6 Link Building Strategies for Bloggers That All Beginners Should Use

Just having your WordPress blog built and made available to the world isn’t the end of your journey. You also need to find a way to make people discover your content. To nobody’s surprise, the most well-known method for doing that is by having your blog posts show up in Google search results. One of the best ways to do that is by increasing the amount of backlinks pointing to your blog. To accomplish that goal, you will need some effective link building strategies for bloggers.

We’re happy to welcome Ryan Stewart who’s going to tell us all about that in today’s guest post:

Enter Ryan – 6 Link Building Strategies for Bloggers

The reason your blog needs quality backlinks is because these are the main measures Google uses to verify the trust of a website. In addition, Google looks for quality backlinks to determine your rank for a search query. When links are directed to your site from other, high-quality sites, it acts as a vote of confidence for your content.

Google then uses the backlinks, and other measures, to figure out the relevance of your site for specific keywords. If the links are found on sites with non-relevant content, then your links will be considered of a lower quality. On the other hand, if they are on a site similar to yours, then the links will be considered of a higher and more relevant quality.

With Google, it’s about relevance and not quantity. As a result, you don’t want to get random links hoping it will push your site up in the search engines. You want quality links, of relevant content, from a diverse set of sources. You also want to ensure the links come from trustworthy domains. Over time, the number of links should grow at a steady pace. If this seems confusing, we’re here to help you with six link building strategies for bloggers.

• Guest Posting
• Showcase Experts and Influencers
• Be Relevant
• Have a Strong Voice
• Research and Analysis
• Build Strong Keyword Pages

1. Guest Posting

The Internet is bursting with content, it can feel overwhelming when trying to figure out where to get backlinks. You can’t just publish content, no matter how good, and hope people will link to it. That just won’t work in today’s ultra-competitive, global landscape.

Through social media sites, a lot of content is getting shared, but not through backlinks. Links become live and backlinked (when followed) through guest posting.

Moreover, it’s critical to get your content published on the right sites. Here’s how to start:

1. Create valuable content that can attract links.
2. Promote content to an ideal audience so that it’s seen by people in similar industries and niches.

The objective is to get trustworthy sites to publish your content and create backlinks to the desired link. The only way they will do so is if they view your content as valuable. So, one of your link building strategies should be to ensure that your content is worthy, read more here.

2. Showcase Experts and Influencers

You may be surprised to find that many experts and influencers are actually willing to give an interview. Plus, your readers will be interested in learning more from what they already are interested in. In addition, you can easily connect with them via social media. So, one of your link building strategies should be to interview experts and influencers.

Why does this work? Because, they will link to the interview (if not all then at least some of them will). And, if they are an expert, then they will have a high-quality site. You don’t even have to meet them in person. You can schedule a call, a chat or even send an email with your list of questions for them to answer within an agreed-upon time frame.

The Themeisle blog has been doing a lot of interviews lately, there’s the whole Pirate Interviews series that you should check out. Some of the recent ones:

This one of the easiest and best link building tips anyone can give you because all it requires of you is to spend a little bit of your time to put together a well thought out pitch that you can send to your potential interviewee.

Once you have the general template of your message, you can adjust it to make it relevant to the specific influencer or expert you want to message. From there, it’s simply a numbers game. The more people you reach out to, the better your chances of securing an interview.

However, if you notice that after extensive outreach efforts that you aren’t getting any responses, then you might need to go back to the drawing board and review your pitch message. Your response rate might not be through the roof, but it shouldn’t be zero either.

3. Be Relevant

One thing that people love to read about is current events whether it be in pop culture, politics or all of the above. People are more likely to read up on trendy subjects. You can use this to your advantage by creating linkbait content that focuses on these things.

One of the best ways to do this is through lists and rankings. These formats tend to attract more visitors and shares, and should be included in your arsenal of link building techniques.

The same is true if you include charts and infographics, which are easier to share. People are stimulated and excited by visuals.

How can you do this?

Keep up with what’s “hot” at the moment. Read the news everyday, or at the very least, scan the headlines. Plus, you need to figure out what your target audience would like to read. Once you have decided on a subject, frame it in a new or interesting way to differentiate it from what your audience may have already seen somewhere else.

For example, here’s how the Themeisle team has been doing charts:

(Charts by Visualizer Lite.)

4. Have a Strong Voice

People want a strong opinion. You can call this a think piece, or a rant, but if it’s done well, it will get a lot of links. This is another one of those link building ideas that shouldn’t be too hard to pull off, but it’s important that if you publish this type of content, you need to support your argument with facts.

A little controversy is always a good thing for engaging your audience and is one of the best link building strategies for bloggers if done right.

Just don’t overdo it with drama, stay far away from being mean or hurtful, and don’t disparage others. You should have an opinion, but don’t do it at the expense of others or to the detriment of your brand.

5. Research + Analysis

Use statistics and data to support your article. If someone wanted to present the information you have come up with, the only way they can do it is through a backlink. The point of this type of content is to offer more value to your audience.

Statistics and data have high potential for attracting backlinks from others, and are commonly used as a link building tactic by savvy bloggers. Not all posts need to be user guides, but try to be comprehensive. It takes some work to put together relevant information in a neat package.

One of your link building strategies should be to set up some time to publish this type of linkbait content several times a year. They do take a lot of time and effort, but they also yield high-quality backlinks.

6. Build Strong Keyword Pages

It’s not only the content of a blog post that matters for search engine optimization. The actual content describing your pages and what’s on the pages matter in keyword optimization as well.

When creating your website and building pages, don’t hide the keywords. When it comes to url page names, descriptions, and any other verbiage on your page, be keyword friendly.

Look at the case study for creativeboom.com. It has a wide variety of backlinks from interesting sources. Some of them may not seem relevant, but upon closer inspection, backlinks on topics from everything such as photo essays to college fashion departments give the site a variety from trusted sources. It’s an excellent example of a well-executed link aquisition strategy.

In conclusion

Link building strategies for bloggers should be about more than just getting a bunch of random links. As a blogger, you want to create valuable content that is linkable and considered valuable by your target audience.

If there’s anything you’d like to ask, fire away in the comments section below.