Last Updated on August 28, 2024
Google has never revealed what factors go into deciding a webpage’s ranking, but over the years, we have learned that ranking factors run into hundreds.
But what we do know is that backlinks are a ranking factor. There have been many stories about how important backlinks are, and Google has downplayed their importance. However, Google’s statements can be taken lightly, as the search giant aims to discourage spamming due to low-quality backlinks.
As you may have heard of the saying “the more the better” this goes in vain when we talk about links. As long as you want to rank high on the search results, this saying is not true as more links do not mean that it is good for your backlinking profile. It is thus better to aim for few but high quality links only. The risky or poor links don’t help in any way, leave aside giving you boosted rankings. In turn, they can go worse and can get you Google penalty and loss of traffic.
Then, what exactly should your link-building strategies be in 2024?
In this comprehensive guide, we explore the backlink strategies that leverage new tools and methods, ensuring your website maintains its ranking and gains high-quality backlinks.
1. Ask for backlinks from your known
This is the first way to start and that too when you are a newbie in the world of Internet. Just think of your relatives, colleagues, friends, clients, partners if they run any site or blog. All you need to do is to just ask for their backlinks. But at the same time see to it that they have reputed sites or blogs. Ask for the in content links rather than links in footer or sidebar. Also ensure that the link comes from a source which is relevant to your particular field or niche otherwise it will not have much impact or may even prove to be harmful in the long run.
2. Building relationships first through Forum/Communities
For proper link building, you have to build strong relationships as well. There are a number of opportunities available for building contacts. You can start with going to your niche related forums and communities like social groups, blogs etc. Your very first step towards this approach should be to start contributing in these forums with relevant information, comments, posts and provide contextual value to the discussions. Through participating in such communities, you will not just gain quality links, you will also get access to new industry news, details and can connect with some people who share same passions and interests as yours.
3. Recover your dead backlinks
There are times when you may find broken links to a site. This may be due to the location of the page changes or if your link is misspelt. In any of these cases, the backlinks will give a 404 error. Such problems may even occur after your site was migrated or re launched. You should thus redirect the backlinks to other page. A tool like LJR or Link Juice Recovery is the one that lets you find backlinks which your site has linking to the non-existent page having the HTTP code 404. The tool doesn’t just detect the 404 errors, it even detects the timeout errors like 504 and access errors like 403. So when re-launching the site, you may want to have a look at these errors, find the problems and fix them before getting into any mess.
4. Removing Harmful Backlinks
Now, this one is not particularly a link building strategy, but it is as important to get rid of low quality or spammy backlinks, as it is to gain quality dofollow links.
Protecting your site from harmful backlinks is as crucial as acquiring good ones. Spammy or irrelevant links can harm your SEO performance. SeoEaze provides a thorough link audit service, identifying harmful backlinks and using Google’s Disavow tool to reject them effectively. This safeguarding action ensures that your backlink profile remains clean and positively influences your SEO rankings.
We are done with the easier link building strategies.
These backlink building approaches are straightforward and doesn’t need a lot of research, but the link building in 2024 must be strategic. That’s why to implement other tips, you need to do comprehensive competitor backlink analysis.
We go you covered, here’s how you can start.
Analyzing Competitor Backlinks
Analyzing competitor backlinks is an integral part of developing an effective SEO strategy. By understanding where your competitors’ strengths lie in their backlink profiles, you can identify opportunities to enhance your SEO efforts.
Identifying Competitor Backlinks
The first step is to identify who is linking to your competitors. This involves using SEO tools to scan competitor web pages and extract backlink data. Understanding these links’ source, quality, and context helps you pinpoint what makes them valuable.
Using Ranklogs Backlink Monitor
The Ranklogs Backlink Monitor tool is particularly useful in this regard. It provides comprehensive data on backlinks, including the authority of linking sites and the backlink growth over time. With this tool, you can track how competitors gain backlinks and spot patterns in their strategies. For instance, if a competitor consistently gains links from specific industry blogs, you might consider similar content or outreach strategies.
Analyzing Link Quality
Beyond just counting backlinks, it’s crucial to assess the quality of each link. The Ranklogs tool helps evaluate the relevance and authority of linking domains. High-quality backlinks from authoritative sites significantly boost SEO more than numerous low-quality links.
