How to Build Backlinks for SEO?

Want to build high-quality backlinks for your website? This guide is for you.

Here is the truth:

Targeting low-competition keywords might work temporarily. But, there is a high chance that they’ll be outranked by another authority site.

If you want to rank your site on Google’s first page and stay there long-term, you need to get backlinks from high-authority sites.

In this “how to build backlinks for SEO” guide, we’ll be diving into some tried and tested backlinking strategies. Strategies that can put your site on Google’s first page.

Let’s get started.

How to Build Backlinks for SEO?

Let’s first talk about one of the most powerful white-hat backlinking strategies.

Leverage “Help a Reporter Out (HARO)”

Source: helpareporter.com

HARO is a free public relations service that helps journalists that are looking for experts on specific topics.

Your role here is to become an expert resource for a reporter, winning a link back to your site in the process.

But, this strategy does take some time as you’d have to learn a bit about HARO first. Once you crack the code, it’s incredibly rewarding.

After signing up for HARO as a source, look out for any requests that are relevant to your blog/expertise. When you find a perfect match, send a brief pitch to the journalist.

Using this method, you can get backlinks from sites with domain ratings even higher than 70.

Post Skyscraper Content

Posting skyscraper content is another effective way of getting backlinks from high-authority sites. Here is a step by step process to create skyscraper content:

The first step is to find a blog post that is already doing great in terms of backlinks. Just type your keyword into the Google search bar and observe the blog posts on the first page.

Source: Google.com

As backlinks are important to get to the top of Google’s first page, the results will most probably have lots of backlinks.

Now, produce a piece of content that’s multiple times better than the best one on the first page. Will that be easy to do? Not at all. But, it would be worth it.

Long-form content can generate a lot of quality backlinks over long periods.

Finally, you want to promote that skyscraper content. There can be a million strategies to do that. One of the most effective is reaching out to the sites that you talked about in your blog post.

Tell them that you mentioned their blog and if they would like you to remind them before the content goes live.

If they like your content, you’d probably be getting a link back to your site.

Backlinks from Outdated Domains

Outdated resources also present a great opportunity to build links. The first step would be to find a site that recently changed their names, have shut down or moved to a new URL.

Next, reach out to the sites or blogs that are still linking to that outdated source. But, first, you need to find all those linking sites.

There is a free effective tool for that.

Source: Ahrefs.com

Just type the domain into Ahrefs’ backlink checker and click “Check backlinks”.

Ahrefs will spit out a complete list of websites that are linking to that source.

Source: Ahrefs.com

Now, check these sites and filter out the ones with a high DR (Domain Rating) score.

Next, reach out to them.

It’s fair to assume that the site owners won’t know about the broken link. They might not even know that they linked to that source.

Tell them that they have a broken link on their site and if they would consider replacing it with your link.

If your content or resource is high-quality, they should be happy to link to you; it would be a win-win situation, after all.

Use Content Formats Likely to Generate Backlinks

Buzzsumo conducted a study recently and found that specific types of content generally get more backlinks.

So, if you want to get high-quality backlinks, focus on the following content formats:

• List posts
• “How to” posts
• “Why” posts
• Video
• Infographics

The study reveals that list posts are the best performing among all content formats. So, there is a higher chance of generating backlinks by producing high-quality list posts.

But, don’t get too caught up on just the format. Your content quality needs to be top-notch. The format choice provides a good starting point for producing amazing content.

Post Ultimate Guides

Ultimate guides are in-depth and cover a topic comprehensively, which makes them link-building assets. This is mainly because ultimate guides cover almost every aspect of a topic.

So, anyone linking to it is providing good value to their readers.

Moreover, according to studies, long-form content almost always performs better than short-form content.

So, how to write an ultimate guide? Let’s break the process down.

First, you want to find the right topic for your ultimate guide. Something that your competitors haven’t covered thoroughly.

You don’t want to write about a topic that has already been covered to death multiple times.

Let’s say you want to write on “Ultimate Guide on SEO”.

Source: Google.com

There are already great blog posts on the topic “SEO ultimate guide”, so writing on it won’t be a realistic strategy.

Instead, go for a topic that isn’t already covered in depth by high-authority blogs.

After you’ve decided on your topic, you want to create an outline for it. Make sure to include every possible subtopic in your outline.

However, you don’t want to talk about anything that’s not relevant to the main topic.

Each subtopic can be a separate section on your ultimate guide.

Lastly, it’s time to write your ultimate guide.

Try to cover every aspect of your topic in as much detail as possible. Normally, an ultimate guide can be as long as 4000 words, and even more.

So, don’t be afraid of diving deep into the subtopics. That way, you can make your content a definitive resource for others.

This can help your Google rank as long-form content tends to generate a higher number of backlinks.

Authority Resource Pages

A resource page is a list of helpful resources on a certain topic. You can get a powerful backlink by getting your site featured on an authority resource page.

But, how do you get backlinks from a resource page?

Let’s take you through the step-by-step process.

First, you’ll have to find a resource page, which can be tricky.

A resource page comes with a variety of names. It can be:

“Helpful resources”

“Additional resources”

And more.

What you can do is, search these phrases with inverted commas followed by your keyword.

Source: Google.com

After finding a resource page, get in touch with the owner and ask them if they would like to feature your site on it.

One way to improve your chances of getting a positive response is by identifying a broken link and telling them about it.

Tell them how a broken link isn’t good for them and why should they replace it with yours.

Get Creative with Email Outreach

Done right, cold emailing is still an effective way of getting high-quality backlinks; you just need to be a little creative.

Send a feeler email before you pitch your offer. Get them to respond first, you can then ask them to put your link on their blog.

One way is to ask them if they would like to read your blog post. If they say yes, you can then send your pitch to them.

Let’s now talk about how to build backlinks for new website.

How to Build Backlinks for New Website?

Building quality backlinks for a new website can be tricky, especially when you have a low budget.

Fortunately, there are some effective ways to do that even without spending money.

• Tell a prospect what benefits they’d get by linking to your site
• Write relevant, long-form, and competitive content
• Keep your site legitimate
• Build relationships with other blog owners
• Link to other blogs and reach out
• Create short pitches

Remember, backlinking is like a marathon; so, in addition to following the right strategies, you want to be consistent as well.

How to Get Dofollow Backlinks from Reddit?

Social media and online forums are great sources to not only generate traffic to your site but also to build its credibility.

Reddit is one of the most popular platforms with topic-specific subreddits that you can leverage for link building.

However, not all links you post on Reddit are dofollow. Whether or not a link on Reddit is dofollow depends mainly on the upvotes your content gets on the platform.

So, the simple answer to the question “How to get dofollow backlinks from Reddit” is helpful and quality content.

Final Thoughts

There is no denying that a site’s backlink profile is one of the most important Google ranking factors. So, no matter how daunting it might seem, quality backlinks are crucial for your site’s long-term SEO health.

Fortunately, getting high-quality backlinks for a site isn’t as difficult as it may seem. You just need to focus on the right strategies and be consistent in your link-building efforts.

This was all about how to build backlinks for SEO. If you want to learn more about search engine optimization, explore our blog here.