search engine optimization (SEO), the road to your online visibility becomes more accessible. A crucial aspect of SEO strategy is implementing effective link-building hacks to acquire high-quality backlinks.
However, link-building can be challenging for SMBs and startups with limited resources and budgets. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of 10 proven link-building techniques that can help you attract high-quality backlinks for your website.
By the end of this article, you’ll have a comprehensive understanding of effective link-building tactics. Implementing them will improve your website’s online visibility and draw in more visitors to your site. Not to mention, it’ll kickstart your campaign to build your website’s credibility and authority.
So, let’s start.
What Is Link-Building And Why Is It Important?
Link building is an SEO practice of acquiring links from other websites to your own . Building valuable backlinks from external sites can help boost your overall SEO strategy. Link-building hacks also attract more visitors to your website, resulting in better search engine visibility.
How?
These links act as signals to search engines that your website is credible and authoritative, which in turn helps to improve your search engine rankings. With high-quality, relevant links on your portfolio, you increase your chances of being on the coveted page 1 of Google Search.
While link-building efforts may take time to yield results, it’s a long-term strategy that will pay off. Plus, with the right tactic in play, you’re one step closer to getting into the big leagues of your niche.
Now that you understand the importance of link-building efforts, it’s time to explore the 10 best link-building methods to lay a strong foundation for your online presence. Thus, you won’t be left behind in this digital era.
10 Must-Know Link-Building Methods
As an SMB or startup business owner, it won’t be a smooth sailing process to the top of search engines. With limited resources, it can be challenging to compete. That does not, however, imply that link-building is not worthwhile.
Here are some ways you build relevant links for your website:
1. Create High-Quality Content
To attract high-quality backlinks to your website, create valuable, informative, and relevant content that others in your niche will want to link to. You can boost organic website traffic by doing this. Not to mention, it’ll help you establish your brand as an industry expert, boosting your traffic and ranking further.
You should also develop a content strategy that focuses on producing evergreen content pieces. Evergreen content is a timeless piece of content that continues to attract traffic and generate interest long after it’s published.
It’s important for building links because it can help establish your website as a reliable source of information, driving traffic and engagement for years to come, and ultimately laying a solid foundation for long-term success.
2. Leverage Social Media
As an SMB, you must integrate social media platforms into your content marketing strategy. Social networking sites connect you with professionals, bloggers, and other members of your field who might want to link to your content.
What’s more, social media allows you to create creative and visual content that will entice link opportunities from other blogs and websites. It produces more shares across social networks. For instance, you can release interviews through videos instead of write-ups. You can also just focus on visuals to increase the replay value.
Plus, you can get creative and write engaging captions on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. This lets you attract likes, shares, and comments that will help you build social media links back to your website. Engaging with those who interact with your posts also helps build your online presence.
3. Participate In Guest Posting
Not all links are good for your website. You can build quality links through guest posting on high-authority sites in your niche. To get started, identify relevant websites with high domain authority and check if they accept guest posts.
Then, contact the website owner with a pitch for your guest post idea, highlighting the value it will provide to their audience. You can normally find the contact information or email addresses on their websites. Start with a polite email to introduce yourself and your brand.
Another note to remember is to make sure you’re using a business email address. It’s more professional and shows seriousness. Try to avoid using your personal one or an email address that looks tacky. Otherwise, your pitch will get ignored. You have to make them click on your email first before they even see your proposal.
You can have an already written article when you pitch to them or send them an outline to ensure that your content fits with their guidelines. As long as you contribute something of value to readers and your piece doesn’t come out like one whole marketing ad for your business, then you’re likely to be accepted.
For instance, your article can discuss what happens when ad personalization is turned off in Google. It’s informative to those who are running Google Ads as part of their SEO strategy.
Additionally, it’s vital to remember the following:
- Duplication: Check the previous blog posts or articles of the websites you’re targeting. If you see a similar topic to what you have in mind, then change the article you’re trying to pitch. Remember, the primary goal of guest posting is to offer valuable information to readers.
- Taking Over: Following their guidelines increases the chances of your relevant articles getting accepted and securing a guest post link from high-quality websites.
- Relevancy: Only go for websites that are relevant to your business and can attract your target audience.
These short but significant reminders will help avoid publishing on low-quality websites. Ultimately, strategic guest blogging can drive referral traffic and is a long-term strategy that’ll allow you to build a strong link profile and higher output volume with your link-building efforts to bring you higher in search engines.
4. Utilize Broken Link Building
This involves finding broken links on other websites and offering a replacement link to your website. To implement this strategy, you need to identify relevant websites in your niche. Yes, that might sound like a time-consuming process.
However, you don’t have to do it manually. You can use a broken link checker tool to locate broken links on those websites. Here are the link-building tools you can utilize:
- Check My Links
- Broken Link Builder
- Ahrefs Broken Link Checker
- Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Once you have identified broken links, create a high-quality piece of content that can replace the broken link. Make sure your replacement content is relevant and provides value to the website’s audience.
Next, contact webmasters or whoever handles the link placements on their websites and offer your content as a replacement for the broken link. Use outreach emails and include a personalized pitch to explain why your content will be a good fit. Don’t be afraid to send follow-up emails, especially if you’re contacting big websites. Just be polite and respectful in your tone.
5. Capitalize On Local Directories
If you’re a local business, local directories are a must to push your SEO efforts. You can start by creating a listing for your business on popular directories like Yelp, Google My Business, and Yellow Pages.
You not only get listed on authoritative websites, but you also increase your chances of showing up in search results when people search for businesses like yours. Additionally, you need to use relevant keywords and descriptions that accurately describe your business. This allows you to maximize your listing on these directories.
However, be mindful of the guidelines of those directories. Check the required details you need to put in to increase your chances of getting accepted and obtaining a backlink.
