Why and How to Get Backlinks for Free?

In any SEO strategy, the acquisition of backlinks is an essential method. However, getting backlinks is a complex practice because, in order for it to be successful, every backlink must be relevant and judged as a quality backlink. Sometimes it is better to look after each one and get less because the quantity is not always the priority.

As a business owner, you want a well-ranked website in Google’s search pages.

It is natural.

After all, having a well-ranked site is an effective way to conquer new customers.

I describe it in the following:

For your SEO, it is important to choose a good content management system (CMS). WordPress is recognized as performing in search engine optimization (SEO). It’s a good start. Then, even if there is no magic wand to improve the ranking of your site. You must both publish high-quality content and collect powerful backlinks.

Regarding your content quality, I have often discussed the importance of the quality of your content.

Today, I’m going to focus on how to get free backlinks, in addition to what I wrote about the ‘off Page’ SEO.

After defining what is a backlink, I will describe:

• Why is it so important?
• On which types of websites, you get links that point to the website of your business website?
• How to get free backlinks?

Here’s all you need to know about backlinks

What is a backlink?

According to Wikipedia, a Backlink (also called an inbound link or incoming link) is a link from a website that points to your site.

Backlinks are crucial.

For search engines, this gives the popularity of your website.

Google views these links as positive ‘votes’ for your website.

It’s logic.

When the owner adds an external link in one of these web contents, it means that he finds the content in relation with the interesting and relevant link for his readers.

Specifically, interesting and relevant to the point of seeing his own readers of his website to read the content on the other site.

So, if a user appreciates your content to the point of referring to it on his own site, it is because he considers that what you have written is perfect.

Thus, getting backlinks amounts to accumulating votes in a popularity contest or limit of duration.

Having more backlinks that point to your company’s website, therefore, means more credibility and, therefore, a higher ranking in relevant searches.

However, unlike a democracy, not all backlinks are considered equal in the eyes of search engine robots.

Indeed, Google, Bing, Yahoo .. give more weight to backlinks from websites that are themselves popular.

Let’s take an example.

A Backlink from Wikipedia.com or the forbes.com has a stronger weight for the credibility of your site than a backlink from your best friend’s blog.

In addition, search engines also use backlinks to understand the purpose of your website and therefore the type of your business.

Google assumes that when a link is pointing from one site to another, there is bound to be a relationship between the content of the two pages.

That’s why, in order for your backlinks to boost your SEO (instead of hurting you!), They must come from sites related to your business.

My advice: As an entrepreneur, try to get backlinks from known websites related to your industry.

Target Anchor Text

The text of the link is called ‘anchor text’.

Ideally, it is recommended that any anchor text should include the keywords of the target page. So, Google understands the relationship between these words and your website.

It is, therefore, preferable to have an anchor text placed in a sentence.

Like ‘best pizza in the city’ or choose your favorite domain to double the power of your backlinks,
Than obscene like ‘see more’ or ‘find out here’.
This is why it is also recommended to always specify an anchor text than to directly paste the URL.

On which sites to get free backlinks?

Link building is the process of getting backlinks to your site.

To start your link building, make a list of websites that are potentially relevant.

To do this, search in Google for websites in your industry that appear at the top of page results.

At the risk of repeating myself, keep in mind, that if you develop solutions for health professionals, there is no point in getting a backlink from an e-commerce clothing site even if it is your cousin e-com store.

Google’s highly ranked sites that have strong authority.

Stay in your industry. Although, as I have already mentioned, getting a link from the site of one of your competitors is not a good idea.

Focus your energy on identifying quality sites that have a significant impact on your Google rankings.

The ultimate: Finding a way to get a free backlink from a university or government website. Indeed, search engines tend to trust more sites that end with:

• .gov – governments,
• .edu – universities,
• or .org – non-profit organizations.

Google loves sites with recent content. That’s why it’s important to try adding new incoming links on a regular basis.

How to get free backlinks?

Once you have listed the relevant websites, it’s time to contact the people responsible for those sites, often called webmasters.

I have identified 3 different types of links to focus on.

Here they are in order, in my opinion, of their importance.

1. Natural Backlinks

As their name indicates, these links are obtained naturally and with little effort on your part.

In other words, a natural backlink is obtained without soliciting the website that chooses itself to connect to your website.

Natural inbound links have the strongest impact on promoting your site and therefore on growth opportunities for your business.

This usually happens because you have written high-quality content that others feel worth sharing with their users.

To improve your chances of getting natural backlinks:

• Publish high-quality content by taking into account user intentions
• And facilitate their sharing.
• Try to think of the professional, interesting and reliable information you can write for your readers.