Strategic Planning Based on Data
Using insights from the Ranklogs Backlink Monitor, you can strategize to replicate successful links or identify untapped niches your competitors might have overlooked. This could involve targeting similar authoritative domains or discovering new content gaps that attract high-quality backlinks.
Continuous Monitoring and Adaptation
SEO is not a set-it-and-forget-it endeavor. Continuously monitoring your competitors’ backlink profiles with tools like Ranklogs allows you to stay adaptive and responsive to changes in the landscape. This ongoing analysis helps refine your strategies and maintain a competitive edge.
By integrating Ranklogs Backlink Monitor into your competitive analysis strategy, you can gain detailed insights into competitor backlinks, helping you to develop a more informed and effective link-building strategy. This approach not only enhances your SEO performance but also supports a proactive stance in your online marketing efforts.
Once, you go the backlinks and profiles of the sources your competitors use for backlinks, you can continue with these steps.
5. Guest posting
There are a lot of blogs and sites which accept publishing your articles. So before writing any article somewhere, make certain that the blog or site is related to your niche, the article is not regarding what your company is all about or what it does. Also, focus on the quality of the content and make it professional and interesting to read. Always remember that a bad quality article will just get in poor reputation of your business. Further, it is crucial that you build the links which help your site and not the links which can negatively impact your site’s rankings on the search results.
Guest blogging offers a dual benefit: it allows you to place content on other reputable sites and to embed backlinks that point back to your site. Identifying the right platforms for guest blogging, crafting compelling content, and establishing relationships with site owners should be part of your strategic approach. They ensure that each guest post is informative and strategically aligned with your SEO goals, enhancing both your authority and your backlink profile.
6. Start your own blog
Starting a blog is a goldmine to get organic backlinks but it is not without efforts.
I’ve seen businesses and website owners using low quality blogs to generate links to their own sites. Never make a blog with a single post and backlink to your website in it. If you do so, you will not just waste your time, you will even create risky links.
So, if you want to start your blog, make sure you keep it live and active. By keeping it live, we mean that you should post on it regularly. In no time, you will see that your blog will gain authority. Also keep it a point that your content is high in quality, rich, user friendly, useful, relevant and very well structured.
To make a successful blog, you will need a content strategy. Google is filled with content on any topic under the sun, your aim is to create a blog that offers some additional value to readers.
Let’s be honest it will be virtually impossible to think of a topic that hasn’t been covered already. The best you can do is to discover the content gap and then fill that gap.
Wondering how to do it?
Here’s our recommendation.
Content Creation for Natural Link Acquisition
Creating content that naturally attracts backlinks is pivotal in enhancing your SEO strategy. This section will explore how to produce such content effectively.
Understanding Audience Needs
To create content that truly resonates, you must thoroughly understand your target audience. This involves identifying their interests, pain points, and questions. You should conduct a detailed audience analysis to tailor content that addresses these aspects, making it more likely to be shared and linked.
Producing Diverse Content Formats
While blog posts are a staple in content strategies, diversifying content formats can significantly enhance link acquisition opportunities. Infographics, videos, how-to guides, and original research reports are types of content that attract high-quality backlinks. We help businesses create a varied content portfolio that appeals to different audience segments and content creators likely to link back to diverse and informative resources.
Utilizing SEO Best Practices
Incorporating SEO best practices into content creation is essential. This includes optimizing content with relevant keywords, such as “link building” and “building link,” and optimizing meta tags, descriptions, and URLs. Our expertise ensures that all content is SEO-friendly, making it more visible in search results and more likely to be linked by other websites.
Leveraging Timely and Evergreen Topics
Balancing timely topics with evergreen content can maximize the relevance and longevity of links. Timely content capitalizes on current trends and news, attracting immediate attention and links, while evergreen content provides sustained value over time, continuously attracting backlinks. SeoEaze’s strategic content planning includes a mix of both to maintain a fresh and consistently relevant presence online.
Promoting Blog Content Across Channels
Creating great content is the first step; effective promotion ensures it reaches a wide audience and generates backlinks. You should employ a comprehensive content promotion strategy that includes social media sharing, email marketing, and engagement with online communities. By increasing content visibility, you enhance the likelihood of it being linked to other sites.
