If you take the time and effort of investigating the top 10 results on the first page of Google search for any important keyword in your industry, you will find that they all have one thing in common; the presence of a large number of high-quality backlinks. As may be evident, this is not by accident. Most of the websites that rank high in Google search use several very advanced tactics for link building. This also points to the fact that if you want to go into battle against these top-ranking sites, you will need to beat them at their own game in every department you can think of, from content to backlinks.
Link Building Tactics That Can Outwit the Competition in SEO
Accessing Broken Links
For several reasons, the pages on the websites of your competitors get deleted. The entire website can become offline if the business itself winds up. When this happens, all the links pointing to the deleted pages or the site automatically become nonfunctional or broken as they are popularly called. In a typical scenario of a single page of a top site becoming inoperative, you could potentially be looking at hundreds or even thousands of broken links pointing to it. This kind of situation is a huge marketing opportunity for you because if your content is equally authoritative and on the same subject, you can reach out to the websites that had linked with the webpage or site and offer yourself as a viable replacement. Identifying websites with broken links is quite easy with advanced tools like Ahrefs and the like. According to https://www.forbes.com, the most important element in link building is site authority so it is well worth the extra effort and time required to obtain links from sites with high authority.
Brand Mentions without Links
One of the indicators of the popularity of your brand is the number of mentions that it gets on blog posts and news reports. However, if these mentions are not associated with a backlink, it could represent a very valuable opportunity and you can request a backlink from the referring domains. The task can be impossible if you are contemplating doing it manually by searching for web destinations that mention your brand, however, with the use of certain tools, it can become a much easier task. Tools like Awario or Mention can generate alerts in real-time as and when there is a mention of the brand in any online media. The alerts contain the URLs of the destination website making it easier for you to reach out and request a link.
Free Giveaways
If you are a research firm, a company that produces useful online tools or any business that produces something that can add value to the owner of a website, you can organize a marketing campaign designed to promote your business or the product by offering a free version or a limited period trial to potential users. Because people simply love freebies, you can expect these websites to provide you very high-quality backlinks. This is the reason why so many developers of online tools and resources have one version that is free to use while they generate sales revenues with the paid version that has more features. Search Google for terms like Social Market Way – Link Building – SEM Firm if you need help in identifying professional agencies for building effective link building campaigns.
Explore Backlinks of Major Competitors
You can be sure that the websites that rank on the first page of Google for target keywords are not there by sheer chance. Among the many reasons responsible for their ranking success, is the quality of the backlinks. Google takes into account the authority of the referring websites to differentiate between high-quality and low-quality backlinks. Sites that have a large number of high-quality backlinks from websites with high authority in the same subject are given a leg-up in the search rankings. By using a competitor link research tool, you can find out the type of the backlinks that your main competitors are benefiting by and try to discover methods by which you too can attract links with similar authority or even ask the same referring websites to also link to you. Doing this analysis systematically for 10-50 of your main competitors will throw up interesting patterns and a large number of high domain authority websites from which to seek referrals.
Link Rounds
Some of the leading brands have a very effective link building strategy that involves collecting links that lead to interesting news and important resources in their niche or industry sector. When they link to these sites, it is quite natural for them to reciprocate and share your content to their users. Because of the multiplier effect, many of the users of these sites can also create link back opportunities if they find the content interesting and relevant. The main factor involved in making this strategy successful is the ability to discover websites with high authority in your sector or industry that do link rounds in large volumes.
The Skyscraper Method
By examining the content of your main competitors that are ranking high for your target keywords, you will be able to get a very good idea of what is popular with the target audience. Try to beat the competition at their own game by creating content that is more relevant, accurate, current, and populated with fresher statistics, attractive infographics, and expert quotes. The exercise intends to create content that is superior to that of your competitors so that more people will find value in them and link back to your site.
Conclusion
There is virtually no end to the innovation you can incorporate in your techniques for acquiring backlinks that will propel you to the top of the Google page rankings for your target keywords. The success you will achieve depends on the consistency you put into practice some or all of these techniques. The amount of time, money, and effort you will want to devote to these activities will be a reflection of your commitment to building backlinks and generating organic traffic over time.