How to get your first (intentional) backlink
Link building is one of the key four pillars of Search Engine Optimisation. And backlinks are the SEO winners of the link family.
A backlink is a link on another website that links back to yours.
Backlinks increase the potential number of people who will find your website
Backlinks build trust with users as they see your site as a source of credible information
Search engines love backlinks
If you’re not convinced about the importance of backlinks, we’ve written another blog about how creating a backlink strategy can really help improve the search rankings of your website.
So, how do you go about getting backlinks?
Other than just straight forward asking a friend who has a website to include a link to your site on theirs - you’ve got to have a reason why people want to link their website to yours.
Reasons why people would want to link their content to your site:
1. Information
You have high-quality, trustworthy, information on your website that would add value to a user's knowledge and experience.
2. Resources
Your website has accessible, easy to use resources that people want to recommend to others to use.
You will find that other organisations in your industry, who haven’t developed resources, will want to signpost their website users to your resources.
By linking to your resources you make other people look good as they can offer their users something helpful!
3. Interesting and fun
Is your website fun to use? Do you display information in an interesting way? If you’ve got something a bit different to offer people will want other users to see it!
Maybe there’s something fun about your site: a digital interactive area, a game to play, something new and different that people want to draw other audience’s attention to?
For example, have you ever come across the search engine ‘Ecosia’? It’s an extension that can be added to Chrome free of charge. As you use Ecosia to search (just as you would Google or Bing, you work towards planting a tree!
Fun, interesting, and something we’d love to link to all day every day!
Getting started with adding backlinks to your site
Start by identifying your niche.
What is it that you want to be known for? Are you the best at making soap? Do you run a church in a particular town? Do you have free resources for schools?
Next, find out what your competition is up to.
Find popular websites in your sector and use an analytics backlinks tool to find out which of their pages get the most backlinks.
Which analytics to focus on?
There will be a lot of information in an analytics tool like SEMRush’s one. So, to help with potential analysis overload, we recommend focusing on two things when scoping out the competition:
Which pages get the most backlinks?
What do they have in common?
Or, if you want to make it even simpler you can do your own backlink analyses by using a search engine:
Search for a topic within your area of expertise, and simply look at the pages that appear on page one of the search results.
For example: if you’re a church wanting to advertise a new parent and toddler group take a look at who else is appearing for that search!
Now, to start winning the backlinks
Have a look at the search results:
What do you like about the pages that the analytics tool, or search engine bring up?
Do they have any information or ideas you aren’t offering?
Do you have graphics, videos, interviews, images that you could use?
And, build your own better page!
Build, or update, your page with more relevant and recent information. Design your page with the user in mind. Make it accessible for people with sight and hearing challenges. Included images, videos, or interesting infographics.
Next - reach out to websites who might be interested in linking to your new and improved page.
Find their contact page, let them know who you are, what you love about the page you want to be linked from and why your website needs to feature on it!
Keeping it simple and straight to the point, such as…
Hi [local council]
We’re a church running a welcoming and professional group for parents and toddlers in your area.
We love the helpful list of local groups on your website [link to page] and think we’ve got something new to offer to the users of your website looking for community and connection. Please can you include us in your list [link to your website page you want to feature.]?
Thank you for all you do for the community of [where you live.]
Bonus tips and ideas for winning backlinks
1. HARO
HARO, or Help a Reporter Out, connects journalists with sources of information. If a journalist chooses to use your content as a source, they may also give you a backlink.
Use the ‘i’m a source’ button on the HARO website to get yourself in touch with journalists and start building some backlinks!
2. Supplier links
Do you sell products for other people on your website?
Lots of businesses and manufacturers have a list of suppliers on their website, this is an easy backlink win! Get in touch with the manufacturers of the products you sell and get listed on their website.
Don’t know where to start with getting backlinks?
Wild SEO Agency can help you identify potential backlink opportunities, carry out competitor analysis to find your niche, and are always on hand to give further advice.