Link building is an integral part of any search engine optimization strategy. If you can convince other high authority websites to link back to your own, it can make a tremendous difference to your search engine rankings. Of course, this is easier said than done. Anyone who has embarked on a major link building endeavor can tell you how difficult effective link building is.
Below are six link building strategies that any website or blog can implement in order to send their SEO rankings through the roof in 2020.
Create Evergreen Content
Evergreen content is the kind of content that will appeal to audiences throughout the year. Perennial seasonal content can be effective at driving up your SEO and backlinking scores during the holidays, but what about the rest of the year? The right piece of evergreen content can continue to generate backlinks for a page for years.
Take a topic like weight loss. Weight loss is a great example of a topic that is evergreen, while also being able to enjoy a perennial boost during the holidays. In the first week of the new year, when everyone is making resolutions that they will definitely be sticking to this time, searches for topics like weight loss, quitting smoking, and exercise routines receive an uptick in interest.
Use Link Roundups
A link roundup is a periodical blog post or newsletter that contains a collection of links to content relevant to a particular niche. If you can get your content featured in one of these roundups, not only will you benefit from the backlink in the roundup itself, but there’s always a chance that the additional exposure will bring some organic backlinks of its own.
The easiest way of finding a link roundup for your niche is simply o search for your niche + “link roundup”. This should bring back a couple of results for most niches. You can try variants on this, such as “weekly roundup” or “daily roundup” to see if you get different results.
Once you have found a roundup that fits with your niche and content, send them an email pointing them towards your latest piece of content that you think would be worthy of inclusion in the roundup.
Target High Authority Websites
Not all websites are created equal in the eyes of Google. Some websites have a much higher domain authority score. A backlink from a website with a higher authority score translates into a larger boost for your SEO, meaning that each link is worth more to you.
It, therefore, makes sense to focus the bulk of your efforts on securing backlinks from websites with the highest domain authority scores. This is easier than amassing a large number of low-quality links, provided you have the content to justify a backlink from a high authority website.
Deploy Infographics
Infographics are perfect for social media shares. This is the kind of content that people love to share with their friends – they provide information in quick and convenient chunks that are easily digested by the reader. The simplicity of infographics makes them highly shareable and linkable content.
Don’t just churn out infographics constantly. If you do this, the results will be unevenly distributed, and no individual piece of content will be able to gain much traction.
Use HARO
Help A Reporter Out is an online platform designed to help journalists find sources for their articles. When journalists feature a source in their articles, they usually include a backlink to the original page. Needless to say, having your content used by the right reporter on the right story could send your SEO through the roof overnight.
You can register for a free account on HARO and then list yourself as a source on the platform. Once you’re registered, HARO will let you know whenever you receive new queries from journalists, so you need to keep an eye on your inbox. Also, remember that journalists work to tight deadlines so if you want to benefit from using HARO, you need to get into the habit of responding promptly.
Using HARO is unlikely to be netting you hundreds of requests a day and you will probably find that opportunities come through relatively infrequently. However, the big advantage of using HARO is that news websites tend to have very high domain authority. That means that while you might be generating backlinks less often, those that you do generate will be of a higher value and will give your own domain authority a welcome boost.
Look For Unlinked Mentions Of Your Blog
Whenever someone is talking about your blog or website online, you want to know about it. Using Google Alerts, you can receive a notification every time someone mentions you in their content. You can then check the page in question to see if they have included a link to your site.
If your name is just sitting there in plain text with no hyperlinking, you can reach out to them to thank them for their mention of your site and asking them politely if they would consider including a backlink. You could even sweeten the deal by offering to provide a backlink of your own to their content.
If you plan on using HARO, you will definitely want to do this to ensure that you aren’t missing out on the high-value backlinks that journalists and news websites can provide.
Link building is an essential part of any comprehensive SEO strategy. While the link building techniques outlined above are all effective and will be important for 2020, there is one link-building technique that is never going to go out of style – producing great content. If you are churning out the kind of content that people want to share with their friends and link to from their own websites, then you will be generating backlinks constantly.
Remember to always keep one eye on your competitors and what they are doing. Pay particular attention to the keywords that they are targeting, especially in cases where there seems to be little to no competition for them.