Refining Your Backlink Strategy: A Focus on Quality

Did you know that, if a website links back to your website, this demonstrates to Google’s search algorithms that the content you have on your website is valuable? As a result, when customers look up products or services related to your company, your website will show up sooner in Google search results.

In order to have other websites link back to your site, you need to use a backlink strategy that’s effective. Whether you’re running a B2B or B2C business, this will help you get more site traffic and make you an authority in your industry.

When thinking about your backlink strategy, you might be asking yourself questions like how backlinks work or how you can use backlinks to improve your SEO.

Knowing where to start can feel confusing, and you might feel overwhelmed, like you aren’t up to the task, but you are.

By using the strategies we outline in this backlink guide, you’ll learn everything you need to refine your backlink strategy.

What Are Backlinks, and Why Do They Matter?

Before we go over how you can build high-quality backlinks, we’ll review what they are and why they matter. Basically, a backlink is a link that links one site to another. So, if a website in your industry posts a piece of content and links back to you because they’re using some information you’ve provided (a statistic, for example), then this is a backlink.

Additionally, if you’re interviewed by an industry news outlet, they might link back to your website when they include your business’s name somewhere in the article. If a blogger finds a product or guide you offer useful, and links to it in their blog, this is also a backlink.

Anytime someone does this, links from their website to yours, you have earned a backlink.

There are several reasons backlinks matter. The first and most important reason is that having them improves your Google ranking. Backlink-building is an offsite SEO strategy that shows Google algorithms that your website ranking should be higher.

This will build up your traffic, which in turn will build up your customer base.

Additionally, having a good backlink strategy demonstrates you’re an authority in your industry. It improves your ability to brand your business as one of the best.

Finally, a strong backlink strategy also helps you build relationships with other businesses in your industry.

Now that we’ve reviewed the importance of building backlinks to your business’ marketing strategy, we’ll cover the different ways you can get more of them by refining your backlink strategy.

Become an Industry Source for Bloggers and Reporters

If you want to build backlinks, one of the best ways of doing this is to become an industry source for bloggers and reporters. If you do it correctly, then writers covering industry topics will end up backlinking to your website whenever they quote something you’ve said or written.

While you could reach out to bloggers and reporters to see if they’re looking for someone to interview, it could take a lot of time without guaranteeing you results.

Fortunately, there’s an easy way to connect with these bloggers and reporters so that you’re available as a source whenever they need one.

This service is called Help A Reporter Out (HARO). It’s free, and it connects anyone who wants exposure with bloggers and reporters who need a source.

All you have to do is sign up. The free package sends you updates about people looking for sources three times a day via email. Find questions or queries you could provide the answers to.

Once you’ve found the right ones, send the blogger or reporter a pitch as to why you’re the right person they should use as their source. Using this strategy will get you not only backlinks, but high-quality ones at high-end publications.

Research Your Top Referral Sources

Another great way to refine your backlink strategy is to analyze what backlinks you already have. To do this, you’ll want to research your top referral sources, the websites that are already linking back to you. To do this, you can use MonsterInsights, the WordPress SEO plugin.

Once you can see where these backlinks are appearing, you’ll have a good idea of the type of content that people have been linking back to on your website. Whatever those topics might be, you’re starting to become an industry authority when it comes to them.

Now that you’re armed with this information, you can change up your content calendar so that you keep posting about those topics or closely-related ones. Because you’re becoming an industry authority on them, you’ll start to earn more backlinks with this new content.

Additionally, if there’s a site that’s been linking to many of your pieces of content, reach out to them.

You can offer to be a source if they ever need one for future articles. This will also build your backlinks.

Pitch to the Right Places

While you can use HARO, which we covered above, easily, you can also put in a bit more work and pitch to places yourself. If there’s a publication you really want to backlink to your website, or there’s a reporter whose work you admire, reach out.

If you aren’t sure how to reach them or want to send a pitch to somewhere that isn’t a simple info or contact us email address, use a service like Hunter or FindThatLead to get more direct email addresses.

