Backlinking is one of the most important things to have on your website. It’s essentially a public endorsement—after all, how valuable and awesome must your content be to be mentioned by an authoritative website? People are actually encouraging their readers to leave their website to come to yours! That’s a pretty big deal for both website owners and Google, which is why the latter ranks you higher, the more valid backlinks you have.

Backlinking is a never-ending process. Once you get a coveted backlink, you need to keep pushing forward by getting the next one or replacing a broken one. To help you with this, we’ve compiled a list of basic tasks you need to do every month to keep on top of your backlinking game. As a long-time Orange County SEO expert, this has been very helpful for us over the years.

Monthly Checklist

Make sure you do this every month. Couple this with all other aspects of SEO (e.g., content creation, social media campaigns, etc.), and you should start seeing results within a year or maybe within a few months! Your hard work will pay off massively in the end.

Go Through the Backlink List

The first step to building links is to, of course, gather a bunch of links you want to link with! You can do this by using awesome tools like SEMrush’s Backlink Analytics or Ahrefs’ Backlink Checker to gather links from competitors and other relevant websites. Then, go through each one of them to find high-quality links and put any irrelevant, low-quality ones into the reject pile.

Update Reject Pile

Take a look at your reject pile and see if any of them have been updated since you put them there. If they’ve improved drastically since you can put them back on your backlink list.

Analyze Competitor List

You’re not the only one doing the heavy lifting! Your competitors probably are, too. So, make an effort to look through their backlink list every month, as they could have linked with a website or two you may have missed. You need to be on the same level as them.

Reach Out via Email

Now that you’ve compiled your list of backlinks, it’s time to reach out to them.

Depending on the size of your site, you don’t have to email everybody on the list. You need to build it up gradually with ten or twenty of the most relevant sites and then work from there. You also need to maintain relationships with the backlinks you already do have and reach out to websites you’ve already linked to.

Guest Blog

One of the best ways to earn a backlink is to provide guest posts to the website you’re eyeing. You’re giving them free content in exchange for a link back to your website, and you’re also establishing a relationship with them and their readers.

Create Content

Backlinking might be one of the most important SEO tasks, but content creation is still the most important for your search rankings. That’s because Google prioritizes websites that regularly produce high-quality, relevant websites for their searchers. And besides, nobody would consider backlinking with you if you didn’t have the content to back you up, anyway.

You have to make sure your website is worth linking back to.

Post Review Sites

Reviews and testimonials are some of the most valuable backlinks you can have, and the best part about them is that they’re completely user-generated and free.

As a business, you’ll want to ensure you have your review links readily available where your customers can see them,  like posting them on your social media profiles, so they can leave a review of your business anytime.

Monitor Directories

Adding your business to online directories is a classic way of building links, but did you know that it doesn’t end there? You need to make sure your directory details are updated monthly, as inaccurate information can really annoy your customers. For example, you don’t want to have your Yelp page saying you sell a specific item if that item was phased out months ago!

Additionally, some directories like Google My Business can be sabotaged by your competitors. They add false information to try and get you in trouble. Be proactive and always stay on top of your pages.

Build Broken Links

This is another classic and time-tested way to get some backlinks. This involves looking through a website’s backlink list and finding sites that are broken or severely outdated. Then, you create a page that’s similar to that of the old website and reach out to the linked website, asking if they’d like to replace the broken link with yours. This is a lot quicker than traditional backlinking and is akin to having a link fall into your lap.

Publish Content

We know that content creation often involves writing, but did you know you can create other sorts of content as well? These types can be more appealing to other websites, thereby increasing your chances of getting a link back.

For example, instead of having a really long blog post about your area of expertise, you can convert it into a video or a webinar. This makes it easier to consume and share across different websites.

Donate to Charities or Events

Hit two birds with one stone by getting a backlink and contributing to society! Spread a sense of community among prospective and loyal customers by either donating to a charity you support or speaking at an event. By the end of it, you will hopefully get a link back from an authoritative website ending in .edu, .gov, or .org. You will also hopefully meet other sponsors willing to help you with your backlinking project.

Just make sure the charities or events you’re supporting are consistent with your brand image and target audience. You don’t want to turn your customers away by supporting causes they don’t believe in!

Conclusion

Backlinking is a tedious and exhausting yet necessary part of digital marketing. Without it, your search rankings aren’t going to be very high, and you’re probably not going to look reputable with your customers either. Think of it like getting references for a job interview—if you have high-profile people backing your credentials up, you’re bound to get hired!

You can also delegate your backlinking tasks to the experts. Drive Traffic Media is an Orange County SEO company that can help you with that. Contact us today at (949) 800-6990 to get started with a free consultation!

Check the related article here: https://www.drivetrafficmedia.com/link-building-is-a-critical-seo-priority-in-2019/