Top 5 Ways To Get Backlinks To Your Website

Top 5 Ways To Get Backlinks To Your Website
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  • 7 min read

Links, backlinks, and SEO. That’s a lot of simplicity and also a highly-contested subject. Should you partner with another website to exchange links (link-building)? Well, you could, especially if you’re in parallel industries. But we’d recommend staying away from link farms. (Think cold calls of un-qualified leads.) They’re mostly garbage links. Then again, if you’re starting from nothing, then you should take the links you can get. (You can always edit your content later.)

So what are the different ways to get backlinks then?

We’ve got five backlink tips for you with quick wins and tips within the tips! Log into your PM software because you’ll be creating to-dos from these tips.

Table of Contents

It’s funny to talk about backlinks, or link building, or outbound links, in 2023. Let’s go back to the spider web which leads us to aracnids and, to be frank, hunting. So if you’re squeemish maybe skip this section. 

An orb weaver spends the night building his trap for the next meal. This trap consists of a web. To many, the web of an orb weaver is one of the most beautiful creations in nature – it sways gently in the breeze, catches the dew, and glistens in the morning sun. This is why the trap works. It’s attractive.

Let’s call the orb weaver Scott. Scott, not building for the Internet, sadly has to start from scratch every single day. Could you imagine launching a new website daily just to pay the bills? Poor Scott. And how does he start the web that goes between trees? Well, Scott is smart enough to use resources available to him – it’s the air. After Scott wakes up in the late afternoon, being nocturnal, he points his abdomen to the air and shoots out a web. If you’re having trouble imagining this, think of spider man. This silk isn’t a web yet, it’s more like a rope being sent to the top of a building. Now it’s time to get to work. The next link.

All Scott needs is this first connection between point A and point B to start the construction of his vertical web. The web links each point on the silk strand to another and so on. Every connection that Scott weaves, strengthens his web. Scott is the inventor of the Internet. All Hail Scott the Orb Weaver!

If your website has no links to other pages on your site (internal links) or other pages on the internet (outbound links) you’re in a vacuum. There’s almost no way anyone will find you. The website crawlers (Scott-like computer robots) can’t follow the connections on the web to find you. So you won’t get inbound or backlinks. 

SEO is findability. If you don’t link out, you won’t be found.

Value of Creating Linkworthy Content

When your content is linkworthy, it is valuable. It’s valuable which means it’s linkworthy. Confused yet? Value is subjective. If someone writing an article (blog, newspaper, etc.) finds your content and agrees with it (or even disagrees as in journalism) and deems your content to be high-quality, then they may use it as an internal link for their site.

What is high-quality, valuable content, you ask?

High-quality content is educational. It’s helpful. It’s engaging. It’s easy to read. It has citations. It’s written by someone who has a history of being an expert in the field. Basically it’s part of the E-E-A-T scope required by Google.

  • Publish the ultimate checklist for launching a WordPress website. Clients will find this and other plugin companies may link to you.
  • Conduct an original study (or do a survey with your email list) on how many sites use eCommerce. Create infographics in Canva. Publish a whitepaper for quality backlinks. HubSpot does this all of the time. People like us link out to studies to backup our thesis.
  • Publish a video on YouTube with an edited transcript. Use Temi.com (cheapest) and edit the transcript. Even better, embed the video on a blog post. Remember that YouTube is the second most popular search engine.

A great way to get people to link to your website is guest blogging. Sounds easy? Well, first you have to know people. Knowing people means you need to be active online – not just in closed WordPress Slack Silos, either. It means reaching out to people outside of your main group of 3-7 friends. 

Approach the Dunbar number. Don’t set up auto-dms, just maybe reply to people. You may see a friend on Twitter really struggling to publish this month. You could reply to their tweet and say, I’d be more than happy to fill in the gap this month if you like. And boom.

You can also reach out to your vendors and partner with them. Perhaps an exchange of guest blogs are in order. Now, this can be trickier, because you may not be even in the same industry. Sure, last week we reached out to MyWeddingSongs.com for an expert quote on niche marketing. However, he’s probably not going to write about Edge AI since he’s a Wedding DJ turned SEO expert.

