No matter the nature and size of your online platform, you have to be smart and focused if you want your website to be visible among the crowd of billions of website on the internet. The days of simply posting and relying on a few keywords are now gone. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has now evolved to a point where hundreds of factors contribute to it. Some of these factors are very prominent, such as keywords, but with the rise of voice search, keywords no longer dominate the SEO world. While keywords are not likely to go obsolete just now, relying solely on keywords will make your website obsolete very quickly. This is where backlinks come into the picture. Build backlinks to website for gaining more traffic. Backlinks for SEO are in trend.

Backlinks are one of the most important factors that contribute to your website’s SEO. So let’s start with a brief introduction to backlinks.

What is a backlink?

Defined simply, a backlink is an external link that directs traffic from one website to another. You definitely have to include backlinks in your content. But more importantly, you want to have backlinks pointing to your site.

Backlinks are important for SEO because search engine website crawlers look for backlinks in order to understand the linkage of your website to the other content online. Additionally, backlinks help search engines know how popular your website’s content is and how it relates to other websites and pages on the internet.

The way your content is displayed on search engines is directly related to the quality of your backlinks. That’s why it is important to generate backlinks to and from authoritative and recognized websites.

How to build Backlinks to website:

Generating quality backlinks can be hard, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be. Below are a few ways to build or earn backlinks for SEO.

1. Internal Backlinks

The term backlink is a term mostly associated with external links to your site. But internal links also are a part of it. Internal links contribute towards a greater user experience by helping visitors navigate through your website easily. Internal links help users find relevant pages on your website related to the ones they are currently viewing. Build backlinks to website for generation of positive results, which must include the internal backlinks and external ones too.

This allows you to retain visitors because you’re providing means for them to find additional relevant information on your site. Internal links help you retain visitors by redirecting them to new pages on your website. It also prevents them from typing a new query in the search engine.

But be careful not to overload your website with internal links. A good rule of thumb is to keep back links per page below 100 (This includes external links too).

2. Guest Posting

Guest posting is not only about generating backlinks but it is a great way to ensure some quality backlinks to your website. It is also a great way to get your name out in the market, make your content available to new readers and grab more exposure for your content. Guest posting, especially on recognized websites in your niche, is a great way to lend credibility to your website and it’s content. Additionally, you can also build backlinks to website through it.

But if you don’t know how, it can take a lot of time to find new opportunities for guest writing. But a surefire way of discovering fresh opportunities is using search engines, duh!

Just search: “your niche” + guest post (e.g. tech + guest post).

You can also use the search function on social media sites to find guest writing opportunities.

3. Help A Reporter Out (HARO)

This is another fantastic online resource to generate backlinks to website. All you have to do is signup as a ‘Source’ on the website and you will get three emails every day with a list of articles that reporters need information for.

While it is understandable that you may not be able to cater to every query or not every query will be within your area of expertise, what you can do is scan through the list to find the ones which cover your field and then send a contribution pitch to the provided e-mail.

Although you are not guaranteed a backlink for every contribution you make, but more often than not you will be rewarded with a backlink on a high ranking site. Basically it depends on the content you submit. Since every reporter must get many responses, your content should be able to stand out.

4. Blog and Forum Comments

The first step you need to take hereto find the blogs and forums related to your niche and content, and follow them. Most people turn to forums and blogs for information about certain topics that they want covered. But sometimes the information provided on the forums or blogs is not complete or has something missing. This is where you step in.

Start going through the comments section and try to answer some of the questions that people have asked. Sometimes you will find that some answers are too long for you to write in the comments. Take this as an opportunity to provide a summarized answer with a link to your page which can answer the question in detail.

Examples of websites like this are Yahoo Answers, Quora and Google Groups.

6. Blogger Reviews

What you want to do here is search for bloggers who provide reviews for the kind of products that you offer. Narrow the list down to a select few authentic bloggers and make an offer. You can offer them a sample of your product. In return, ask them to mention your product/business in their blog if they like it.

While this isn’t technically a free of charge method, but the cost is very minimal and results will pay for themselves if your product or service is good.

7. The Moving Man Method And Broken Links

The Moving Man Method is one of the most effective ways to build backlinks to website.

When a big website gets shut down or goes offline the websites that were linking to it also suffer. Because this usually results in links from other websites leading to blank pages. The blank pages usually signify the outdated pages in case the site is closed.

And when a site has been taken down entirely, existing backlinks for the website give users a 404-error. This is called a broken link.

If you have got content that replace the old website, then it is a great opportunity to build backlinks to website. You can reach out to the sites containing backlinks to the old websites, let them know that the link no longer works and offer your link as an alternative.

Chances are very likely that you will get a quality backlink.

8. Website Feedback Sites

An excellent way to generate quality feedback for improvements on your website while earning some reputable backlinks to website is to join one of the many feedback sites on the internet.

All you need to do is sign up on one or more of these sites and submit your website for review.

Most website feedback sites automatically include a link to your website so that their users can find your website easily.

Some great feedback sites that can automatically generate a link for you are: bounceapp.com, suggestionbox.com andvwo.com. So build backlinks to website and attain the maximum benefits.