OSP 005: Link Building in 2013 & Beyond!
If you want your website to rank in the search engines in 2013, there are a few things you need to know.
First, is that you shouldn’t be focusing on the word “backlinks” but instead focusing on “traffic”.
The biggest mistake Michael and I see is that people put so much effort into building links to their site, that they forget why they are building them in the first place. Instead of just building backlinks for a link, you should be building them in order to acquire traffic.
And that’s EXACTLY what todays podcast is all about!
The rules for backlinking in 2013
Don’t view these as actual rules, these are moreso just suggestions. But if you follow what we have to say here it can help your backlinking and traffic strategy prosper more than ever.
Use various forms of anchor text
Example: click here, check it out, just the url, brand name, keywords, relate words, etc.
Don’t just use one source for backlinks, use multiple sources (especially the ones mentioned above)
The more (safe) places the better, don’t just find random sites that aren’t related to your niche or seem spammy
If you’re building links, vary where you acquire them from, again don’t use only one site
Don’t worry about do-follow and no-follow links. Some of the best links come from sites that are no-follow (like YouTube, Yahoo Answers, etc.)
What Michael and I are focusing on this year
You might have noticed that in the last year we’ve both been talking a lot about social, especially Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. That’s because that’s where we see the search engines focusing on and it’s also where people are.
Here’s an idea of what we are focusing on in 2013 with our backlinking and traffic building strategies.
As always, focusing on great, quality, and unique content
Social media galore – it’s still growing every single day and we really feel it’s going to continue to grow and evolve
We’re focusing where people are. Instead of building random backlinks (like I did when I first started.. bad idea) we are pushing towards only building links where people are hanging out at
Guest blogging is another huge part of our backlinking strategy, you can find blogs to guest post on by going to google and typing in something like (your keyword or niche) + (guest blogging/guest blog/guest post) but also make sure to contact blogs that are in your niche that don’t specifically state that they allow guest posts
Instead of focusing on the link, we are putting more focus on what the link will give us in forms of traffic
Fresh and quality content is a must
This hasn’t and will never change.
If you have crappy, junk content, you just aren’t going to get very far.
You want to have quality content that people want to read and hopefully what they want to share with their friends and family.
Here’s a run down of what you could do to increase the quality of your content.
Oh and.. content is everything folks.
Find what your industry wants but isn’t writing or producing enough of and write about it
You can find out how this can be done by going to related forums, social sites, reading blogs, and searching by the keyword in your niche. If you know anything about your niche it’s likely it will stand out to you pretty quickly
Produce what they have, but make it better.
I have to define the word “better” here.
Better does not mean “more”.
It means make it better. Whether that be by simplifying it, giving more detail, or using a different format (images, video, audio, text, etc.)
minutephysics and vsauce do this spectacularly well.
Back to the content standards.
Put time and effort into making your content better (if it’s helpful)
Length doesn’t matter as much as value does – you can sometimes summarize a 2,000 word post into a paragraph which can be of more value
Include charts, graphs, images, videos, audio, etc. when it’s helpful – don’t just toss them for the heck of it.. give meaning to them, even if it’s just to be funny
And don’t forget to ask the most important question to yourself each time you create content…
“How much will this help or matter to my audience?”
I’ve seen people spend days on a single article that no one ever sees because it’s boring and not something their readers even want to read.
If you’re create content, create it for your readers/viewers/visitors/buyers instead of for yourself.
You’ll also want to share your content on social media
It was already important in 2012 and the years before.. but now it’s getting more important than ever.
Google introduced Google+, Facebook introduced Facebook Graph Search, and so many other social networks are popping up to help people share things.
Imagine if Rachel Watson included a link to her website with this post she made about mold in Capri Sun. At the time I’m writing this, that post has over 365,000 shares!
How can you get started?
Create a Facebook Page
Create a Twitter Account
Create a Google+ Page
Create a YouTube Channel
If you click on the links above you’ll be redirected to a page where you can create one of each.
It literally will take you about 5-10 minutes to create all 4, no joke.
Don’t get all fancy and worry about what your accounts look like yet.. just get them started. If you mess up, you can always create another one later, but right now you need the experience of trying each first hand.
Getting other blogs to share your content is great too
It’s one thing writing on your own blog/site, but did you know you can also do “guest blog posts” on other sites in your niche?
Guest blogging is huge and is a great way to not only get some quality links but also a way to gain an audience of your own, especially if you share great content with them.
I mean that when I say it too.. don’t just go out there and write up a crappy article that you wouldn’t even put up on your own site.
Put some time into a guest post, video, audio, infographic, etc., it’s going to be well worth it in the end.
Another huge benefit from writing for someones blog (remember this can be extended to Facebook pages, YouTube channels, etc., not just blogs) is that they’ll also be sending traffic to the guest post with their own subscribers, readers, social media sites, and so on.
How do you find blogs to guest post on?
It’s super easy to do and only involves a little bit of searching in Google.
But before I jump into that, please do not only find blogs that allow guest posts, try to build connections/relationships with other bloggers. If you limit yourself you’ll only think one way and I want to make sure you think outside the box.
Okay now onto the method. If you follow these steps you’ll be golden.
Header over the the infamous Google.com
In the search field type “your niche or related keywords” + “guest post” (without quotations)
Other forms of guest post include, guest blogging, guest blog, guest posting, guest articles, guest writers, etc.
Go through the results until you find a website that allows guest posts (sorta like this one)
Also when you are presenting some sort of guest post, don’t just jump right into it. Do some research into the site you are planning on writing a guest post for and see what kind of content they “need” or don’t already have. This way you don’t look like an idiot to the blog owner.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had someone come to me and ask if they can write a guest post on nicheoptimizer.com explaining what a backlink is..
Backlinking in the 2014?
Without diving too far into this I do want to touch on the future of backlinks.
For one, I don’t see backlinks ever disappearing entirely as a ranking factor in search engines like Google & Bing.
What I do see however is that if you aren’t focusing on the traffic, you’re site is going to suffer.
So instead of only thinking of, “Oh I need a backlink for my site!”, change your mindset to “Ya know what.. I need more traffic to my site!”.
In 2013 and beyond (2014, 2015… and years to come) I see traffic and social proof being a dominant role alongside backlinks themselves, along with interactions on your site. Get people to click on those like buttons, tweet about your site, or even leave comments.
