Challenges are supposed to make you stronger.

SEO is a challenge that can lead you to greater victories than you could have ever imagined. Building links is some next-level work but fetches amazing results.

In fact, even Google has said that links are the #1 way to rank your website on the search engines! What more proof could you want?

To be able to get links on your site, you need a combination of skills including writing amazing content, using your psychological skills, a fair knowledge of sales and programming, and finally, the edge to market yourself and your business.

Here are a few link building strategies that will restore your lost faith in putting in efforts towards SEO.

Take a look at what we have in store for you:

1. Stuff that Already Works
2. Keep an Eye on the Link Velocity
3. On-Page SEO Analysis
4. Hacking the Quora Quotient
5. Put up Quizzes
6. Use Comments
7. Reverse Engineering (Affiliated Content Link Building)
8. Guest Blogging Strategically
9. RLR Framework to Use
10. Opt for Round-Up Blogs

Various free and paid tools will be mentioned in the article that would help you in your link building journey.

1. Stuff that Already Works

• Not all content that you write is going to be great, and that’s okay. Understanding that and acting upon it is more important.
• You look for the keywords that will help your content rank, and then you create appropriate content around these keywords.
• Use SEMRush, a free tool, that only requires you to create an account.
• First off, you want to enter any one of your competitor’s domains, right here:

• Amongst all the large amount that will be displayed on your screen, you will only look for the “Organic Keywords” option.

• There are chances that you find a keyword that is very unique. It is these keywords that help you rank.
• Another simple way to go about this is to start with the Google Keyword tool. You put in the keywords that you want to look for and voila! Google does your work for you!

• Next, you’ll be shown a list of all the possible keywords related to the terms you entered.
• You need to download all these keyword ideas that Google Keyword Planner suggested.
• In the end, download all the keyword ideas as a .CSV file.

• In the end, pick “Download Keyword Ideas,” and you download a .csv file.

• Finally, you take all your keywords and check all of their rankings and volume. But make sure that you understand that a lot of pages rank due to their domain authority and its popularity in general.
• Make great content!

2. Keep an Eye on the Link Velocity

• Let’s get two things straight.
  • You need to keep track of the number of new links you need to acquire and how fast, to stay on top.
  • How many links it takes to rank on the first page, at various points in time.
• The Ahrefs SERP Overview report gives you the answer to both of these points.

• Every month, you want to find the targeted link velocity to stay relevant in the SERPs. For this, you start by entering the desired keyword into the explorer.

• Take a look at the SERP overview report again and note which brand ranks the highest and with how many domains.
• Now your aim is to understand how fast they’re building their links, creating a higher page-level authority, thus staying on the #1 position.
• So you select the Overview link by clicking on the green drop-down arrow. You can find it right along the competing page URL.
• With this, you’ll generate an overview report of a specific link.
• From the Referring Domains header, you’ll click on “New” gaining knowledge to the list and number of links that the website earned and lost on several days.

• You just want to look at the new links acquired in the last week, initially. If you can’t get any solid information from this, you apply a larger filter, i.e. 30 days.
• Here, you want to make sure that you check the relevance and the quality of the domains because having less number of higher quality and relevant links is better than having multiple low-quality links.
• In the end, you check the 60-day report to determine the consistency of acquiring links.
• For your campaign, you want to be aiming at building 15-20 quality links to your desired page.
• After this, all you have to do is make sure you get 2 to 3 links a month.

3. On-Page SEO Analysis

• There are various free Search Engine Analysis tools available online. Here, we’ll be using: http://www.seoworkers.com/tools/analyzer.html
• On this page, you enter your page URL and receive a proper on-page SEO report.

If no information, i.e. the alt image tag, has been left of the keywords, then this is what you’ll see:

• You will want to add the alt image tag since it is known to bring you more traffic.

4. Hacking the Quora Quotient

• Fact: Quora links are no-follow links. This doesn’t make them useless. In fact, they work for a lot of referral traffic and are known to be a diversifying factor for your profile.
• To find the threads that get the most traffic, you want to plug Quora into Ahrefs. Open the Ahrefs explorer, and add the Quora URL into the search, search and select the “top pages” tag.
• Here you’ll find a list of all the URLs, with their search traffic details.

• Then you look for the keyword that relates to your content and your niche.
• Finally, you write an answer that’s going to get you tons of traffic through this page. You want to make sure that you’re being helpful to the readers and is free of any grammatical errors.
• Quora lets you add sources to the answers that you post, so it becomes easy for you to link relevant websites.
• Essentially, what you want to do is have a page of the same topic on your website and add a link of the same page to your answer.
• Your answer should not be highly promotional, rather thorough and useful.

5. Put up Quizzes

• Let’s get one thing straight before moving onto how quizzes can help you gain backlinks: Quizzes are amazing!

• They’re super interactive and fun, all while being confusing and a tad bit stressful.
• Create a quiz that will intrigue your readers, something about SEO, for example.
• WordPress will help you with this super easy task. You start by adding a new plugin, from the “Plugins” tab like so:

• In the search bar, you’re going to type the obvious “Quiz.”

