Every webmaster and internet marketer wants to attract more natural back links. However, the days of using shady SEO practices has come to an end. Google’s search algorithm is continually making tremendous strides in refining the accuracy of its ranking system. As a result, white hat link building activities have once again emerged as the most recommended method of offsite search engine optimization. However, there are several white hat Link Building Tactics which Work. By successfully utilizing social media, webmasters can attract a continual stream of natural back links for website marketing.
(1) Focus on Building your Brand: One thing we’ve noticed is that the bigger an entity you appear to be on the web, the better you’ll rank, and the quicker you’ll recover from any kind of penalty. Use co-citations, secure your brand real estate with a service like Know ‘Em, and become active in niche relevant forums and social media.
(2) Let the Content Lead: The trend now amongst big business, in case you haven’t noticed, is putting huge resources into elaborate content creation in the hope of winning natural links and shares. The competition out there is fierce so in order to get your content ‘earning links’ for you, it better be darn good. Videos, infographics, good old fashioned blog posts, podcasts, whatever it takes, your site needs to putting out world class content at regular intervals. Use your social media channels to distribute this properly and links will come. It’s kind of the long way round, but it’s worth including in your strategy.
(3) Niche Directories – Check their domain authority and page rank before you take the plunge. Many of these – even old classics like BOTW and Dmoz are less good than they were but still carry some juice. Some great directory links still out there though if you look hard enough.
(4) Broken Link Building – It’s hard work, and takes a lot of skill and know-how, but this is an excellent strategy which works well if do it right.
(5) Guest Blogs – Yes, they still work! Just don’t add any kind of ‘author bio’ and again make sure you’re checking DA before you make contact with the webmaster.
(6) Audio/Video/PDF Sharing Sites – Good for low competition niches, thses sites still carry some weight. Our advice is to do this right: create real content of merit to your audience and enrich the sites you’re getting links from. Always try to ensure any link you build could pass a manual review.
(7) Use Google Alerts – Set up these for your own brand and your competitors, too. If they get a link, see if it’s viable to get the same thing yourself. And if your own brand is mentioned somewhere without the link, get in touch with the webmaster and ask him to hook you up. Nothing ventured, nothing gained right?
(8) Sponsorships – Many charities have superb site authority and offer donors a thank you link somewhere on their website. This can be a fantastic way of doing a good deed and getting hooked up with a link!
(9) Social Media – Social media is revolutionizing the way content is shared across the internet. As a result, search engines have adjusted their ranking algorithms to reflect this change. Currently, both Bing and Google assign a high weight to social shares and likes. In particular, one of the most valuable social networking sites is Google Plus. Google’s search algorithm directly utilizes activity on its social network in its rankings. This benefit is a result of Google’s “following” of back links from this source. As a result, webmasters get a stronger boost from these highly trusted back links. Fortunately, there are link building tactics that webmasters can use to take advantage of this ranking system. By seeking out the most popular posts on the major social media sites, webmasters can identify content that is likely to be shared. In other words, by posting content that has a proven track record of being shared on social media sites, webmasters can gain valuable back links from these highly trusted websites.
Backlinks: Time Consuming but effective
Gaining back links is one of the most time consuming aspects of building a strong search engine presence. With Google unleashing a major update every few months, webmasters must careful select their strategy for building back links. Fortunately, using social media is one of the most effective Link Building Tactics which Work. By using social media to discover viral content, webmasters can optimize their websites to take full advantage of this fact. A social media optimized website and viral content is a recipe for white hat back linking success. Great design, combined with powerful links are going to mean all the difference for your business.
Local SEO
As an addendum, local SEO has a slightly different methodology, which we’re going to address in a separate post. Citations are the basic key, however. Building intelligent, niche specific citations remains the most effective way to succeed in Local SEO.
