As one of the top SEO ranking factors, backlinks can have a significant impact on your search visibility. Consider our top link building tactics to boost your backlink strategy and improve your search rankings.
Backlinks are created when another website directly links to your site. The more backlinks a page has, the more traffic it gets from search engines. Yet, nearly 91 percent get no traffic from Google, while about 66 percent have zero backlinks according to a recent study of over 1 billion webpages. Improve your search rankings and increase your website traffic by building a solid backlink strategy.
The Importance of Backlinks
Backlinks work as indications to search engines that others vouch for your website as a credible source of information. If many sites link to the same page, search engines can assume that the content is worth linking to and earning a top spot on search engine results pages. Sites with several high-value backlinks will often rank above otherwise equal sites with less backlinks.
Website backlinks are also one of the top SEO ranking factors because they build your domain and page authorities that pass on site strength. However, some links are innately more important than others. Followed backlinks from popular and trustworthy sites are considered valuable, while links to spammy sites can have a negative impact on your rankings. Here are the off-page SEO signals that contribute to the equity of your backlinks.
Link Building Tactics
Since backlinks play such an important role in your overall performance on search results, a strong backlink strategy will be key to your success. Here are our top link building tactics to establish a strong website portfolio.
1. Analyze Your Competition
Building your backlinks can be a time consuming and tedious process, especially for new sites or those expanding their digital presence. Start with a competitive link audit using the Moz Link Explorer to uncover valuable link building opportunities and improve your backlink index.
Thorough competitive research can provide various backlink resources that you can acquire organically and use in your future link building campaigns. We recommend compiling a list of your top five competitors and analyze their referring domains, backlinks, broken links, and shared links. By examining your competition’s backlinks, you can gain insights into the target keywords that have helped them rank higher on search engines.
Tip: Parallel recommends using Moz, an all-in-one SEO platform with tools for site crawls, rank tracking, backlink analysis, and keyword research. Moz tracks your site’s keyword performance and visibility on SERPs to show you what’s working and what’s not. You can even analyze your backlink profile and competitive standing with its online link metrics.
2. Develop Quality Content
Link building combined with a solid content marketing strategy can significantly improve your website’s visibility. Develop fresh, creative content that other trustworthy sites will want to link back to. Your target audience will also be more likely to read and share engaging content such as blogs, infographics, case studies, interviews, and videos.
When you publish new content on your website, you also want to ensure new links are built into the page. We recommend including at least one inbound link and one outbound link on each of your webpages. Similar to paid media, high-quality links can boost traffic to your landing pages.
3. Share on Social Media
The connection between social media and search results is becoming more important. Receiving backlinks on social media shows Google that you’re creating relevant content that users are actively sharing. Linking your content to your social media profiles creates call to actions for your audience to share with their peers.
Influencers can also boost your backlinks and credibility. Create a post that tags various thought leaders with an @mention and email influencers with a request to comment once it’s live. By encouraging interaction between influencers and your business, you can lay the foundation for stronger relationships in the future.
4. Build Business Relationships
As part of your backlink strategy, it’s important to remember that link building is about relationships, not just robots on search engines. Building website backlinks requires a bit of digital PR to establish real connections with other authoritative figures in your industry.
We also recommend utilizing your email lists for your link building campaigns to target your quality contacts and influencers. You can even sign up as an information source on HARO (Help a Reporter Out), a free service that will send you notification emails to help journalists seeking resources. If you provide relevant information for their upcoming stories, they will often include backlinks to your site.
