Every website owner or marketer wants to reach the first page of search results. They know that people do not care for second-page results. They believe first-page links answer their issues and regard the first few as having high authority.
These are the reasons marketers try their best to create an authority site that will outrank their competition. And one way to promote authority is to improve your backlink strategy, a very reliable search engine optimization (SEO) tactic.
Why get backlinks from authority sites to improve SEO rankings? Here are the top reasons why.
Promote Credibility
According to DigitalAuthority.me, getting backlinks from high-authority websites is the best way to show that you are trustworthy and an expert in your industry.
When a high-authority website links to your website, the site’s credibility and relevance will pass to yours. The more links you get from high-quality sites, the more credible you appear to your audience and to search engines. This perception of your site promotes your SERP ranking.
Promote your website’s credibility by:
- Using shareable videos and infographics. These types of content are easy to digest and share. Social media posts with visuals are shared more than posts with only text. And more shares lead to more exposure and more potential links.
- Connecting with high-authority, related sites. One of the ways to do this is to write guest posts on high-quality sites. Google sees that your backlinks come from trustworthy locations relevant to your topics and, thus, rewarding you with a high ranking on search results.
- working with experts in your industry. Collaborate with other websites and experts by joining educational classes and community work, hosting giveaways, and announcing significant events featured on various sites. These activities can earn you excellent backlinks.
- Going into sponsorships and partnerships. Work with an organization to create awareness about pressing issues such as animal rights, climate change, or women’s rights. You do not directly pay for backlinks, but the organization you partner with will certainly link back to you as a way of saying thank you.
- Finding out where your competitors are getting backlinks. Look at your competitor’s strategy and find out if you missed opportunities to get backlinks. Note the kind of content they share, how they interact with other sites and customers, and how their image reflects in their backlinks.
Increase Search Engine Results Page (SERP) Rankings
Backlinks continue to be one of the most important Google ranking factors. But it is not about the number of backlinks your site has; instead, it is more about the quality of the links.
Even with excellent content, you cannot expect a high rank on the SERPs. To secure a high ranking, you must develop a good backlink strategy. Try the following techniques when gathering top-quality backlinks and growing your link-building plan:
- Look for unlinked brand mentions. Use social listening to find people using your brand online without linking back to you. Reach out to these websites to get a backlink. Use tools like SEMrush Brand Monitoring Tool and Content Explorer to look for brand mentions.
- Try Help a Reporter Out (HARO). This is an online site that helps the press through public feedback. Helping a reporter earns you backlinks on news sites. Sign up on the homepage of HARO to become a source to1 start contributing.
- Create guest blogs. As we said before, creating guest posts from related blogs in your industry helps earn quality backlinks. Choose well-established sites that possess high domain authority with good traffic.
- Avoid black-hat techniques for link building. Strategies like buying links can bring immediate results but can lead to site penalties and restrictions.
Improve Referral Traffic
Referral traffic is from your backlinks. And when you get the best backlinks, these sites will create consistent avenues of referral traffic to your site. Your links pass from one site or one social platform to another.
So how do you improve referral traffic with backlinks? Aside from regular guest posting on related, high-quality blogs:
- Get started on Pinterest. This image-sharing social media platform is growing in popularity, with 445 million monthly active users (MAUs) worldwide in Q3 of 2022 and 433 million in Q2 of 2022. Pinterest promotes referral blog traffic more than Twitter and LinkedIn.
- Write press releases. Announce company milestones, events, earnings, new products, and services to get fresh traffic from referral links.
- Use social bookmarking sites. These are sites that let you tag and bookmark different online sources. An example is Stumble Upon, a site that helps users stumble upon great content and share these with others. Another site is Reddit which allows you to share unique content.
- Focus on social networks. Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn can bring in referral traffic. Find the right social media platform for your readers. Remember that Facebook and Google+ are for casual users, while LinkedIn is for professional users.
Generate Brand Awareness and Trigger Conversions
When high-authority websites link back to you, they also vouch for your site, business, products, and services. People will relate your brand to the information that they find on these high-authority websites.
As more people learn about your brand, visitors turn into full-fledged customers who pay you money. But it would be best to start by improving your website and content. Follow these tips to create a link-friendly website.
- Create unique research. Consider customer issues, pain points, and queries to create unique, relevant, and interesting research.
- Produce unique videos, graphics, or images. People are more likely to link to unique posts because these are more interesting than old or outdated content.
- Develop free tools. Create tools that will be useful and interesting to your readers. For a healthcare website, link-worthy diet tools, body weight tools, and calorie counting tools.
- Feature a trending topic. Look for trends in your industry through social media and news sites. Give your expert opinion on the issue on your website or blog.
- Improve content lifespan. Creating evergreen content is a solid SEO strategy. This content remains relevant for many years as this is not just interesting but will attract more engagements and backlinks.
Summing Up
To increase your site’s SEO ranking, you must establish backlinks from authority sites. High-authority backlinks also promote brand credibility, increase referral traffic, and create brand awareness and conversions. You need quality backlinks to secure your ranks, overtake your competition, and achieve your marketing goals.
Image by Darwin Laganzon from Pixabay
