Building links to your website shouldn’t be black hat; it’s just about generating trust and confidence

When creating links to your website, you want to make sure that what you’re doing is moving your website up the search engine rankings. That should be your number one priority. If it isn’t, you’re not doing things properly.

This sounds obvious, yet far too many people measure the success of their link building strategies purely by the number of links they have. Rather, the focus should be on the quality of the links you have — as well as the quantity — and their impact on your website’s overall position.

All of this is harder to measure and it can’t be measured overnight. However, in the long term, it’s what counts, because the long-term is what matters with SEO link building.

Free Link Building Strategies vs. SEO  Link Building with a Budget

Broadly speaking, there are two different link building strategies: free link building strategies and SEO link building with a budget.

Free Link Building Strategies

1. Guest Post Outreach

Guest posts involve approaching editors of websites with an article pitch which would genuinely benefit their website and which you would be the best person to write. You might be able to naturally include a backlink to your website in this guest post because you have a relevant blog post which acts as a source for one of your claims, or you might just a get a backlink to your website in the author bio.

2. Guest Comment Outreach

It’s not easy being a journalist these days. Deadlines are tight and they come thick and fast. How’s a journalist supposed to find a relevant expert to comment on every single one of their stories? Many go on Twitter, using the hashtag #journorequest to try and find that elusive expert comment.

If you’re lucky, you might well be the perfect person to answer that question. If so, connect with the journalist and send them your comment. In most cases, the journalist will then link back to your website as a way of crediting you for your quote in the article they write.

3. Directory Listings

There are directory websites all over the internet listing different services. While some of them are junk and ignored competed by search engines, others (usually the ones that are edited by humans) are seen as trusted sources of information. Write up an enticing description of your business including its Name, Address and Phone number (NAP) and get your business listed in the quality directories.

4. Wikipedia

Countless pages on Wikipedia are lacking relevant, insightful, informative citations. This is where you come in. Find out what citations are missing and what your website could be an authoritative source for. When you’ve done that, add that link to Wikipedia. It’s not going to be a follow link, but it’s a high-profile link that could lead to big things.

Is your marketing underperforming?

Request a free website and marketing review and our team will tell you how to improve your marketing.

Request a Free Review

SEO Link Building with a Budget

1. Sponsored Posts

Sometimes, guest posting comes with a price. This price doesn’t mean that your article can be a one-sided promotion for your product. Rather, it should mean that you are able to write quality content that people will want to read for a bigger website than if you hadn’t paid a fee.

You might have heard a lot of negative stuff about sponsored posts, but it’s worth bearing in mind that even some of the biggest websites in the world engage in this practice.

2. Blogger Outreach

When done right, reaching out to bloggers can be a great way to promote anything. By approaching the right bloggers with the right product or service, working together to create giveaways, competitions and reviews ensure that your product generates a buzz on social media. What’s more, this can also generate backlinks.

 Whether you’re looking to generate links with a budget or without one, Thinkplus can help. Our team of content marketing experts are well-versed with every kind of link building strategy, so contact us today!