For example, let’s say you’re a United Kingdom-based SEO company. You can pitch to get your business listed on local business directories like Yelp UK, Scoot, Thomson Local, and Yalwa UK. Thus, increasing your chances of showing up in local search results and driving more search traffic to your website.
6. Participate In Online Communities
Aside from building high-quality and relevant links, participating in online communities is an excellent way to establish yourself as an expert in your niche. You can join:
- Quora
- Forums
- Facebook groups
- Social media spaces
You can join the conversation by offering valuable insights and advice to other members of the community. Additionally, you can share relevant content to the topics discussed. Don’t just share something randomly. Otherwise, other members won’t engage with you. You also have to be open to feedback and suggestions.
For instance, if you’re a food blogger, you can join a cooking forum and share your recipes and cooking advice with other members. You can attract other blog owners who may want to collaborate with you or want to feature a specific recipe from you on their blog. Hence, creating a link-building opportunity for your website.
7. Conduct A Competitor Backlink Analysis
As a business owner, it’s vital to keep tabs on your competition. Conducting a backlink analysis on their website can give you valuable insights into their external links and help you identify potential websites to target for your link-building efforts.
To start, use a tool like Ahrefs or Moz to analyze your competitors’ backlink profiles. You need to look for external links from authoritative sites in your industry, as these are the high-quality links you want to target. Then, analyze the type of content that attracted these links. Was it one of the following:
- Blog post
- Product page
- A piece of research
Use this information to create high-quality content and reach out to websites that may be interested in linking to it. This tactic allows you to improve the quality of your backlink profile and attract high-quality links to your website. Don’t be afraid to learn from your competitors and use their successes to fuel your own link-building goals.
To to take it up a notch, do what this pet insurance company did. After identifying their competitors, they created dedicated comparison sections highlighting what other pet insurance companies offer and how they compare to it. This way, they don’t only rank for their brand names, they leveraged their competitor brand keywords too to get traffic that would otherwise be monopolized by competitors.
8. Reclaim Links
Link reclamation is one of the easiest tactics in the link-building process because it’s about finding a website that has mentioned your website or a specific page already, but didn’t include a link to your site or used an incorrect URL.
After identifying those websites, you should initiate the outreach process and ask for a proper link. The image above shows an email template you can follow when you contact the blog owner.
This can be mutually beneficial as you get the credit you deserve and they provide a valuable resource to their readers. Plus, this strengthens your brand’s relationships with other websites and increases your presence online.
You have to remember that not all websites have bad intentions, and initiating communication can result in a positive outcome for both parties involved. Not to mention, link reclamation is also beneficial to ensure that your backlink profile is accurate and up-to-date.
9. Create Infographics
Infographics are easy to share and visually appealing so they’re great for attracting links to your website. Here are some of the types of infographics you can utilize:
- Informational infographics: You can use this to simplify complex information like summarizing a lengthy report or research.
- Comparison infographics: You can use this to compare two or more things, such as products or services, side by side, and help readers make informed decisions.
- Statistical infographics: Use this to display survey results or complex data to support your arguments.
- Process infographics: This helps you provide a step-by-step breakdown of a particular process or workflow, making it easy for readers to comprehend and remember the key takeaways.
There are more infographics types, but those four are what’s typically seen on blog posts or articles. You can use them to make your content more shareable and attract links.
For example, let’s say you’re running a cleaning business and you have an article about pricing. You can utilize an infographic to show the step-by-step process of how much to charge for cleaning services. It makes the information more digestible, especially since it involves technical jargon. Plus, an infographic will make your long and pressing articles more engaging.
Once you’ve designed your infographic, you can post it on your brand’s social media accounts. Thus, making it more effortless for others to share when they already have embedded codes and social sharing buttons.
You’ll not only improve your website’s organic search rankings, but you’ll also create mutual benefits for other websites by providing them with relevant and shareable content.
10. Boost Your Page Speed
Content webmasters, blog owners, journalists, influencers, and experts in your industry are more likely to link to your website if it loads quickly, as they want to provide value to their audience. A slow website will just frustrate the readers and discourage them from consuming your content.
Additionally, page speed is a crucial factor in the search algorithm, and a faster loading time can help increase your website’s visibility and attract more incoming links. To improve your page speed, you can use the following tools:
- GTmetrix
- WebPageTest
- Google PageSpeed Insights
To page speed, compress images, reduce the number of HTTP requests, minify CSS and JavaScript files, and leverage browser caching. The acceptable loading time is 0-2 seconds to reduce the risk of your site visitors leaving.
With a fast website, not only will you be creating high-quality backlink opportunities from authoritative websites, but you’ll also be providing a better user experience.
Conclusion
As today’s business climate becomes more competitive, implement these effective link-building hacks to stay ahead of the competition. What we included in our list are techniques you can utilize as an SMB or startup.
Of course, you’ll still need to use resources and spend, but you don’t need a big budget. For instance, you can create a free business email that you can use for your outreach process. Social media accounts can also be created free of charge.
In addition, remember that link-building is a continuous process, and you should evaluate your strategies regularly to ensure they’re effective. Keep track of your progress using the tools we listed and adjust your tactics accordingly. With consistent effort and patience, you can see long-term success and establish a strong online presence.
So, are you ready to take your link-building efforts to the next level?
That’s why we’re here. Outreach Monks is here to help you achieve your link-building goals. We offer many premium services like link insertions and guest posting. Contact us now, and let’s discuss how to take your website to the top of search engines.
Author Bio
Burkhard Berger is the founder of Novum™. He helps innovative B2B companies implement revenue-driven SEO strategies to scale their organic traffic to 1,000,000+ visitors per month. Curious about what your true traffic potential is?
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