Show you’re trustworthy with a backlink strategy
Building the trust in any relationship takes time and involves hard work. Building trust with between customers and your brand takes time and for sure, involves a lot of hard work.
So it’s hardly surprising that we are here to tell you that it is no different when it comes to your website — building trust between your site and search engines takes a lot of time, commitment and persistence (take it from us!).
Backlinks are important to show that your website is trustworthy.
They are proof for the search engine algorithms, AND the actual real people who are searching the internet, to know that your website has trusted content that can help answer their searches and questions.
So, we know it’s important to include backlinks. But, what are backlinks?
A backlink is a link on another website that links back to yours.
Just as external links take your users to another site - backlinks on other websites can bring people to your website. Increasing potential users!
These are the winners. Having your website linked to from another external site is a vote of confidence. A way for someone: a business/charity/organisation to say to the users of their website: ‘I trust this source, and happily recommend you go and check it out.’
Getting started with backlinks
A backlink strategy is the plan you implement to get viable, worthwhile backlinks to your site, and it’s a great place to start when you’re looking to build trust with search engines.
Having a strategy means you are looking at how you are going to get other sites to link to yours. How do you become a known source of reputable information that other websites want to link to?
How to get backlinks on other peoples’ websites:
It takes time to get lots of websites to include links to yours. Annoying, we know! So much of SEO takes a lot of time to see results.
But, if you’re looking for an immediate win, and something that can happen quickly, think: blog content!
You’ve got to be willing to put some work into creating interesting content, but pitching an idea to a website to write a guest blog for them is a great way to get them to link back to your site…
For argument's sake: let’s pretend you are a museum with a specialised section on the local area you live in. Who could you reach out to to feature your blog about that information? How about a council’s website, a local online newspaper, or schools in the same area?
Get in touch and pitch your idea - sell your website to them: why would they be interested in linking to your website?
Linking to your site shows their users that they are invested in and interested in their local area
Including links on their website to yours shows support for another local organisation and builds relationships
Linking to your pages expands the amount and depth of information on their website that could benefit their own users
Backlinks work both ways.
You want to be featured on people’s websites, but what happens when someone approaches you asking to be featured on your site?
How do you know you can trust someone if they want you to host a link for them?
When linking to another site there are some important things you need to consider:
The content: will the content you’re linking to add value to your user’s experience?
Accessibility: is the website you’re linking to easy to use? Does it work well?
Reputation: is the site you’re linking to honest and trustworthy?
To lead by example, and put into practice some of the above, here are some links to other sites that cover different areas of backlinks that we recommend reading:
Three helpful pieces of backlink advice we’ve recently read:
This blog from SEO experts — Yoast gives some clear guidance on how to plan your backlink strategy
Because we all love a list, this blog gives 15 different ways to get backlinks
For a LOT of detail on how to build links and go about choosing which links to invest your time and energy in, moz.com pulls out all the tech-y stops in their article on backlinks.
Like with all SEO practices and ideas to improve your website, building backlinks takes time.
But, a credible link will earn you genuine traffic, increase the value of your site and build trust. It’s worth putting in the effort and playing the long game!
We are here to help you know where to invest your time and effort, and make sure that you’re building a trustworthy website that adds value to your users lives! Get in touch today.