SEO Backlinks: This could be why your SEO isn’t working

In this post I share with you an SEO tactic that’s often seen as a bit of a mystery to business owners, but is one of the most important parts in getting your website in the top search results.

That tactic is called Link Building.

You’ll learn what link building is, why it’s important, and three simple link building strategies that will help you use it to get more traffic and rank above your competitors.

My goal is to keep this as simple and practical for you as possible, so if you have any questions please let me know, and I’ll do my best to help.

Let’s dive in!

Link Building and Why It Matters For SEO

If you’re been doing SEO for your website for some time but you’re not seeing the results you’d expect, it’s likely an issue of authority.

SEO is all about creating signals that show search engines that your web page is the best result for a particular keyword search.

One of the signals that search engines look at is the quality of links pointing to your website.

These links are called back links, and they are a very important signal (in fact, they are one of the 4 Pillars of SEO that we use to help our client’s rank higher in Google).

Back links are like “votes” from other websites to say your website is trust worthy, and this is what impacts your website’s authority.

But not all back links are created equal.

To get results from your back links, you need quality over quantity – the websites linking to yours need to be trustworthy too.

For example, if you could get an international newspaper’s website (the New York Times, for example) to link to yours, you’d gain more than if your local newspaper linked to you. Links from websites related to your site — like a partner’s website or a site from the same industry — are typically more valuable than links from random, unrelated websites.

The higher the trust of the website that’s linking to you, the more value that link will be.

And the more high value links you have, the more likely search engines will prioritise your website over another website (such as your competitors).

If your website does not have high quality back links, you will have low authority, and it will be very difficult to appear above your competitors in search engines.

If your website does have have high quality back links, this makes all your other SEO work much easier and more likely to have long lasting impact (so you get more website visitors and potential customers).

Links and Authority

The way the trust of your domain and back links is measured is called “Domain Authority”, and this is a strong indicator to search engines that your website is more trustworthy than others (and therefore, should get the lion’s share of search engine traffic).

You can check your Domain Authority for free using this Domain Authority Checker from MOZ >>

But before you go out and just start getting as many links as you can, remember that quality over quantity is key.

If you simply buy a bunch of back links that are low quality, then search engines could mark your domain as spam and this would have a negative impact.

Now that you know how back links work and why they’re important, here are a few practical ways to get more back links:

3 Ways To Get More High Quality Backlinks

1. Share your expertise

What: Share your business’ expertise on your website as well as other sites.

How:

• Blogging: Share written content on your own website on a consistent basis.
• Podcasting: Share audio content on your own website on a consistent basis.
• Guest Blogging: Share unique, original content that is published on other websites.
• Podcasts: Guest host or be interviewed on a relevant podcast.

2. Local business listings

What: Go beyond Google Maps and add your business to other directory websites.

How:

• Chamber of Commerce: Become a member of a Chamber and get listed/linked on the Chamber’s website.
• Citation Building: Build local business profiles on websites other than Google Maps. This can be done at scale and outsourced (we do this for our clients in the first month of our SEO plans).

3. Partnerships

What: Leverage mutually-beneficial business relationships. Exchange links and mentions of each other’s businesses on your websites.

How:

• “Best Of” Lists: Trade links on Partnerships pages.
• Guest Blogging: Create unique, original content and have it published on other websites.
• Guest Podcasting: Guest host an industry podcast.
• Testimonial Trading: Exchange testimonials to be published on each other’s websites.

Next steps

Time for action! To help you turn this information into results, here are the next steps you can take:

Check the domain authority for your website and that of your competitors using the free domain authority checker from MOZ >>

Then, choose one of the link building strategies above and start building those back links!

When your website has high quality back links and a high domain authority, you’ll soon see the impact that has on your search engine results and the quality of traffic you get from search engines.