“As you stay active on social media, you’ll start interacting with a variety of people. You’ll have the opportunity to meet others in your industry and maybe even guest blog for them or hop on a video call. When the opportunity comes, don’t pass it up.”

Neil Patel

Scott the Orb Weaver might not build an extra web, but maybe he has extra food and will share it. There is only so much blood you can suck in a day, besides, he’s on a diet now. You reach out to your customer and ask for a quote that doesn’t exist anywhere else (like we did with Matt Campbell).

Maybe people used to link to your epic whitepaper or controversial article on retweeting on Twitter. Sadly, they stopped paying their domain name registrar (it happens) or just abandoned the project. In this case, you’ll have backlinks that are broken. Find them with a tool like the one from Ahrefs and you can do a bit of email or social media outreach. 

Scott the Orb Weaver would find the part of his web that is down, quickly go over there, and repair the damage. You would do well to email your friend who broke his website and ask if they can update the link on their new domain.

A backlink is just a link to your site from another. Your backlink is their outbound link. Meaning, you wrote this great article on how to get more real estate clients for your web agency. A reporter working on a story in the local paper, may reach out to you to see how many real estate agents actually have a WordPress website. But the reporter won’t know you exist if you’re not available. It is starting to sound like you have to put yourself out there – because you do.

Scott the Orb Weaver would go around and around and around weaving his little web to ensure he has the most possible connections. You would sign up for HARO and/or partner with your friends in PR. They know everyone. Make yourself known and available as an expert.

When people interview a guest on their podcast they always link to their site – a home page. That, dear reader, is a backlink. It’s possible, however, that you’d like people to be sent to a specific landing page, too. So if that’s true, ask the podcast host to use that link. But don’t forget, if you say you’re Ben Gabler from Rocket.net, people will type Rocket.net into their browser. This is the power of audio and, frankly, unattributable clicks.

To enable vetting of you as a potential podcast guest, make a page on your website that shows your interviews (better yet a YouTube playlist). Have a bio written in the third party, feature your previous podcast appearances, and use a headshot. It’s basically a media kit. Put a form on it for booking inquiries and you’ll be seen as very popular. (It’s a marketing trick because it works.)

When asking to be a podcast guest, be sure to watch or listen to a few of the episodes. Nothing is  more annoying to podcasters than guests who don’t get it. Then you can pitch a topic that hasn’t been covered, too. And – this must be said, be sure you have a quiet environment, headphones, a basic mic (not the computer default), and strong WiFi (hard-wired is better).

Hot tip. If the podcast interviewer doesn’t have an edited transcript offer to do it for them. This will give you more linking opportunities in the blog post series you’ll write after. 

Scott the Orb Weaver would go around and around and around weaving his little web to ensure he has the most possible connections. You would agree to be on people’s podcasts. Sometimes they ask and you’re turning them down. Other times, you can ask to be invited. That’s always tricky though.

Who doesn’t like SEO tools? We happen to love Semrush over here. You can use a free tool from Ahrefs to check your domain authority, broken links, and your top backlinks. Neil Patel also has Ubersuggest which is free. And, for more audience research (backlink research is basically audience research) you may want to check out SparkToro.

Backlink tools give you insight into who is linking to your peers (competitors) and then you have to ask. SEO tools don’t do the backlink maintenance work for you. Sadly.

But don’t forget. When you’re marketing, you get what you give. Reciprocation is powerful. Be prepared to also do something for them – you don’t even have to promise it. But linking to them with do follow links is a step in the right direction. Tweets linking to them is another. 

Be generous. That’s the best backlink tip we could ever give you. It’s not a hack; it’s being a good human.

Scott the Orb Weaver checks the integrity of his web constantly and, unlike us, is equipped with the tools he needs to fix his web. We have to use free and pro SEO tools instead. You definitely don’t want to do this by hand.

Choose The Future of Website Hosting

Now, Scott the Orb Weaver is thinking about the best host on the planet. Fast means more meals. We bet you do, too, but maybe don’t want to get your hands dirty. Want white glove service? No problem. Regardless of the plan you choose, we help you migrate your website for free. Need to migrate several? We got you.

We can’t write an article about backlinks without linking out to some of our favs.

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