7 types of backlinks that might change your entire SEO game
Since its inception in 1998 by founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google has reported 3234 changes to its search engine algorithm.
Google’s focus towards quality over quantity and organic searches has made ranking high in SEO highly complicated. But backlinks still remain an integral part of this ranking.
Backlinks aka inbound links are incoming links to a page in another website. For an illustration, here is an image:
The word ‘backlink’ is actually a backlink that links to another page which gives you information about increasing traffic to your website by backlinks.
All the major search engines, including Google, rely on using backlinks for two major purposes:
- To discover new web pages through inbound links.
- To help determine how high a page should rank in their results.
Rather than focusing on just one type of backlink and making your website lose precious ground in the SEO market, customise to integrate multiple types and see how your website starts trending higher.
Let’s march forward with 7 types of backlinks that will change your entire SEO game.
Guest posting backlinks
Guest posting or blogging is basically publishing original and meaningful content on someone else’s website as a guest blogger. This is considered the best inbound marketing strategy by building long lasting relationships with consumers who want to hear more from an expert in their niche.
Instead of spammy links in large-scale article campaigns which are highly discouraged by Google and go against their guidelines – just for the purpose of attaining more backlinks, use this opportunity to establish long standing relationships with the audience and build trust in the authenticity of your brand.
As a guest blogger, you can place inbound links in your post to your own website. But keep in mind to not go overboard with these links. Take advantage of guest blogging to give the readers another chance to view your content as an outreach project for your SEO strategy.
Blog commenting backlinks
Blog comment is basically leaving comments on a blog to interact with a specific blog’s audience and exchange opinions related to a blog post. Experts frequently leave comments on posts relevant to their brand. This gives them an opportunity to add a backlink often to their own blog or website so that they can prove their credibility in the subject.
However, keep in mind not to exploit this opportunity for attaining links. If backlinks are not used in moderation in blog commenting, they may appear as a link scheme – a clear violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines. If you are engaging with trustworthy and high authority websites in blog commenting, they can ensure you are bringing organic traffic to your website if your comments are engaging and relevant.
Most websites monitor the comments flowing in on blogs to ensure irrelevant and abusive comments are not approved. Follow the basic etiquettes that you would ensure on your own website while commenting on another one.
Editorial backlinks
You can easily pay someone to advertise your site as a backlink but the best backlinks are the editorial ones. Editorial links are basically mention of your website by another for its highly relevant and high quality content. The best part – these websites are promoting you of their own accord as they actually find your information useful.
An editorial backlink is of multiple types:
- Citation of someone from your company
- Citation of your content as a valuable source of information
- Reference to your website as a source for additional knowledge
- Citation of your website as the creator of any infographic
- Mentioning your website or a particular content in a link roundup
- Interview of someone associated with your brand
To earn this distinction of being featured in an editorial backlink, make sure you are creating evergreen and valuable content that showcases your status as a thought leader. This will attract acclaim for your site and brand as a go-to resource for industry insight.
Competitor links
It is not easy to build backlinks and every industry has its own set of limitations. An easy way to diagnose what works in your niche is to analyse your competitors. Yes, you heard me correctly. You can emulate a successful competitor’s strategy to earn backlinks for your own site. Genius, eh?
Known as competitor backlink analysis, this helps in analyzing the number and quality of sites linked to your competitors. This will also offer insight of where it’s best to promote your own content as you share a similar niche. Websites that are highly ranked among your competitors will also give an idea of the content that is trending and will help attract clientele for your own brand as well. You can leverage SEO tools to recognize popular keywords and engaging topics that your competitors have been using to further your content strategy.
Testimonial backlinks
If you have been in the market for long, you must have had the privilege of serving a lot of customers. Some of them may have appreciated your service and left genuine reviews to praise your brands. Most commonly, they add a link to your site without even asking them to do so. Showcasing these testimonials builds trust credibility for your brand and boosts sales.
Reach out to your customers and ask them to write genuine testimonials for you or just use their posted testimonials on your site to show your outreach and attract more clientele. This is a genuine way to boost your SEO and spread word.
Infographic backlinks
56% of businesses under observation use infographics and 84% of them find it a useful tool for SEO. They are basically informative images that depict data or research. The best part about them is they are easy to understand and comprehend rather than reading long, boring paragraphs and dozing off.
Infographic backlinks can be attained by creating and sharing a well-designed image. Each time anyone shares this infographic – be it on social media channels, blogs or sites – you get credited as the owner and creator. This basically equates to a backlink for your site. Think fresh traffic with minimal effort of promotion.
A third of searches performed on Google are via Google image search and around 12.5% of all Google searches showcase an image. This is a super effective way of building your site’s authority just by making sure that the images shared are aesthetically and visually pleasing and relevant to the topic.
Business profile backlinks
Creating your brand’s digital profiles on various business listings, social media networks, industry directories and review sites can give you the opportunity to post a backlink to your website. These links promote your brand as well established and high quality.
This is also quite helpful in case your business is genuinely participating in discussion boards on these digital community platforms. It can even drive new traffic to your business if the engagement is active with users.
You can also use websites which provide organic SEO and link building services like ViralChilly. Having their tools at your disposal may increase your panache in the SEO market.
There are many more types of backlinks but most are promotional and can easily result in your site being banned. Focus mainly on the above type of backlinks as they carry the most value in the SEO market. Focus your link-building plans only on top-tier links to ensure coming off as a reputable and valuable contributor.
Just remember that building backlinks is one of the hardest parts of SEO. It involves serious inputs of your precious time and multi-level interaction with various businesses but if you are genuinely invested in this procedure, it will be worth your time and effort.
