High-quality backlinks

Let’s start here: What are backlinks? Any links from other websites to your site are called backlinks. You may also call them inbound or external links. Backlink, just as the name implies, is having another website link back to your site.

But why will anyone want to link back to your site?

People will backlink to your site because they see your content is helpful, informative, resourceful and the like.

What more? If many sites link back to you, Google will automatically know that your content is high quality.

Is Backlinking Crucial?

You see, there are various factors that Google considers when ranking a site. However, there are three major ones. They include the quality of content, backlinks, and rackbrain. In case you do not know what rackbrain is, Here’s an article by backlinko on RackBrain.

If backlinking is a significant consideration by Google when determining where to rank your site, don’t you think it is crucial to consider the quality of backlinks you are using?

See, Google can decide to penalize your site, lower the site’s rankings or rank your site top depending on the quality of backlinks you are using.

As a matter of fact, John Mueller, who is a Google’s representative, affirms that link building can harm your website.

So, choose not to hurt your website’s ranking. How? Don’t just use backlinks; use relevant and high-quality backlinks.

How Do You Differentiate The High Quality From The Poor Quality Backlinks?

Simple.

Here’s what to ask yourself so as to verify if it is a high-quality backlink.

1. Does the site have high authority?
2. Is the site’s niche related to your site?
3. Have they linked to your site before?
4. Does the link’s anchor text have your target keyword?
5. Is the link a dofollow link?

Firstly, NEVER ignore the authority of the site linking back to you. It is crucial. And there’s a tool for that, Ahrefs. Remember, the higher the domain rate (DR), the higher the authority of the site.

Secondly, consider the niche. Is there any relation between the site linking back to you and your site? If there isn’t, then that isn’t a good site to backlink to. It is good to share links with people of the same niche to ensure that those who read your content are people interested in it.

Now, it is not wrong to backlink to only one authority site. But do you think that will do your site much good like having several backlinks from various high authority sites? Definitely not.

Use of keyword shouldn’t be emphasized only when writing content for your blog but also when considering backlinks. So, consider if the link’s anchor text has your target keyword. This will highly increase your rankings.

What about DoFollow links? Let me first explain what they are. These are links that search engine and Google follows so as to reach to the linked site. This shows the authority from the site to the linked site. And…if several reputable sites are linking back to your site; Google will consider your site as a high-value site thus rank it. That’s awesome, right?

Avoid Short Cuts:They Will Harm You

Now, most people, especially new bloggers will sometimes attempt to use black hat SEO so as to rank fast.

But listen to me. ..

There are consequences, and Google is a no joker.

You can play around with words but not with Google.

Google can penalize your site, blacklist it or drop your rankings.

Some bloggers have tried it, and they now attest that it is better to use the safe root (white hat) and arrive years later than use short cuts (black hat) then arrive tomorrow but lose the site the next minute. Jon Morrow of Smart Blogger confirms that he was once a victim.

Here is what he says, “One day, I was on the first page for the term “real estate investment,” raking in a few hundred visitors per day, and the next, my site was just gone. I could still access it by typing in the URL, but the steady stream of search traffic stopped. Completely.”

Actually, Google just blacklisted his site. Do you want to suffer the same consequences?

So, why not learn from such people and escape trouble?

Let‘s divert a little bit so that I can explain what the black hat and white hat is all about.

What Is The Difference Between The Black And White Hat SEO?

Black hat is when you link your site to sites that have a domain authority that is of low quality. It also involves linking to sites that are inactive or spam. One thing with people who always want to use a short cut is that they will never get enough of anything. That means; they will try to link to as many inactive, spam or low quality links as possible.

My friend, you are driving yourself to the “slaughterhouse.” When your rankings drop, you will know that you are already done!

When Google gets hold of you, your site may never rank again after dropping. Of course, no blogger wants to experience that, right?

On the other hand, white hat involves linking to sites with a high-authority domain and building backlinks.

So, How Do You Turn Your Content Into Quality Backlinks?

Provide Pure Gold

I can’t overemphasize writing high-quality content. There is no other way to win in freelancing if you do not produce high-quality content which is what I’m referring to as pure-gold and that is why I have given it a priority. You see, people reach to you because you are providing pure-gold. Or would you want to backlink to some poor content with grammatical issues and plagiarism? Won’t you share the consequences when Mr. Google comes along?  So, you too provide quality and that way; you will have people request to backlink to your site.

The other thing you need to consider is what your competitors are focusing on in your niche. Provide better than them in terms of quality and quantity. Include images where they did not include to ensure that people visiting your site get a better understanding of your content.

This is what I’m trying to tell you. If your competitor has written a 1000 words content, write a 1500 words content without compromising on quality.  If he has used five images, use more but relevant, clear, and catchy ones.

