Backlinks are links that go to pages on your website. In other words, it’s when another web page references one of yours. Here are 12 ways to get more backlinks to your website. Click on one to learn more about it.

1. Have High-Quality Content
2. Find Unlinked Brand Mentions
3. The “Skyscraper” Technique
4. Broken Link Building
5. Supplier Links
6. Help a Reporter Out (HARO)
7. Write Testimonials
8. Google Business Profile and Directories
9. Create Long-Form Content
10. Ask for Backlinks
11. 301 Redirect Link Building
12. Don’t Forget Internal Backlinks

Backlinks represent an important type of off-page SEO. In general, the more backlinks your site has, the better for SEO. 

1. Have High-Quality Content

If you only do one thing to attract backlinks, this should be it. High-quality sites want to link to other high-quality sites.

Well-planned, well-executed content that builds an informative, engaging, original website is a backlink magnet. And it gets stronger over time as more online sources discover your website.

2. Find Unlinked Brand Mentions

You can find instances of your brand being mentioned by using any brand-monitoring tool. When you discover your brand mentioned, but not linked to, you can go to the source and ask that they link the brand mentioned. 

Check for brand mentions regularly and you can add backlinks in a simple and straightforward manner. 

3. The “Skyscraper” Technique

The Skyscraper technique is really an applied version of having a high-quality site with high-quality content. Here are the steps:

• Find comparable, successful content that has plenty of backlinks.
• Write better content.
• Promote the content to the sources that provided links to the comparable content you found.

In other words, you want to have content so good that others will want to link to it more than to any other resources. 

4. Broken Link Building

This technique accomplishes two things at once. It fixes annoying broken links, and it earns you more backlinks. 

All you do is use a broken link detector tool (offered by many SEO tool suites) to find broken links relevant to your content. Once you identify a relevant broken link, you can notify the broken link owner of the breakage and ask that they link to your content to fix it. 

This does the linking site a favor by fixing a broken link. It can also get you backlinks quickly, from high-quality sites. Win-win!

5. Supplier Links

If you are a reseller or a manufacturer, your suppliers can be a source of backlinks. They can benefit from showing where and how their products are used, or where they are sold.

In many cases, it’s a simple matter of asking them to link to your site. This is especially true for suppliers with whom you have long and positive relationships.

6. Help a Reporter Out (HARO)

Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is a service that bloggers, journalists, and reporters use when they need to gather information. 

You (or someone authorized to speak on behalf of your business) simply register with the site, look for relevant opportunities to answer questions, and respond. If the journalist uses your information, you get a backlink. 

7. Write Testimonials

This is a sort of quid pro quo situation. You start by writing a testimonial praising a supplier or product you love. 

Then, you ask that your website be linked to when the supplier uses your testimonial. For example, your testimonial might say, “I love Company A’s widgets. They’re the best I’ve ever encountered. — Paula J., Company X.” The Company X part would link to your website.

8. Google Business Profile and Directories

There are countless business reasons to build and maintain your Google Business Profile. But it can also indirectly help you earn backlinks.

If you have the opportunity to join a business directory in your industry or niche, do so! These directories raise your profile and can help you get backlinks as well.

9. Create Long-Form Content

Great “evergreen” infographics, ebooks, and white papers are resources that can be tremendously useful to your customers and others in your industry. 

Be sure to publicize your long-form content through social media or even press releases to get the word out. You can earn links to your download page as more sources learn about your long-form content. 

10. Ask for Backlinks

When you establish business relationships and get to know people, you can simply ask for backlinks. The biggest hurdle is likely to be getting your inside contact to ask their webmaster or blogger to do it. 

Opportunities for “asks” include industry functions, as well as local gatherings, such as Chamber of Commerce functions. 

11. 301 Redirect Link Building

Websites use 301 redirects when a page on a website is permanently moved. To use 301 redirects for link building, you first need to find irrelevant 301 redirects. 

Use a tool like ahrefs Site Explorer to find a niche site, search for “best by links” sites, and filter by “301 moved permanently” (or the equivalent with the tool you’re using). Then look at the URLs for irrelevant redirects. 

Irrelevant redirects are ones that go to pages that don’t make sense for the link (like a “cat” URL linking to a “dog” webpage, for example). When you find an irrelevant redirect, you can pitch a suitable replacement link to one of your web pages and notify the redirect owner. The process is similar to broken link building. 

12. Don’t Forget Internal Backlinks

Internal backlinks are from one page on your website to another page on your website. They can direct “authority” to pages that could benefit from it. 

Look for opportunities for one or two internal backlinks with every blog post or new webpage. You can also use SEO tools to find opportunities for creating internal links. 

Good vs. Bad Backlinks

“Junk” backlinks are worse than useless in that they can harm SEO. You want backlinks that are relevant, from well-trafficked sites with authority, and from sites with high editorial standards. 

Bad backlinks are those that you buy and those that you trade in so-called public blog networks. Do-follow backlinks from blog comments can be sketchy too. Read through the comments and see the kind of company you would be in before linking to your site from a do-follow blog comment. 

With backlinks, quality is better than quantity. And like SEO in general, don’t try to “cheat” and don’t worry about adding a high number of backlinks in a short time period. 

Help with Backlinks and General SEO

Maybe you don’t have the time or resources to build a solid backlink strategy. That’s OK because we do. 

Every website we build comes ready-made with SEO-enriched content, and our digital marketing solutions are created with both short-term results and long-term SEO in mind. 

If you want to learn more about SEO solutions for your business, set up a call with our team. We would be delighted to talk shop and help you solve your SEO challenges.