Focusing on these areas can help you create content that serves your audience’s needs and attracts natural backlinks that bolster your SEO efforts. With SeoEaze’s content creation and promotion expertise, your business can leverage content as a powerful tool for link-building and online growth.
7. Turn mentions into backlinks
You will love this. This is indeed the best way to gain new backlinks. This is like someone already wrote something about your business, product or services like they mentioned your brand etc but have not included any link or linked to your site. In such situations, it is good that you contact the webmaster to ask them to convert this sort of a mention into a valuable back link. It is as simple as that.
SeoEaze utilizes advanced monitoring tools to track brand mentions across the web, facilitating outreach efforts to convert positive mentions into backlinks. This proactive approach not only enhances your link profile but also aids in managing your online reputation.
8. Find useful link building opportunities
There are a lot of opportunities for building links. There are blogs, sites and forums where you can place your links but generally it is not as easy. Whether you wish to find a relevant site or blog in which you can place the guest article or some forum with Follow links, the popular SERP research tool will be of great help to you. SERP is basically designed to help find most relevant results. And after you enjoy the results, you can easily sort them by theme, strength or other factors that you want. The best part about SERP is that you already know the links which are high authority and relevant for your niche.
9. Earn links, don’t buy
Building and buying links are different but you can even earn links if you have good content. Google’s main aim is to earn money, just like other companies out there. And Google cannot simply earn anything till the time they offer good experience to its users. Also, this good experience comes with relevant and useful search results. In case they fail to show any relevant results, the users will switch to other search engines.
Google also checks the technical features of a site like the navigation, loading speed, designing, keyword density etc. They also measure the user experience through CTR, time spent on the site and the bounce rate. But there is something that you may be forgetting- Great content will get you lots of natural links.
10. Infographics
Irrespective of your content quality and richness, some people find it easy to grasp the information when it is visually appealing. Different people grasp information in a different way and your message needs to be available in the form which it can capture attention of a large base of audience. A lot of people use Infographics for attracting the links and it truly works. Sometimes one may use the Infographics but with no linking to you. In such situation, you can start the Google reverse image search.
How to make an appealing infograph?
Have a look, we made SEOEaze’s infograph on Top 10 SEO Trends of 2024-25 for our readers.
11. Newsletter subscriptions
Last but not least, companies do not give credit to importance of newsletters. When used in the right way, there can be many benefits of a newsletter. Publishing the newsletter can increase awareness and attention of the clients as well as readers. With interesting and quality content, you actually increase probability of sharing the same and thus increase traffic as well as backlinks.
Try including effective call to action buttons in the newsletter like offer them for registering for the webinar, download eBook etc. It is better if you start building the links. But before doing so, ensure that you do detailed link audit as well as disavow the spammy links that you may bought in past. Disavow the links which have high rate of risk first and then move towards disavowing other links. You surely don’t want Google Penguin to search the, right?
12. QA Websites
Have you heard of Quora?
If you haven’t, then you are really missing up on an incredible link building opportunity. Question and Answer sites are the new social networks. Idea is simple you register on such sites and genuinely answer questions and doubts that reader post. While doing the same you embed a relevant link to your website.
Best thing is Google also favors helpful answers on these websites. And if you are really able to help, readers will follow your link at every opportunity they get.
13. Improving User Experience to Boost Backlinks
A superior user experience enhances visitors’ likelihood of sharing and linking to your content. An intuitive site structure, fast loading times, and mobile-friendly design are essential for optimizing results. By ensuring that your site is technically sound and provides a great user experience, you can attract more organic links, which are highly valued by search engines.
Conclusion
To conclude, we can say that natural link building has always been a tough task. And why wouldn’t it be. All creative things need efforts and time and this is what link building is all about- a way of adding value and having good content. Most importantly, focus on users and give people the value they should get. Build links which are enriching, useful and relevant both for the web as well as for the users.
Google continuously adapts to the changing practices of spamming and black hat SEO, so your focus must be on getting your backlink strategy right. In 2024, these link building strategies can help you achieve and maintain top search engine rankings.