When sending your testimonial pitch, include details such as:

– Your name and company

– How they could include your product, service, or company in their content

– What you can offer in exchange (for example, being a source)

Remember to keep it simple. Many businesses receive emails like this all the time. This will ensure that your pitch gets read. Additionally, remember to be polite, and double-check the spelling of their name.

Research Your Competitors

If there’s someone out there doing something right, then it always helps to learn from them. Chances are, you’ve researched your competitors already for other reasons, whether that’s to find out how you can market your brand to your customers or how to design your website so it’s similar to others in the industry.

To find out which competitors are successfully using a backlink strategy, Google some of your industry’s keywords. The first few results that come up are likely websites that use backlink strategy well.

Then, use a service such as Ahrefs, SEMRush, or SEO Spyglass to find out what backlink strategies they’re using and which of their backlinks are the most popular.

This will help you uncover what strategies to use. Additionally, you can create content similar to their content that is ranking. We don’t mean copying their content but touching on similar topics.

Form a Backlink Strategy Partnership

Another great way to improve your backlink strategy is by forming a backlink strategy partnership. Research other businesses in your industry and find out if there are any you think you could link from in exchange for them linking from your site.

Remember earlier, when we covered researching your top referral sources? You might be able to reach out to these websites, too.

Another chance is there’s a contact in LinkedIn you’ve been speaking to or someone you met at an industry event or Zoom networking opportunity.

Whether you have to find new connections or use the ones you already have, you can reach out to these connections to form a backlink strategy partnership. See if they want to co-write some content with you so that when it’s posted, you get backlinks.

Additionally, you can offer to backlink to some of their content if they backlink to some of yours.

Just like with many of these sections covered, use the right strategies when pitching to ask about forming a backlink strategy partnership.

Focus on Authoritative Websites

Not every backlink is created equal. If you want Google’s algorithms to work in your favor, then you need to make sure that your backlinks appear on authoritative websites. If someone’s offering to link back to your website for money or a favor, then you should think twice.

If they’re running a business that’s relevant to yours, or you can tell that they’re publishing high-quality content even if they aren’t an authority yet, that’s fine.

Otherwise, you should focus on having your backlinks end up on authoritative websites.

To do this, look for websites that have a high domain (HD) rating. By focusing your pitches on websites like these, your SEO will improve because of their optimized SEO.

Ensure Anchor Text Relevance

If you’re forming a backlink strategy partnership, then you’ll have some control over how and where your backlink appears in their content. One of the best ways you can ensure that your backlinks are high quality, and so readers are more likely to end up on your website when reading this other website’s content, is by making sure the anchor text has relevance.

So, what is anchor text?

Anchor text is the text itself that the backlink is connected to. For example, if you’ve provided a backlink that links to a guide on how to use SEO, then the relevant anchor text might be “X company’s guide to SEO” or “check out this guide to SEO.”

If it’s irrelevant, then it’s less effective. Some businesses are happy to link back to their page with any text, but this isn’t good for your backlink strategy.

If you find that a website has backlinks to your website, but the anchor text isn’t the best fit, you can always email them to ask if they can change it.

Create Great Content

When you’re working on your backlink strategy, you sometimes focus so much on the strategies themselves that you can’t see the bigger picture. The bigger picture is if you’re creating great content that’s useful, informative, clear, and new, then you will eventually get backlinks, whatever your backlink strategy.

Why?

Because if you have great content, backlinks will naturally occur. If you provide high-quality content that’s better than anything else out there, industry websites will start linking to you because it’s your website they go-to to get information.

Of course, using the other strategies in this article makes it more likely that you’ll get these backlinks in the first place. Using these strategies will speed up the number of backlinks you get until you’re an industry authority.

Need More Information?

Now that you’ve learned about how to refine your backlink strategy, maybe you need additional information, maybe you want to learn about how to best apply this strategy in your industry, or maybe you want to get help on writing that perfect pitch.

Whatever you need, whether you’re running a B2C or B2B business, we’re here to help. At Five Channels, we’re experts when it comes to refining your backlink strategy. We also offer all types of advice on digital marketing. To learn more about how we can help you, visit us here.