• Select the Wp-Pro-Quiz option from the multiple options that will be displayed on your screen.
• To activate this plugin, you’re going to select the option with the same name from the sidebar that appears on the WordPress Dashboard.

• Create a quiz with a description of what it is about and save the file.
• As you hover the cursor, you’ll find a tab called “Questions” under the title of the quiz.

• You select the “Add Question” tab, and then you want to check off the “different points for each answer” box depending on what sort of a quiz you’re making.
• You can now start typing down your questions and selecting a particular choice of answer you want.
• Next, you’re going to create the answers for each of the question you’re adding to the quiz.
• Once you’re done with all this, you save the file and go back to the dashboard and select the “Edit” option.
• Here, you add content to the “Results Text”, which will let your readers know where they are in terms of the result.
• In the end, all you’re left to do is copy the shortcode of your quiz and paste it onto a blog post.
• Hit the publish button, and your quiz shall be posted onto the desired blog.

6. Use Comments

• This old technique, when used with a sense of smartness and practicality, can prove to be highly beneficial to your website.
• When we talk about using the comment section for link building, we’re not talking about posting any actual comments on the blog, rather putting to work the ones that already exist.
• The standard procedure involves the website asking commenters to leave their email address, website, and name as they try to post a comment, correct?

• For those who do decide to add their website URL, get a hyperlink on their name, that leads to their website.
• So, when people comment on your blog, it would mean that they belong to the same niche as you, and really are interested in what it is that you’re saying.
• Go ahead and check out the websites of the people who’ve commented on your blog, and you’ll know the truth.
  Now that this has been cleared, here’s what you do next:

1. You want to start by scraping the comments from last month, which done manually, is a little tough. With the Google Chrome add-on, your life would become a tad bit easier. You simply right-click on a hyperlinked comment and select the “scrape similar option.”

• You’ll be served with a list of all the commenters and the URLs of their pages.

• Once you export this list to Google Docs, you’ve got a full-fledged list!

2. The second step would be to make use of the “site:” feature added with the keyword that’s related to your website so you can find all the content related to your niche.
   Here’s what you do:

• In case nothing matches your search, then you’ll get a message like so:

• You keep trying the same thing with the other websites that have been added to the list on your Google Docs, and in the end, you will find a website that relates to your niche.
• You could try reaching out to the owner and ask them if they’d be willing to add a link to your blog onto their post. You continue the same process for all the relatable websites and reach out to as many people as you can.

• So you see, using comments to get backlinks might sound outdated, but it’s clearly not. You can use these comments to your advantage if you follow the right steps.

7. Reverse Engineering (Affiliated Content Link Building)

• People don’t want their content to look overly promotional, which is why various websites fall back on providing links to brands.
• When they do decide to give you links, they’re not too keen on the fact that you’ll be generating revenue because of them.
• But then again, you want to remember that not all content is high-quality content.
• So, here’s what you do. You find websites who have already provided links to affiliated websites, so you know your chances of getting a link are high.
• The second thing you want to consider is that the site shouldn’t be too big or too small. A low-mid tier website should be perfect.
• In the Keyword Explorer tool, you type in the topic that you want to get your links posted on, say, “X tools for Y”, “A Guide to abcd,” etc.
• Search for the sites that have linked to affiliated content and the ones with the highest number of referring domains.
• You pick out all the low-mid tier sites since they’ll be easy to get in touch with, and the possibility of them replying to you will be higher.
• Let’s take a look at an example:
  • Into the Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, you want to type in something like “best keyword research tools”, right?

    

  • From the SERP listing, you’ll get to know about the referring domains that are high on the list.

    

  • The next step on your list will be to click on all the links that will get you on Site Explorer, where you’ll add filters of your choice, including sorting the list so that you get your Domain Ratings in ascending order.

    

  • In the end, you go through all the results you’ve received and find the result that works best for you.
• Remember this: There might be a few sites who ask for a small referral fee, and paying them or not will be a personal choice. That being said, if the website advertises that they take payments for referrals, they might be on Google’s blacklist, so check before you take any steps forward.

8. Guest Blogging Strategically

• Guest blogging has tons of benefits, no matter what people say, and what you may have heard in recent times.
• Let’s just say that guest posting is a great strategy when its application has been carried out appropriately.
  • • The basic idea behind guest posting is to be able to target all of those keywords that would have been tough to target if placed on your own website.
    • This sort of SEO strategy works very well for websites who stand against highly established brands and their techniques.
• Here’s an example:
  • For the highly competitive keyword “____,” an article was published on “_____.”
  • This article has been on the top of the SERP list for a while now, as you can see.

