[This post originally appeared on Quora]
Building backlinks takes time and perseverance. You can no longer just throw a link to your site on any site you find. Instead, you need to be thoughtful about where the links come from.
I recommend a few tactics to build backlinks to your website.
1. Write a guest post on a respectable website in your industry or niche. It is common practice for guest bloggers to add a bio with a link back to their site in the blog post. However, don’t reach out to every single blog or website you find in your industry, take the time to make sure it is a good fit for your business. If the website targets a market similar to your own, it is a good bet that not only will you gain a backlink to your site, but you will also reach a new audience.
Additionally, when you are deciding which websites to reach out to, make sure their website has a higher domain authority to yours. This again will be helpful for SEO.
You can even try submitting content to larger businesses and content curators. The Google Analytics blog accepts guest contributors, Huffpost and Business Insider both have an easy to follow process for article submissions, and I’m sure specific websites in your industry also would love a well-written article.
2. Use infographics or shareable media to build backlinks. Readers LOVE diverse media in your content. If you take the time to design a great infographic that contains well-researched data, you may be able to grow your backlinks in no time! Once you have the infographic, write a blog post with more in depth information regarding the stats and data you represent. Then, within the blog post, include a Call to Action to SHARE the infographic from the site and provide the code for someone to copy and paste to their own site. Siegemedia.com has an easy to use embed code generator.
In addition to writing the blog with your call to action to include the infographic on external sites, reach out to influencers in your niche and other websites talking about similar topics to see if they would like to use and share the infographic, as well. Again, these individuals reach a different network than your business, so not only will the backlink be great for SEO, but the new eyes and introduction to your brand will also be beneficial.
3. Find Niche forums. Forums that are very specific to your business and industry can also be great ways to increase backlinks to your site! Many forums do have No Follows, so these links won’t necessarily be great for SEO, they will, however prove useful for directing people to your site. As with all these techniques, make sure you are providing great value rather than just Spamming.
4. Start participating in a Subreddit. Reddit will add a no follow to your links until you post something that gets numerous upvotes. The trick with getting SEO-friendly backlinks on Reddit is to find a subreddit, monitor the discussions, comment and upvote other posts, and then alternate between sharing your links, links of other resources or stories, and commenting and upvoting others’ posts. Users on reddit HATE marketers, so you really need to make sure you are being authentic and useful when you participate.
5. Get interviewed by someone else in your industry. Using the same list you created earlier of influencers in your niche, propose an interview. For other businesses to jump on this, you do need to have authority yourself in the field, but once you do, interviews create a great way to build backlinks and to showcase your expertise.
My number one suggestion as you start building your backlinks it to provide high quality content so you do not come across as SPAM. Best of luck!
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