The other thing is the title. Get a better and catchy title. What more? Consider his Meta description as well as a title tag. Use better ones.

It is all about competing with him and ranking higher than him on Google search engine, right?

No matter how long your competitor has been blogging; if you use high-quality backlinks, you can catch up with him, go beyond and stay top of him.

Related post: https://mary-peter.com/why-your-articles-are-not-ranking-number-one-on-google/

Build Relationships

Oh yes, you need to announce your existence through the various social media platforms. I mean, you are only starting and you need to create awareness.

That being said; get active on social media. I have done this, and I have seen the impact. Start by creating social media accounts (if you do not have them) such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Quora, and the like.

Next, connect or network with influencers and other bloggers in your niche.

When they post on social media; comment and answer any questions their followers are asking.

When answering, share resourceful, helpful and irresistible content. Next, if you have a blog post on the same thing or one that relates to what you are posting, share the link. When people read the comment and see it is helpful, they will want to read the blog post too.

Eventually, bloggers and influencers will want to hook up with you. They will link back to you, and you may as well link back to them.

Create An Infographic

Did you know that most researchers are lazy readers? I mean, they want quick access to information. However, even if they are lazy readers, you can still have them get all the information you want. How? Create an infographic. You see, you can use a chart or a diagram to give the same information you could have given through a thousand words, right?

Brian of Backlinko uses Infographics many times, and there is something I love about them. They are well detailed. Check out one of them here. You will definitely love it.

You are definitely not a guru in this.

All right.

Don’t pull your hair.

There are a couple of softwares that can help you create an infographic?

Here they are: visme.co, easel.ly, piktochart, venngage, infogr.am, and the like.

The determining factor of the right one to use is whether you are on a budget or you need access to a free one.

Do A Detailed Research

I have always encouraged others, especially my trainees to do what I do when I’m researching. That is, in-depth research. Open as many links as possible unless you are writing a very short post. Is that all? No, you need to come up with original content after the research.

I have often heard this, “Do to others as you would want them to do to you.” With that in mind and knowing the consequences of plagiarism, do not copy other people’s content if you would not want anyone to do the same to your content.

Better still, is providing content that is not available anywhere on the internet.

Really? Yes.

Where do you get such stuff? Personal experience.

Personally, I have written content out of personal experience.

Bad or good experiences are a lesson that others can learn from you. Write them down and teach the world.

The latter is even better because when people get such content on your site and nowhere else, you remain to be the only site they can backlink to and that way you end up with so many backlinks. Isn’t that fantastic?

Go ahead, try it.

Guest Post

Guest posting is one way of shouting your name to an audience that doesn’t know you. How do you go about guest blogging? Already, you have a website and have a particular niche that you specialize in, right?

Now, reach out to other high-quality sites in your niche. Be intelligent enough to prove to your target website how guest posting is going to benefit them.

Remember, though you are looking for a way to get backlinks, don’t compromise by providing low-quality content.

However, you’ve got to remember it is a guest post. So, be on the lookout of how they write content including how they format it. Keep the trend. Also, identify the needs of the owners of the site and the site visitors.

Provide solutions in your posts. You can even carry out a survey by looking at the comments in that site. Identify the challenges the site visitors are facing and the questions they are asking.

Write content that addresses all those issues. Let your content be free of grammatical issues and plagiarism.

Be A Regular Contributor

I have mentioned about social media previously in this article. Now, once you create social media accounts, become a regular contributor. I mean; don’t just comment/ post content today then call it over because some people started following you. If you do not persist in contributing, people will forget you. Again, every day new people are joining social media. If you do not participate regularly, the new social media account owners will not know you.

Remember to stick to quality each time you contribute.

Write Testimonials For Other Websites

Writing testimonials for other sites doesn’t go down so well. Not even in me. That’s a fact.

But there’s a secret for doing this that many still do not know. When writing a testimonial for your competitor, you will also have a chance to add a link to your site after your name, right?

Do not just focus on others excelling because of your good testimonial. See, as they excel, you will also be generating backlinks, right?

So, go right ahead.

Point To Note

See, it is not as difficult as you thought it is to build high-quality backlinks. It is easy. Yes, it may take time, but the better way is to go through the safe channel, white hat SEO. The good thing, however, is that once you get to the top of the Google search engine, the rest is history.

I’m not saying that it ends there. No, of course, persistent is the way to go. You keep on following the tactics I have given you here every now and then. Nevertheless, do not forget to keep yourself updated with Google Algorithms which keep on changing.

That’s all.

 

But just before you go…

Please tell me, have you applied any of the strategies I have mentioned in this article and seen it work?