Backlinks are anything but new to search engine optimisation. They were one of the first metrics by which web browsing giant Google determined the quality of a page for display in its search engine results (SERPs). Yet 48% of marketers active today still underestimate the importance of backlinking to their site’s Google rankings.
Our crash course on how to build backlinks without paying for them illuminates the far-reaching value of backlinking and link-building to any business with an online presence. From independent freelancers and MSMEs to larger corporations, the impact of quality backlinks cannot be understated. By the same token, it needn’t cost an arm and a leg, either.
Skip to
- Defining Backlinks and Backlinking SEO
- Why backlinks matter
- How building free backlinks can benefit your business
- Top 7 free link-building strategies
- Advantages of outsourcing link-building to an SEO agency
- Conclusion
Defining backlinks and backlinking SEO
A backlink is a link featured on someone else’s website or social media account that links back to a page on your website. These hyperlinks are anchored in relevant text which ideally encourages the reader to click the link in pursuit of further knowledge, clarification, and/or a solution to their problem or query.
Backlinks are used by two major entities on the internet: users and search engine trawlers. Users use backlinks to navigate between pages on the internet, in pursuit of the information they are searching for. Search engine trawlers – i.e., Google’s PageRank algorithm – use backlinks as one of the main metrics determining the value, or quality, of a page. The more high-quality links referring back to the same page, the higher that page is likely to rank in SERPs.
Backlinking SEO, or link-building, is the process of actively increasing the number of backlinks to your website through a variety of strategies – which we discuss in greater detail below. SEO marketers and those just beginning their SEO journey can choose to focus on acquiring a combination of low- and high-quality backlinks, though it should be noted that low-quality links hold far less weight with Google than they once did.
Why backlinks matter
Websites that rank #1 on Google typically have 3.8x more backlinks on average than any of the other top ten ranking sites. Whilst correlation doth not always equal causation, in this case, we could make the argument that it very much does.
Backlinks matter because they are one of Google’s primary metrics for evaluating the quality of a page. The more backlinks to your page there are from high-quality sources (AKA high domain-authority sources; sources which are trustworthy authorities in their niche), the more likely that page is to be of use to the end-user, and the higher Google is likely to rank it in SERPs.
In other words, you can think of backlinks as votes of confidence in your page. The higher quality the source of the vote, the more weight it has in your favour. Similar to how the opinion of people we trust matters more to us than the opinion of people we don’t.
Backlinks matter because they help your website to rank higher in search engine results for search terms relevant to your products and services. Of course, that’s not all link-building is good for.
How building free backlinks can benefit your business
As you’ll soon discover, building free backlinks is fairly straightforward. Yet despite the lack of cost, you may still be left wondering exactly why you’d want to invest your time into link-building. Below, we take a look at a non-exhaustive list of the major benefits enjoyed by businesses that build quality backlinks.
- Improve your Google SERPs rankings: As we’ve already discussed, link-building can help to dramatically improve your Google rankings. The higher up Google’s SERPs you are, the more organic traffic will be directed to your page. The more organic traffic transferred to your website, the higher your potential conversion rates – whatever products or services you have to promote.
- Build relationships with others in your industry niche: Link-building requires an outward perspective and open dialogue with other website owners, business people, influencers and content creators operating in your industry niche. By reaching out to these individuals, backlinking helps you build real-world connections with people whose friendship may prove extremely useful in future.
- Drive greater organic referral traffic to your website: In a similar vein to the first benefit mentioned, backlinks also drive an increase in organic referral traffic. This is traffic that visits your website not because of your SERPs ranking, but because they discovered a link to your page on another site they were browsing. Combined with the sort of traffic generated by strong Google rankings, organic referral traffic from related websites pulls in an even wider pool of potential customers and clients.
