In order to improve organic search visibility, it is absolutely vital that you build online authority with the use of relevant and high quality links.
What is ‘authority’? It simply means being considered and expert on the topic or subject by like-minded individuals. This relationship creates an opportunity for both parties to mutually benefit from ‘authority’ by linking to each others sites. Although this sounds relatively straightforward, there are numerous challenges when trying to establish authority and build relevant, quality links.
Today we will show you 7 methods to establishing authority creating high quality links:
- Create unique research.
Finding out who your target market is and what they are going to read, like or share. The type and size of your business will determine whether you have access to data already collated or whether you will have to research your own unique data.
Once you have compiled this data it should be analysed and organised into relevant research that will interest your target market. People love to be given relevant statistics and information that they can compare with their own business.
There are many online tools created to help with content research; Buzzsumo is a content research tool that has an enormous data base which it draws on to provide digital marketing advice on how to write the best headlines. These types of relevant articles and the data-backed insights have no doubt resulted in backlinks from other digital marketing websites who reference Buzzsumo, as well performing as lead generation tools.
Smaller businesses that will not have this kind of access to data will need to analyse their business carefully to see if they have unique and useful information to share.
- Respond to trending articles and posts.
It is important to follow current trends and topics; this can be done by podcast, video or blog post. Google Trends is a great tool to monitor latest algorithms. It works by analysing the popularity of high searched queries in Google Search. Hashtag searches on social media sites, e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, is another way of discovering trending articles that relate to your target audience.
Once you have found a relevant article/topic to comment on, ensure that you use full attribution and reference both the author and their organisation. Your response must be both comprehensive and authentic and contain links to any other content by you or other relevant sources.
The end game is to provide informative and professionally researched articles to your audience showcasing your expertise, knowledge and authority. Make sure you choose the correct channels to publish your response; this is vital in order to capture the interest of readers.
- Update or elaborate on links in relevant posts.
Offering complimentary content to an author is a similar method of engaging with relevant, trending posts.
Firstly, research which posts are trending:
- Click on any links in the article and see if they are working. Check the accuracy, age, relevance of the site the links point to. Particularly with older post there may be broken links giving you the perfect opportunity to replace the links with your own. The same applies where the links point to out-dated content which could easily be replaced with your own relevant and current content.
- Look for topics and posts on which you can elaborate and offer to create complimentary content that will support the original article to which your article could be linked.
- Share free tools.
People are constantly searching for free templates, tips and hacks offering free and useful tools. The more value the tools provide the more likely they will be linked to. For example, if you search “template”, there will be endless results with the best appearing high up, more than likely due to links.
If you have any tools that you could share it is worth sharing them through your website resource section. Ensure the keywords in your content for the tools are relevant to provide context for the search engine crawlers and readers. Promote the tools using the best channels to reach your target audience and ask people who use the tool to review and share with others.
- Include unique images or graphics.
Using visuals and graphics is an effective method of capturing the attention of and enticing your target audience to engage with your content. There are a variety of ways you can implement visual media into your posts and articles.
Buying stock images is an easy and relatively inexpensive way of adding visuals, but it is even better to use unique and original pictures and photos to complement your content. By using images of real life situations/people/products, you will better connect with your audience as it will bring a human and genuine element to your blog/article. This will lead to engagement, shares and links.
Embedding video into article and blog posts is an opportunity to tell your story as well as entertain and boost interactivity. Relevant and quality video content is more likely to be viewed, liked, shared and linked to over plain text.
Infographics is an effective way of displaying informative data in your content. Although not as popular as they once were, it is still a great method of attracting relevant links to your posts. Infographics can display complex or simple data from external sources, which when appropriately attributed and referenced can become potential backlinks.
- Review the search engines results page (SERPS).
It may seem like an obvious method using the search engine results page to create links but it is effective. Once you have done the relevant keyword research needed, analyse the top 50-100 results for content relevant to yours that you could possibly link back to, excluding your competitors of course. Top SERP results tend to have good authority, relevance and quality in the eyes of search engines.
Look at the following for potential linkback opportunities:
- Blog and articles
- Blog and article comments
- Videos and video comments
- Directories
- Local business sites
- Ads or links
- Affiliate websites
With partner or associate websites, relevance and quality take preference over authority which is not considered as important.
- Build trusting relationships.
Trust is something built over time by establishing your authority based on the quality of the content you provide. This is a vital element of earning backlinks from sources who can trust the quality of the posts you want them to link to.
Avoid paying an SEO firm for backlinks as this can damage your authority; the search engines are getting better at telling the difference between free and paid links. Instead concentrate on creating fantastic content that people will choose to link to, and not only will your links be genuine and of high quality, but they will also go a long way with building your reputation and online authority.