How to get Backlinks to your site? Backlinks in simple words are inbound links to your site. In other words, other websites linking to the content on your site. The links could be that of a post, image, infographics, video, and so on. They play an important role to improve SEO, a term every blogger should be familiar with and cannot afford to ignore.

A metric called “PageRank” is used by search engines to rank your page based on the backlinks. Backlinks help search engines know that the linked site is reputable, noteworthy, has great content that is worth sharing, because of the number of links. The backlinks tell the search engine “This is good stuff and I endorse it “.This helps the page or post to boost and rank higher in the SERPs and naturally helps in the growth of organic traffic.

The higher the number of backlinks, and the quality of each, the higher will be the ranking. So it is not just about the number of links. These links need to be coming from good quality sites as well. The links from a blog of a known friend may not be as powerful as the one that comes from Business Insider or Fox News obviously, but they need to be related content as well.

It is okay to have links from sites that are related to the topic being written which makes sense, supplements with extra information so it looks natural. Getting a link from a totally unrelated site, will not help. Beware of getting links from spammy sites, in fact, they can negatively affect your ranking. Not all links are equal, do not think adding your link in the comments section of a reputed site can rank you higher. It has to be natural and linked and created by the site owner. One of the factors that are used is to ensure that links are of high quality is to link to a site that has a higher domain authority or DA. This metric was developed by Moz and it predicts how well a site ranks. The higher the DA of the site that you link from, the better it is for your site.

In the posts I wrote so far, I have used internal and external links following the Yoast SEO plugin suggestions. I also have a couple of backlinks from some of my posts. Lately, I have started to explore further as I realized the importance of backlinks for SEO. It is especially important as this helps to grow your traffic organically when you get ranked higher by search engines. Like they say your content may be good, but if it is not seen by a wider audience, your effort may be wasted. Let us look at some of the ways to obtain backlinks listed below:

First and foremost, research your topic from all sources and create top-class and quality content. This will make it easier for sites to link to your post. If applicable create infographics, quality images, content that is original and well explained that naturally warrants sharing. Creating quality content helps in natural backlink creation as the content is so extraordinarily good that folks are eager to link to it.

When you create content, refer to links that point to reputable sites in your post. It could perhaps be something that enhances the information you are writing about. If possible approach them and mention that you find their content extremely useful and that you have linked or would like to link to their content. This is a great opportunity to build relationships with the blog owners as well. They may even return the favor by linking back or promote your content if they find it good.

Basically, this is like approaching them for trading links or for something in return like social media share. They could be free or sometimes for a fee as well. Links are of two types Do-follow or No-follow. Do-follow links are created by default and No-follow links are those that do not pass link juice. It signals to the search engines that you do not endorse the site, and so are not passing the SEO value in that case. They are usually created for sponsored posts.

Use Social Media to promote your site:

Social media sites have a powerful authority on the web, so be sure to add your website link and posts on these channels. Getting link juice from their site can help your website.

Writing a Guest post is a good way to get backlinks. Guest posting is nothing but you write a post and publish it on another site. The owner gets free content and you get a couple of backlinks to your site through the author’s Bio Link for example. This is a great way to reach a wide audience. This is especially good for beginners to establish their blogs. Approach blogs in your niche that offer guest posting by sending an email. Some of them have a collaborate with me on their menu where they specify what they expect and accept.

This is also on the lines of a Guest post, However, in this approach, you post on another website but the difference is there will be no author bio link that will link back to your site. The only link that will point to you is the link to your site. The other way is bloggers with a good following write about a product for a business and link to the site. This is a great link building strategy as well.

A link roundup is a post that has a list of the best content in a particular niche. This naturally will link to other websites and they will be usually inclined to share the links as they get the exposure as well. It is pretty obvious that they will have high-quality content and backlinks from high authority websites. It is a win-win situation for all.

Some other ways to get backlinks to your website:

* Get an account on Helpareporter. This is a place where the journalists or reporters are looking for queries for their articles. You can answer them if it falls in your area of expertise. If approved there is a chance of being featured in high domain authority sites like the New York Times, Business Insider, etc.

* If you are into creating youtube videos, podcasts, mini multimedia posts, etc, they are also other excellent ways to create backlinks from them.

* Do not ignore internal links in your post, they are important as well. Link them efficiently. If the internal links point to a certain post or page, many times it signifies as it being important. The search engines crawl and this, in turn, helps improve the navigation and finding of content on your site. It also plays a huge role in page ranking.

* Skyscraper outreach is another method, where you look for content on a site that already has many do-follows. You then create and come up with far better, revamped, and updated content than that and then approach website owners to link to your site.

* The broken link approach method is reaching out to a site with broken links, which has higher authority and content. They will be usually glad to link to your updated content if you approach them tactfully.

We know how important backlinks are for SEO and the basic ways to obtain them. It is necessary to come up with a link building strategy that will help, even as you keep producing great content. If you have any tips to add on, please do so in the comments below.