- Develop your brand identity and brand reach: Smooth talking can only get you so far when it comes to building quality backlinks for free. Your genuine expertise and the quality of your content play equally important roles in the willingness of other site owners to link to you. As such, link-building requires that you prove your authority within your niche – in doing so you strengthen your brand’s identity and position within your target market. As brand reach and awareness increase, so too may brand stickiness, provided you’ve done a good enough job establishing the reliability of your voice.
beefound.agency’s top 7 free link-building strategies
As experts in SEO ourselves, we’ve put our ‘hive-minds’ together to come up with a list of the most effective, and free!, link-building strategies. By using a combination of the below, you can hope to rank higher on search engine results pages, improve your brand’s standing, and drive high-quality organic traffic to your desired web pages.
Strategy 1) Outreach to relevant sites
Undoubtedly one of the cornerstones of link-building best practice is outreach. Literally, searching for and getting in contact with websites your backlinks would be relevant to. There are lots of different ways you can approach this, but a Google search is a good place to start.
Cast a wide net when you search. Don’t just look for non-competing articles in your niche, but extend your searches to include link round-ups, best blog lists, facts and figures articles, educational resources and more. Use the sorts of search terms you think your target audience would use, and build a database of websites you think you could work with.
Next, reach out to the websites’ authors and owners. You can do so via email, social media, or even with a quick phone call, depending on what contact information is available. The objective is to persuade the owner that a backlink to your website would be not only of use to their readers, but also of use to them. In other words, your link should be high-quality enough that including it on their site will also help them improve their own Google rankings.
Given that this can feel a lot like cold calling, don’t be put off if you struggle at first. Provided the page you want to backlink to is accurate, original, and search engine optimised, then your persistence in outreach will pay off. And once this ball’s rolling…
Strategy 2) Collaboration with influencers and bloggers
Collaboration is a fantastic next step in building backlinks without paying for them. In this particular strategy, we highlight two types of communication which are particularly worth considering: influencer collabs and guest blogging.
Influencer collabs
Influencers are social media personalities who have a considerable following over whom they exert influence by way of suggestion, charisma, and entertaining content generation. Influencer marketing, an off-branch of social media marketing, is a process by which businesses provide influencers with goods, services, and/or marketing, in exchange for general promotion of their brand or specific promotion of their products. Influencers can command a great deal of sway over large demographics, proving this a valuable source of backlink building.
For example, with regards to backlinking, you might contact a gamer influencer with an opportunity to test-run your brand-new gaming keyboard, in exchange for an affiliated marketing link to buy the keyboard being featured prominently on their streaming profile.
Guest blogging
Running your own blog is a great way to attract organic traffic to your website, before redirecting them to the services and products you wish to promote. But bloggers need help from time to time to keep up with their readers’ demands. Many of the most popular and widely-read blogs on the internet welcome article applications from guest bloggers, usually provided that the guest blogger adheres to an established style guide. One of the most common kickbacks provided to guest bloggers is the opportunity to include one or more do-follow backlinks to their own websites within the piece.
Guest blogging can put your link in front of potentially massive audiences with trust in the authority of the blog they follow. This can increase organic referral traffic to your website, and improve your SERPs rankings at the same time.
Strategy 3) Creation of link-worthy content
The holy grail of link-building is a high-quality backlink that you didn’t intend to acquire. These are links that other internet authors, website owners, journalists, and bloggers have created because they found your website independently and wish to reference it in their writing. They’ve decided, without needing your persuasion, that your link is valuable to both their website and their readership. But how exactly do you go about creating web content that is “link-worthy”?
Infographics
Link-worthy content can, of course, be just about anything. But if we were to narrow down the field to three crucial types of content that people love to link to, the first of those would be infographics: useful and original information presented in an easy-to-understand, eye-catching and attractive graphic.
The best infographics present information in a way which is not only easily digestible, but also tells a story in a glance. Whatever your niche is, there are almost certainly myriad opportunities for infographic creation. Quality infographics will hopefully then garner the attention of people looking for an authoritative and accessible voice to link to, thus backing up their own arguments.
