In this fast-paced competitive world, link building is something that should play a key role in any business’s online marketing strategy and is essential to unlocking a website’s full potential. Regardless of the quality of your content or how well your site is optimized for search engines, neglecting to build a network of valuable and relevant backlinks risks losing business to competitors.
In a nutshell, link building is the process of building up a solid network of links from external websites to your business site and can heavily influence how search engines rank your site. In other words, the more sites link to yours, the more popular and important search engines determine your site to be — therefore ranking it higher.
But before you rush out and start building links to your site, remember that not just any link will do. Search engines, particularly Google, pay a great deal of attention to the quality of your links and reward sites with high quality and natural backlinks while penalizing sites with excessive low-quality backlinks. So how exactly do you build links naturally? Let’s find out!
Five Ways Businesses Can Attract Natural Links
Build links with blog posts
Many businesses make the mistake of focusing the entirety of their digital marketing efforts almost exclusively on paid ads. The reality is, however, that maintaining an active blog and regularly publishing high-quality content is one of the most important things you can do. SEO value aside, most links to businesses almost always come from blog posts packed with valuable content that other people find useful enough to share. For such a relatively low cost, regularly posting to your business’s blog is without a doubt one of the best ways to attract natural links.
Build links with online business listings
Just like every modern business needs a blog, your business should be present on all the major social media platforms, review sites, and local online business directories. Not only can they help attract new customers, but business profiles and listings provide your audience with valuable information, such as a link to your website, your business hours, and contact details. The simple act of establishing a presence and listing your business on major online platforms of the easiest ways to build links to your website.
Build links with free guides
Regardless of the industry you’re in, there’s bound to be tons of industry-specific posts and articles available online. Wouldn’t it be great if your audience could find the information they need without having to spend hours scouring different websites and links? Offering your audience a free guide on popular industry topics both establishes your business as an online authority and gives your audience something to link to when explaining or discussing the same topic, thus building natural links that lead directly to your site.
Build links with visuals
Visual content can be a great way of turning otherwise boring text into something that your audience can easily absorb. Visuals include things like infographics and maps, which can be used to bring data like statistics and comparisons to life or as a unique way to discuss a trending topic and are an extremely effective way to engage your audience while attracting more links and shares to your site.
Build links with sponsorships
Whether sponsoring a conference, seminar, team, or event, showing your support to a local cause, or joining a local business association, sponsorships show your audience that you’re involved in and care about your local community. As an added bonus, sponsors are usually granted a link to their website on the relevant website, killing two birds with one stone!
Having a network of backlinks from trusted and popular websites can do wonders for your site’s popularity and search engine rankings, helping to increase traffic and generate more revenue for your business in the long run. Reach out to The Three Marketers to find out more about link building strategies for your business and how you can get started today.
