The more people that link to your site, the more authority you have on the web. Inbound links carry with them a lot of benefit…
- Higher domain authority raises your likelihood of ranking nearer to the top of search results for relevant keyword phrases
- Higher page authority for the pages being linked to raises the chances of high value pages showing up on page one
- Links from websites and articles with lots of traffic could send some of that traffic through to your website
But acquiring those inbound links requires some amount of effort on your part. Though it would be great to expect to achieve success in this area organically, for most of us, it’s not so simple.
So what can you do to get more inbound links?
1. Improve the Quality of Your Content
Nobody wants to link to crappy content. Misspellings and typos, poorly written articles, ugly layouts and visual style, can all impact the perceived quality of content on your website. When given the option of linking to a page with better writing, clearer explanations, and more appealing design, any author or publisher will choose that over the garbage on offer over on your website. By improving the overall quality of your content, you make it more likely that people will link out to it.
2. Fill a Gap in the Marketplace
Do you have the ability to add value in a way that nobody else does? Perhaps you have a level of expertise that is worth sharing, or a fresh take on an old debate or problem? The web is chock full of content, but most of it is not what we would consider unique. If you can create something that is truly new and interesting, people will have no choice but to link to it.
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3. User Generated Content
When you get other people involved in the development of your content, you create a different incentive for links. Now the people who have contributed have reason to tell their networks and friends. This creates a type of word of mouth virality that most static content you create yourself won’t have.
4. Develop an Outreach List
One of the most underrated ways to attract new links is to simply ask for them. But before you can start, you need to know who to ask.
An outreach list is a list of bloggers, writers, reporters, websites, publishers, etc. that write about things related to your business. This is a list of people that you want to develop a relationship with, in hopes that they will write about your business, or link to content that you yourself have published.
5. Actively Seek Links
When you are reaching out to the people on your outreach list, you want to be explicit about why. You have developed something that you think they would be interested in. You think their readers would be interested in it. Writers are looking for things to write about, and so want to showcase the value on offer to them.
6. Deploy a Press Strategy
Make news. Do something newsworthy. I’m not talking about publicity stunts here, but I do mean that you should create an intentional strategy that gets the press interested in your business. Celebrity endorsements, live events, major business deals, customer successes, etc. are all ways to build a little hype around your brand. News articles offer potential high-quality links.
7. Know Your SEO
A not so dirty secret is that pages that already rank higher in search results are more likely to attract more links. That’s because people will often use search to find the resources they use when developing their content. And they are more likely to find content that already has a high ranking. So in addition to everything written above, it is important to have a solid SEO strategy that consistently drives your site up toward the top of the rankings. The higher you go, the more likely some publisher is to find you on their own.
