An effective SEO plan would consider acquisition of backlinks essential. Links signal search engines regarding a website – whether it is trusted, recognised or worthy of having a top spot on the SERPs. But just having a number of backlinks will not suffice. Search engines also look for the types of backlinks. Based on the link type, backlinks have different levels of influence on search engine rankings and the results gained by acquiring them. There are plenty of link building agencies in the UK. So if you are not aware of how to go about link building, it’s best to hire an agency to help your brand handle SEO and link building activities.
Types of Backlinks
Editorial Backlinks
This is one of the best types of links available in SEO. An editorial mention takes place when another website refers and links to your brand’s website in a piece of quality content. It can be citing someone from your brand or something from the content as an important piece of information. It can also be a mention of the website that has shared an infographic image, including your brand’s content in link roundup. Such links can refer to your website as a resource for additional information or even interview someone associated with your brand, if your brand is popular.
How to Gain Editorial Backlinks
- Create content that can be shared across social media and websites so that the other websites talk about it.
- Mould your brand to be strong in content marketing.
- Publish content that would highlight your brand’s website and authority in the industry, following which other websites would source, site or interview you.
- Create ageless and high-quality content that can be resourceful and insightful.
Guest Blogging Backlinks
Guest posting can be another way of acquiring valuable SEO backlinks UK. When a guest post is submitted on a website, your brand is usually allowed to include an editorial backlink within the body of the content. Such backlinks can be a reliable way to build authority and trust through other authoritative publications. To gain guest blogging backlinks, make a list of valuable and authoritative blogging sites and reach out to them for acquiring links.
Business Profile Backlinks
When an online business profile gets created, backlinks to your website can be added. The links on social media networks, media networks and business listings, including industry specific directories signal to search engines that the website is of high-quality. To gain business profile backlinks, creating a profile on popular directories or review sites in the niche market can be helpful.
Webinar Links
If your brand creates a valuable resource, other sites would get encouraged to link back to it. If the content that offers high value leads to links, it is known as webinar recording. Other websites link or embed to other brands’ webinars on their site – this leads to both, links and brand mentions. Repurposing the webinars and posting it as recording to the website can help in gaining webinar backlinks as people would visit and link to them. Make use of blog promotion to attract visitor attention to webinar recording and identify guest blogging sites that would be interested to use webinar as a resource on their website.
Free Tool Links
Offering a free tool is another way to get websites to link back to something valuable on your website. If the tools are valuable enough, other websites would link them to their content. Also, in the free version of paid tools, you can add call to action (CTA) to sign up for full product or services which would help in driving acquisition along with awareness for your brand.
Factors that Impact Link Value
- Authority of the Linking Site: Most valuable types of backlinks are from high quality websites. Links from such websites are recognised as authoritative resources as they send positive signals to search engines when compared to low quality or lesser known sites. Various tools can help in determining the authority of a website.
- Dofollow and Nofollow links: Dofollow links communicate with search engines regarding the SEO value of the links while nofollow links lead search engines to ignore some links and to provide lesser SEO value. As dofollow links send positive signals to search engines, they can be considered more valuable than nofollow links. Opt to code the links to your website as dofollow links. However, remember, a nofollow link can also drive traffic to the website.
- On-site Link Location: Websites are available in sections. The value of a link can impact the section in which it appears in search results. The most valuable links would be available on the main body of the content in a website. Links that are placed in the header, footer or even on the sidebar of a webpage may not receive the same value from search engines when compared to links placed on the body of the text. This can be an important factor that would help in building high quality backlinks.
Tips to Begin a Link Building Campaign
- Get a Strategy: Before thinking of jumping into any link building endeavour, it is very important to formulate a unique strategy. Brainstorm over different ideas regarding how to earn links for your website. Without having a strategy ready, it is easy to lose view of the goal. Consider the amount of time you can invest for link building efforts. The strategy would also depend on the current situation of your brand. However, it’s always a good idea to focus on content creation before thinking of starting with a link building campaign.
- Have the Right Tools: Before you begin with the campaign, make sure that there are right tools for a link building strategy. Various free and paid tools are available online that can help in competitor analysis and in identifying potential opportunities. Outreach tools can help you in organising the emails and saving templates for emails.
- Keep Monitoring the Success Rate: You can keep monitoring the success rate by keeping a track of the number of websites you have reached out to, the replies or responses received and the metrics from websites where you have successfully earned a link. Gain a better idea of the tactics that work or don’t work for you by monitoring the success rate.
- Remain Patient: Having patience can pay off when it comes to link building. However, it can be a tedious process and would take some time before starting to earn high-quality backlinks, especially during the initial days of your brand, following its inception. Some websites that may reject the linking with your website at one point of time may revert back for link building in a later stage. Do not get discouraged if you face any form of rejection to get links. If the tactics fail to work out, rework on the link building strategy, identify the areas with flaws and rectify the issues in the strategy. Hard work and efforts would be rewarding and links would start coming in some time.
If you understand the link building opportunity and the techniques that can be utilised, experimenting in what works the best would be rewarding. If the experiment succeeds, your brand can take advantage of this opportunity and gain authority in search engine results in the niche market.
