So link spamming just doesn’t cut it anymore in today’s more refined SEO world. A natural link profile is most desired but how do you achieve that? Gaining organic backlinks is more challenging than it sounds, so it’s time to strategise.
Buying links is a quick way to get a boost, but you can’t rely solely on paid links if you want an organic profile. Some really great ways to build links naturally, without getting your credit card out, include:
• Guest posting – providing good quality content for other relevant websites is a great way of building relationships with other website owners and gaining a one way backlink to your site.
• Commenting on relevant blog posts – and we don’t mean comment spamming. Many blog comment platforms have do-followed links to your website, but you shouldn’t abuse the system if you want Google to value the link. Make sure you choose relevant topics and offer insightful, thoughtful comments.
• Competitions / giveaways – if you have products that can be reviewed by niche bloggers in your industry or field, or you can create exciting competitions, this is a great way of gaining a large number of links.
The above ideas are of course, great. But we know that they can be time consuming. Sometimes, it’s as simple as looking at the page you want to link to. Working on perfecting it may be the best short term and long term solution for attracting links in the most natural way.
Nothing is More Effective than Link Bait
You can try whatever tactic you want in link building, but nothing is more effective than making your page attractive; a page that people want to link to. We discuss on a regular basis the importance of quality content. But perhaps that isn’t always enough.
Images are great for link bait. They can add visual aids to your topic in question and they can also reduce the chances of people clicking away from your page. Eye tracking visualisation tests have revealed that web users scan a page at a high speed, and they tend to do this in an ‘F’ shape. Heat maps suggest that not only are images important for capturing your reader’s attention, but they also need to be strategically placed.
So what sort of images should you use?
• High quality images – make sure you images are of the highest possible quality.
• Relevant images – images need to relate to your content and they should always add value in some way. Whether they are aesthetically pleasing, inspiring or informative, images should have relevance.
• Inspiring / controversial – there’s just no point in adding an image that doesn’t evoke some sort of emotion. Choose an image that can shock, make people laugh, make people think ‘wow’; something that makes people want to link to it.
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