1. Check Your Direct Competitors’ Backlinks
Since link building helps your site rank higher, we can assume that the highest-ranking sites on search engine results pages (SERPs) have lots of good backlinks. The same is true for your competitors who rank higher than you. If there are many authoritative sites linking to them, wouldn’t it be nice if they linked to you too? Of course, it would. Find those sites, and you can start building links there too, right? Not so fast.
Step 1: Uncover Your True Competitors
First, you need to know which sites are your online competitors. You don’t want to waste your time trying to outrank sites that are not even stealing your customers, after all. Here’s how to identify a direct competitor:
- Their site serves the same purpose as yours and targets the same audience.
- It ranks for the same keywords you want to rank for.
- Their business operates in the same area as yours.
- They rank higher than you.
To start looking for your competitors, open a tool like WebCEO’s Dangerous Competitors tool. Configure the settings, entering your ranking keywords, known competitors’ URLs, and the search engines where you want to rank. Local business owners should also select locations to narrow down results. Save your settings, and the tool will generate a table of sites belonging to your potential competitors. Visit those sites to verify if they are indeed your competitors.
Step 2: Check Their Backlinks
Next, examine their backlinks using a tool like Competitor Backlink Spy. Enter your competitors’ URLs, save the settings, and the tool will list all of their backlinks. It’s essential to find promising domains among those linking pages. Visit those sites and identify ones that are likely to give your site a backlink. By the way, your competitors can also be your backlink donors. Feel free to build links on their sites too!
2. Must-Do Websites For Link Building
Before other sites start linking to yours, you can create a few powerful backlinks yourself. Select sites relevant to your niche and create business listings there. This strategy gives your backlink profile several authoritative sites. Moreover, other websites’ owners can find you there too, which increases your exposure and helps in gaining more backlinks.
If your site is already well-known, you might also consider creating a Wikipedia page about it. While links from Wikipedia are nofollow, the site’s significant authority can still benefit you indirectly.
3. Run A Blog & Write Articles About Relevant Topics
To gain backlinks, you must have link-worthy content on your website — the more, the better. Write about different but related topics concerning your niche and business, such as:
- Your products.
- Industry news.
- Fascinating case studies.
- Recent developments in your company.
- Interviews with clients and partners.
There are endless options. The more knowledge you share, the more visitors and backlinks you attract. Make sure to optimize your content for keywords using a tool like WebCEO’s Keyword Research to enhance visibility. Also, list your sources to appear credible and interlink related pages within your site to aid navigation.
4. Write Guest Articles
Guest blogging remains a tried and tested method for building links. Writing articles for other sites can be beneficial if you include a link to yours. However, there are important steps to follow: find relevant sites and persuade them to accept your guest posts. You can find potential sites using a tool like Competitor Backlink Spy.
Once you identify a promising site, reach out via email. An example email can introduce yourself, compliment their work, propose potential topics, and express your willingness to write about different ones if needed.
5. Turn Unlinked Mentions Into Links
If your business has been mentioned on other sites, this presents an easy opportunity for backlinks. Contact the site owner or editor and ask them to convert the mention into a hyperlink to your site. Finding unlinked mentions is simple with tools like WebCEO’s Web Buzz Monitoring. Just add your brand’s name, and the tool finds pages with unlinked mentions.
6. Provide An Excellent User Experience
To earn backlinks, ensure your site offers an excellent user experience (UX). A well-functioning and visually appealing site encourages backlinks, boosts user activity, generates positive reviews, improves Google rankings, and attracts significantly more backlinks. Key elements of good UX include:
- Helpful, high-quality content that addresses visitors’ needs.
- Engaging visuals that load correctly.
- Absence of site errors, using tools like WebCEO’s Technical Audit to detect and fix issues.
- Fast loading times, ensured via a Speed Optimization tool.
- Mobile-friendly design.
- User accessibility, verified with tools like EquallyAI’s ARIA.
7. Get Rid Of Harmful Backlinks
Ensure your backlink profile doesn’t harm your site. Harmful backlinks include bought, spammy, irrelevant, or low-authority links. Too many such backlinks can harm your search rankings. Regularly scan your backlink profile with WebCEO’s Toxic Pages tool to identify spammy links. Once identified, remove them, request their removal, or disavow them via Google Disavow.
For more advanced link-building strategies, a full guide is available exclusively to WebCEO users. Sign up for free and gain access to a comprehensive list of 24 tactics to sustain and enhance your link-building efforts in 2024 and beyond!
