You’ve built an amazing website for your small business, but it just isn’t ranking on Google. Why not?
Unfortunately, there’s so much more to SEO than just building a website, you need to promote it using the best marketing practices for hosting businesses. One important aspect is link building, which means getting links to your website on other websites.
Lots of links are a sign to search engines like Google that your business is important, which helps it rank higher when users are searching. You need to use link-building strategies to get these links.
Links can be either do-follow or no-follow, and while do-follow links are better, both are effective marketing and SEO tools.
Ok, but how do you actually get backlinks? There are plenty of ways, but keep reading to find eight top ideas to help you get backlinks for your business website.
- Claim Your Free Business Listings
Some of the easiest link-building tools to use are free business listing websites. Any business can set up a profile, allowing you to add a backlink to your site, plus lots of other key information that will help potential customers—address, opening hours, and sometimes photos.
One of the best sites to use is Google My Business, a tool provided by Google that also lets you add your business location to Google Maps, plus showcase reviews from recent customers.
There are plenty of other useful sites to use, including Tripadvisor, Yellow Pages, Yahoo Local, and Yelp. Your customers can also add reviews to your listing, which is a great thing–lots of positive reviews build trust in your business.
Each listing site gives you a valuable backlink to your website and is particularly good for local SEO, helping you find new local customers.
- Jump on Social Media
If you haven’t already, your business needs to be all over social media! You can set up business pages or accounts for all of the major platforms your customers are likely to use, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even Pinterest.
Each site will give you the opportunity to add your website URL, plus you can also share new website pages or blog posts on all of your channels. And yes, Facebook business pages can rank on Google, so it’s an effective way to increase your reach.
Social media is also fantastic for building brand awareness and promoting new products, so always include it in your SEO link building plans. The key to social media success is being genuine and honest, so use it as a way to connect with your customers, not just as a marketing tool.
- Write Guest Posts
Another great way to get high-quality backlinks is by writing guest posts. What’s a guest post?
Essentially, this is an article you write for another website or blog. It should be about a topic you’re an expert in—for example, a travel agent might write an article about vacation planning.
According to experts from a leading digital agency in Singapore, guest posting is still the number one digital marketing strategy for quality link building. It helps you connect with bloggers and publishers in your niche, get the valuable do-follow link, and also redirect traffic from the blogger’s website to your business site.
Usually, guest blogs will get at least one backlink to their own site, which is great for increasing your online profile. To find guest blogging opportunities, reach out to other websites within your general niche.
They’re often happy to accept a guest blog, as it gives them free content for their website—just be sure it’s written well and contains information relevant to their audience.
Guest blogs also help you become an authority in your field and are great for brand awareness, which can lead to increased website traffic to your own site. You can also hire a VA, or virtual assistant, to reach out to bloggers and set up guest posts—this can save you time.
- Try Out Link Building Services
Many busy business owners simply don’t have time to write guest posts or organize their own link-building campaign. If that sounds like you, good news—it’s definitely possible to outsource your link building!
There are plenty of expert companies that will work with your business to create a tailored link-building campaign. You tell them the links you want to build backlinks for, and they’ll work with their networks to get the links placed on high-quality, authoritative websites.
You might want to check out Seojet deals to see what kind of link-building services are available.
Outsourcing your link building can be one of the quickest and easiest ways to build links, as long as you’re willing to pay for the service. It saves you plenty of time too since you don’t need to reach out to websites directly about backlink opportunities—the company you hire will do this for you.
- Work With Bloggers and Influencers
Have you thought about working with bloggers and influencers to build backlinks? It works like this—you find a few popular bloggers in your niche, then reach out to them about sponsored post opportunities.
If they’re willing, you provide them with the anchor link and they write a blog post for their audience, which includes their link. It’s often a good idea to provide them with your product as well, if it’s something you want them to review.
The cost for this service will depend on the popularity of the blog, its domain authority, and the number of monthly views.
Just be sure to work with influencers who have an audience that aligns with yours, as they’re more likely to be interested in your business. This way, you get not only a backlink, but a marketing opportunity.
- Hire a PR to Get Local Media Coverage
Another awesome way to get backlinks is via media coverage. If your business has something amazing to promote, like a new store opening, this sort of news is often covered by local media.
If you have a budget, you can hire a PR professional to help your business get noticed in local media. Usually, any mention of your business will include its website, giving you a backlink on authoritative sites like a local news station.
Journalists and media are also always looking for experts to be quoted in stories and articles. If you can connect with the media and let them know that you’re always available to help with relevant media inquiries, this can be great for building backlinks.
- Answer Questions On Quora
A unique backlink strategy you might not have thought of is using Quora, a question and answer website.
With Quora, anyone can sign up and ask a question they’d like someone to answer. Check it out and see if anyone is asking questions that fall within your niche.
If so, answer the question and you’ll be able to include a website link back to your site. However, the trick is to make sure your answer is genuine and thorough—it’s not good to give a one or two-word answer, as that doesn’t provide much help for the reader.
It’s easy to spot someone just looking for easy backlinks, so you’ll have more respect on the site if you provide longer, helpful responses to questions.
- Sponsor an Online Event
In modern times, more and more people are attending events, seminars, and conferences digitally, rather than in-person. This creates a good opportunity for local businesses, if you’re willing to be a virtual event sponsor.
Say a local business is hosting an online webinar for members of your community. By acting as a sponsor and covering some of the costs, the webinar will then include your business name and website on their registration website and information.
This gives you relevant backlinks and also provides great marketing since everyone who signs up for the event will see your business name—hopefully they’ll want to check it out for themselves!
Boost Your Business With These Effective Link Building Strategies
With so many great link building strategies, which will you try out first? Each business will approach link building differently, so we recommend making a plan of each technique you’ll try, based on your budget and resources.
Just keep in mind that it can take a few months to see results from link building, so don’t be discouraged if you’re seeing a difference. But as you get more and more links, your website should start to slowly climb up Google’s rankings, giving you more traffic, higher sales, and increased profits!
Get started today with these helpful link building ideas!
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