Backlinks are like little SEO testimonials for your page. If you want to get your site to be recognized as a valuable resource, then you’ve got to find out a way to get more of these. Now most of us are of the more common strategies, such as guest posting and blog comments. The thing is, quite often those take quite a bit of work and there are always rumors floating around on the internet that Google is about to crack down further on this type of link building.

So really we need to find some alternative ways to boost our page. Fortunately, there are plenty. Today we’re going to look at a few.

Get big bloggers to review your product

If you’ve got something that people can review, then offer bloggers a free whirl at it in return for a review. Obviously, when they write up such reviews they’re going to include backlinks to your product and your website, which means that even if they’re not all that thrilled about it, you’ll still have the backlink.

That’s right, Oscar Wilde was never more right in saying ‘the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about’ than he is today.

So type in the big keywords related to your product, find the blogs that rate high in this category, tell them how cool their site is and how you’re really impressed with it and then offer to send them a free sample of whatever it is you do and ask them to review it.

Of course, make certain you don’t break Google’s webmaster guidelines in the process.

The testimonial

If you’re using a product and you actually like it, why not give a testimonial to the company that produced it? Companies love to use your testimonials to establish their credentials. And they’ll have even more success in this regard if they can show you’re not just some guy living in the woods and only wearing underpants by, you guessed it, linking to your site.

So find some high authority websites, make certain that they have a habit of linking to the sites of the people that send them testimonials and then get typing! Of course, make certain that you give them permission to use your testimonial on their site and their main page so that they can place it in the best location (for them and for you).

Get linked!

Sometimes you’ll see sites that actually mention you but forgot to make their link an active one. They just typed your page without actually creating a backlink. That’s an unfortunate opportunity lost, right? It doesn’t have to be.

Just reach out to the company tell them that you really appreciate the mention and if they could actually make it an active link. Seeing as these people were probably impressed with your product or your site to begin with (otherwise, why mention you), there is a good chance they’ll go to the page and fix the problem. And hey presto! You’ve got another backlink without needing to do very much work at all.

You can use both Buzzsumo and Mention.net to find out where your site has been mentioned to find out if they just typed your site or actually linked to it.

Replace outdated and broken resources

How often does it happen that you’re doing research on a story and you follow a link to something only to find it heavily outdated, broken or the page blank? Previously you probably thought that was immensely frustrating.

Now you should start seeing it as an opportunity. If you’ve got a resource that matches what is no longer working properly on their site, then this is a great opportunity to get in touch with them and say ‘hey I noticed that your link is broken, you might want to replace it, oh and I’ve got this great resource that you could point to if you like.’

Of course, if you don’t yet have that resource, then consider creating it – particularly if it’s useful. Then you can still get in touch with them afterward and point it out. You can even take it a step further by using mention.net and buzzsumo, which I mentioned above, and find more pages that point to this resource and offer up your page as a replacement there as well.

Help a Report Out

And finally, HARO is a fantastic website where reporters and businesses can talk to each other, with the reporter getting a source for a story and the company getting a back link. All you need to do is sign up, provide some details about your business and get involved when something that sits close to what you’re doing comes along.

Then they can write their story and you can get a backlink on the reputable news outlet. And those can be worth gold if you’re trying to push yourself up in the rankings. Sounds pretty sweet, right?

Conclusion

As I’ve hopefully demonstrated, there are a lot of ways to get backlinks and as successful marketing strategy is all about exposure, there really is no excuse for not picking up on at least some of these ideas.

And it’s not like these are the only strategies out there. In truth, with a bit of clever lateral thinking, you can find other ways to get your site mentioned on other pages. It’s just a matter of finding pages that could benefit by linking to your product and resources and making them aware that you’re out there. That alone can be more effective than any guest blog post. After all, a blog post might take you a few hours to write, how many people do you think you could have gotten in touch with during that time about linking to your resources? And even if only a fraction says yes, that will still be more backlinks than that single guest post was ever likely to get you.

 

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Backlinks Tree: Digitello Integrated Communications Agency