    

  • The secret (which isn’t really a secret, just a very smart move) is that the website that the article was posted on has a high domain authority, which means the ranking for that particular keyword would be high too.
  • Rest assured, the amount of traffic that must have come along their way would be unimaginable.
  • There are two basic ways of finding the websites we want to write for and the ones that accept guest posts.
  • A few criteria that you must consider and list down before you begin your search would include high domain authority, the website must post content of the higher standard, is highly related to your niche, contextual links are allowed, receives loads of traffic, etc.
    1. So, the first thing you want to do is consider using Google Search Operators, and look up each of the queries you’ve jotted down. For this, do the following:
       • Keyword “Guest Post”
       • Keyword “Guest Post By”
       • Keyword “submit blog post”
       • Keyword “Guest Author”
       • Keyword inurl: “Write for us”
       • Keyword intitle: “Write for us”
       • If you wish to add the asterisk into your search string, you could do that too. This would expand the results of your search query. The relevancy of your search results will not be compromised, so that’s a bonus.

         

       • Take it one step further by adding the tilde sign (~) instead of the asterisk to get the results of websites who are using the synonyms of your desired keyword.

         

       • In the Google Sheet, you’ll find all the websites, pick out the ones you think look good.

         

  • Use the reverse engineering method on all the prolific guest bloggers that you can find in your niche. There’s a high chance that you already know about these because you’d keep reading their blogs and stay updated.
    • So, in the Google search bar, you type in the name of the blogger you want to look up, added with “guest post by”Within a second you’ll be flooded with posts written by these influencers, like so:

      

      

    • These are the sites that you will target to pitch your guest posts.
    • For the pitching part, you’re going to carry out a full research program and get to know of all the essentials of this particular blogger. You want to be building a relationship with them.
    • This can be done by connecting with them via the various social media platforms, like Twitter, LinkedIn, and participating in the forums.

9. RLR Framework to Use

• You may have already heard about the RLR framework by now. Using research, learning, and replication tactics, you can easily get the desired backlinks.
• Just because you’re starting your process on gaining backlinks, doesn’t mean your competitors are in the same place. Chances are, they’ve already generated sufficient backlinks for their business.
• Their efforts can prove to be beneficial to you as well because now you have the chance to replicate the link profiles they’ve generated.
• First off, you want to create a sheet where you can see the following details:
  • Referring Page/Domain
  • Domain
  • Site Type
  • Purpose
• Now, you will carry out an extensive research program to find your competitors and their details. How? Look them up on Google.
• Search for any particular term that comes to your mind, related to your niche, and copy the link that ranks first on the first page.

  

• This link shall be pasted onto Ahrefs Search Explorer, where you’ll also click on the “backlinks” report from the left-hand menu, like so:

  

• Now you’re going to have to start figuring out how this competitor of yours is getting all the backlinks.

1. Maybe they’re using the guest posting technique that we’ve already talked about above.

• To check the source of these links, you just have to go to Details and select the “Referring Domains” button.

2. They could also be recurring backlink sources. This would essentially mean that the owner of a particular domain has established great relations with the website, ensuring that their domain is shown multiple times.

• With high-quality content, you can make your link building game stronger.

10. Opt for Round-Up Blogs

• Probably the fastest and easiest way to get backlinks, in turn generating higher amounts of traffic on your website.
• There’s a perfectly good reason for the same. Established influencers are experts and already have a fair share of people following them. There is a good chance that they’ll share or link your blog, generating more traffic to your page!
• For your first step, you’re going to research a topic that you think your readers would be interested in, something related to your niche.
• Say you belong to the marketing niche and so it would be right to presume that they would be interested in something like “Measuring the Success of a Marketing Campaign” or “The Best Marketing Tactics of the Year.”
• Once you’ve decided on a topic, you want to find the experts who will write their opinions derived from their experience. Pitch in a way that they can’t deny your offer.
• The easiest way to find experts in your field? Turn to Google and type: “marketing tips by experts” + roundup and you’re sorted.

  

• You can now check how many backlinks were attracted by how many domains.

  

• Take a close look at all the features that are added to this blog and jot down the details of the same along with the influencers mentioned there.
• Chances are they already have a Twitter profile that also has their website mentioned on it. Make a well-sorted file out of the emails you’re gathering.
• To speed things up, you could get the help of Voilanorbert, and in about 5 to 10 minutes, the app will scrape through all the emails for you.

  

• In the end, you’re only left to reach out to these influencers and convince them to write an expert answer.
• Make sure you keep track of all the people that you’ve contacted, so you know how many responded, and how many you’re supposed to take a follow up with.
• Wait a week or two before you send out your follow up email, since any earlier may seem a bit too eager, and any later, lethargic.
• Once you have a response from all your experts, create the roundup blog and mention their name, URL, and a couple of details about them.
• When your post does go live, remember to send out a thank you email to all of the people who were a part of this post.
• Ask them to share the post on their page as well to further promote it.

In the end, if there’s one thing we know to be true, it is that there are various aspects of SEO that are challenging, and it can be a pain to follow through those efficiently.

The tactics mentioned in this blog will for sure help you gain high-quality links. Once you’ve gained these links, you should make a constant effort to maintain them and keep the aim of acquiring more high-quality links.

Use multiple tools that will help you keep track of your backlinks. In case a bad one pops up, you can be quick in removing it, so your reputation is not affected.

SEO should be on the list of your long term agenda, and not just something you do once, and forget about.

Good luck!