Google’s Best Practices for Generating Backlinks

Do you wish to boost traffic to your website or blog?

If so, you must create backlinks to your site. Yes, backlinks are one of the main elements utilized by search engines like Google to rank web pages and sites. So, if you need to rank higher in Google search, you must generate backlinks. 

But what link building is? Well, it is the process through which you can get inbound links or backlinks to your blog or website from external sources. These links from leading websites can deliver referral traffic and increase traffic routed by Google. 

If you have a high number of backlinks, you can rank better on Google search results. This factor scores higher on correlation compared to other SEO elements like keyword use, meta tags, etc. 

How to create natural backlinks

Creating natural backlinks may sound like an oxymoron. Can you generate natural links by other methods than providing excellent content? Yes, for sure. Follow the below tips to create useful backlinks to your site or blog, and see it yourself. 

• Provide Value

Your backlink and content should add value to the reader. The link will be natural in this case, regardless of whether you request or pay for it. 

Paid links are a gray subject in the SEO world, and Google uses advanced algorithms to track them. Therefore, they are not recommended, but if a paid backlink offers real value, it is natural. 

Therefore, you should reach out to readers who are interested in pursuing and sharing your content to create natural links. 

• Offer Purposeful and Targeted Content 

Before creating content, check who is interested in linking to or republishing it. To create natural backlinks, you need to present something new and juicy. 

Therefore, make a list of sites that cater to your target readers and learn about the content types they find interesting. For instance, to feature on a site that provides industry research and news, you should create a newsworthy piece on a recent popular topic. 

A single e-book or white paper can give you more backlinks than generic posts of 500 to 1000 words. This approach is challenging but more effective for SEO.

• Improve Others’ Content 

This technique is called the Skyscraper method. It involves identifying a target and developing content based on the discovered opportunity. If your story is more relevant, readers will take your viewpoint rather than the original creator. 

For instance, if most writers offer 5 tips for financial management, you can go one step ahead and provide 7 tips. But it is also vital to influence interested people to get the desired results. 

• Collaborate with Influencers 

Create a list of influential firms and individuals in your niche and approach them for a collaboration. Most organizations feature a press section on their website where they publish news, stories, and articles written about them by others. 

Keep an eye on their site for critical updates and news, and cover the information on your website or blog. Then, inform them so that they feature your story on their site. 

• Give Ego Bait a try

You can conduct interesting interviews with leading influencers to create backlinks. For an interview, you need to contact several people and perform extensive research, but the hard work is worth it as you can write a relevant and highly linkable unique post. 

If there are more people in an interview on one topic, you increase your post’s chances of getting shared. This approach is termed “ego bait.” It provides benefits to all parties involved. You get fantastic material to create great content, while the interviewees can improve their online visibility. 

• Browse Q&A Sites 

For all the above-mentioned techniques to work, you need to find relevant topics. To deliver an extraordinary post, you should find a burning subject first. So, scour websites like Quora and Reddit. 

For instance, on Quora, your research can help you locate a good number of influencers. You can learn about their expertise area and ask questions about it. Do your research properly and inform the influencers about it to boost the chances of getting natural links to your content from other sites. 

Which Links are “Natural”?

A natural backlink is one that people use to link to content organically they find relevant and attractive. Therefore, any appropriate and meaningful link can be termed natural. 

A natural link’s content is relevant to the target website and provides value to readers by offering added information about a particular topic. A natural backlink has anchor text that is connected to the page content in a meaningful manner. 

Thus, even pursued links can be natural if they are relevant to the target website and its readers. 

Which Links are “Unnatural”?

Unnatural backlinks are generally artificial links that are created to manipulate the ranking of a page. These include paid links and links generated by spammers and scrapers that direct to your website and link it to an undesirable site. 

Google’s Penguin update in April 2012 targeted unnatural links and penalized sites for keyword stuffing, over-optimized anchor text, and bad-quality links. This is because Google considers these tactics to be unbeneficial and unfair to users. Recent Google updates target all questionable site ranking and negative SEO tactics. So, be mindful while placing links!

How important is following best practices?

It’s crucial to follow Google’s recommended best SEO practices and create natural and organic backlinks. This can ensure a high ranking for your website in Google search results. 

Google uses natural backlinks to judge the reputation and trustworthiness of a website or blog. The search engine will point searchers to your site if you have a high number of natural backlinks. 

Besides, following SEO best practices can make your website or blog more popular and increase traffic. Therefore, avoid spamming and look to create relevant and organic natural backlinks to improve your website’s ranking on search engines. 

As per Technavio, the SEO software market is predicted to grow by about $740 million from 2020 to 2024. If you aren’t SEO savvy, you can hire a reliable digital marketing agency that can use the right SEO tools to make your website stand out on Google and other search platforms.