Then post it on your site and share it on social networks.

Make sure your website has easy-to-find share buttons.

The trick is to make it easy for others to share the content they like.

The more useful your content is, the more chances you have that other sites want to add a link so their users can read it too.

2. Earned Backlinks

Earned Backlinks come from sites that you contact directly to ask them to include links.

These links can come from popular blogs or other well-ranked websites in your industry.

There are 3 main ways to get earned links. All that is required is to speak directly with the webmaster of the site either by phone or by email.

Promote your existing content

Identify who exactly would like to read the content of your website. Then look for other websites and/or blogs that target the same audience.

Identify the webmaster of these websites and send them the link of your most relevant content.

Tell them why you think their readers will find your content interesting and ask them if they would be willing to link their content to yours.

Guest Blogging

The ‘guest blogging’ is for a site owner to invite ‘experts’ to contribute on his blog or site.

And nothing prevents you to encourage site owners to invite you as well.

For this, send an email to the webmaster of the target site.

Suggest that you write an article on their website. Make him understand that you appreciate his site!

A tip, write a short e-mail as much as possible, but specify:

• Your area of expertise,
• A sample of your writing,
• Some topics that might interest his readers.

The webmaster will probably be happy to welcome you to his blog. Obviously, make sure that he agrees that your article includes a link to your own website.

If this approach interests you, discover all the other benefits of guest articles.

Reviews

Another option is to invite bloggers to test your products or services. Always relying on your product offer:

• an hour of gym class if you are the owner of a fitness center,
• a sample of perfume if you work in a beauty shop,
• a free haircut in your hair salon.

in Exchange, they will surely write a precise review of your company with a link to your site.

Finally, another great way to attract the attention of a blogger is to offer its readers a discount coupon to use for your products or services.

3 Backlinks that you create

You can also quickly and easily create links to your website without having to ask permission from a person.

these links that I call “self-created” have less influence on your ranking, however, they stimulate your site.

Here are 3 ways to create this type of backlinks

Get involved in forums and blogs

You can insert a multitude of links:

• On forums,
• By commenting on blog posts,
• And finally by registering in online directories.

Always make sure to select sites that are relevant to your industry.

Warning: Some of these links may be considered ‘spam’ unless your comments are relevant and the links point to content on your relevant site.

This is necessary for these links to promote your website and bring you, new visitors. For example :

• Comment on articles published in LinkedIn groups and share a link to a page on your website related to the topic covered in this group,
• Create a table on Pinterest and share your articles on a Pinterest board whose power to generate backlinks is well established.

One tip: Restrict yourself to your area of expertise. Thus, these links will bring you quality traffic while increasing your credibility.

Register in the directories

You can also create backlinks by adding your website to online directories like yellow pages, yelp, Google My Business and more.

This type of backlink is especially useful if you are a business with a physical address that greets your customers.

Create internal links

Internal links connect the different pages of your site.

This is what Digital Marketing experts call internal silo.

These are not strictly backlinks.

But as they help your readers and Google navigate through your company’s website, I found it useful to talk about it here.

This way, your readers stay on your site longer.

And so, this can potentially help to move up your ranking on the search pages.

For example, you can include a link:

From an article in your blog to the corresponding product page on your online store,
Or from your ‘About’ page to the ‘Team’ or ‘Contact Us’ page,
Or from the page describing a product or service to your FAQ page.
Include internal links to:

Encourage visitors to stay on your website,
Read additional information,
And finally, buy one of your products, contact you or subscribe to your newsletter.

Bonus! Find out who is linked to your website!

It’s an endless job.

But you probably want to know if your efforts are paying off.

To see the backlinks that your site has won for free, log in to your Google Search Console (ex-webmaster tools) and regularly check the ‘Link to your site’ section.

It’s as simple as that!

In this way, you monitor the results of your work and redirect your efforts accordingly.

Note: The Google Search Console is not really exhaustive about backlinks. The best way is to follow the trend.

There are many other tools to track your backlinks but if you’re new, the Google Search Console is more than enough.

In summary on how to get free backlinks

Working on backlinks is probably the best way to find new growth opportunities for your company’s website.

link building requires being methodical and rigorous.

But as it is surely one of the most important factors of Google’s algorithms, the result is quickly felt.

My last tip: Do things in the right order. Before you tackle getting Backlinks, make sure that your ‘on Page’ SEO is optimized.

Did you know that backlinks are really important for effective SEO? Do you invest a little of your time to get free backlinks?