You can also actively list infographics on infographic directories in exchange for backlinks, create “guest-o-graphics” for other website owners with embedded backlinks (as you would create guest blogs), and write HTML embedded share code to facilitate a super straightforward process for others to link to your work.
Facts, figures, and stats
Number two in our top three types of link-worthy content is the facts, figures, and stats post. These are posts which breakdown, in listicle format, accurate and interesting facts relevant to your niche. Not only do they help to cement your status as an authority on the subject matter, they’re also ideal for journalists, copywriters, and bloggers who need to support their claims with credible information. One or two solid facts, figures, and stats posts could redirect long-term, quality, organic traffic to your website for as long as they’re live.
Shareable content
Last but not least, whatever your content is, make sure that it’s readily shareable. Web page designers and bloggers alike like content that they can easily share to illustrate a point. This could be a video you created, snippets of which can be posted as a tweet, or X. Similarly, you might write code into your website which allows LinkedIn users to easily quote your articles in their own social media posts, with backlink in tow. Make sure your content is digestible, accessible, accurate and engaging, as well as formatted to be compatible across a range of devices and platforms, and you’re onto a winner.
Strategy 4) Search for broken links which your site could repair
As articles and web pages age, the links they feature can oftentimes fail. ‘Broken links’ are those that no longer link to active websites, perhaps because the destination site has been removed or the URL altered. Broken links are a bummer for ‘busy bees’ in SEO marketing, since they degrade the quality of their pages. You can exploit this by searching for broken links which your own links could replace.
On Chrome, download and install the free Check My Links extension. Then, when visiting the same type of websites you searched for during the outreach strategy, use this extension to check for broken links. When you find ones, which you feel you could confidently replace, contact the page owner and suggest just this. It can be a real win-win situation: they don’t want broken links on their pages, and you want more backlinks to yours.
Strategy 5) Answering questions online and backlinking with quality content
A further route you could explore would be the potential for backlinking through Q&A sites like Quora. These forums draw countless queries from confused web users on a daily basis. It’s important not to spam these sites with your links, but by authoritatively answering the odd super-relevant query, you can provide value to the end user whilst alerting them to your site’s existence through a well-placed backlink.
Additionally, the other content you post online can also act as a backlink to your site. Try to focus on producing value-added content for your followers via your social media channels. Videos, soundbites, quotes and text-based images can offer social media users useful information and entertainment, which may then encourage them to check out your profile and, subsequently, your website.
Strategy 6) Back up your backlinks with solid on-site SEO
Finally, we’d be remiss if we didn’t make this point clear: link-building for free can be supremely effective, but if it’s not supported by a solid and user-friendly site, it may all be for nothing.
Ultimately, the prospective customer or client who clicks your backlink won’t stick around for long if they get to your website and find it clunky, inaccessible, unhelpful or otherwise frustrating to navigate.
Search engine optimisation (SEO) encompasses all of the various quality control and formatting measures you can use to ensure that once prospects arrive at your site, via backlinks, they stay there long enough to convert (be that purchasing a product, engaging a service, or remembering you for later).
The advantages of outsourcing link building to an SEO agency
There are a lot of moving parts in an effective link-building campaign. Without the people resources to dedicate to building quality backlinks, even the lack of a financial cost may not enable your business to approach backlinking properly. Alternatively, without expertise in SEO, your backlinking efforts may fall short of their full potential.
It may come as little surprise, therefore, that as many as 60% of businesses outsource link-building to an SEO agency. The costs associated with SEO management are soon recouped in a link-building campaign sculpted by experts to drive your business toward its short- and long-term goals.
Recapping how to build backlinks without paying for them
Backlinks are the backbone, if you’ll excuse the pun, of successful SEO. They help businesses attract high-quality organic traffic, heighten brand awareness and stickiness, and rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Even novice SEO marketers can build backlinks without having to pay for them, via a number of strategies outlined above: from classic outreach and collaborations, to broken link repair and shareable content creation.
If you’d like to advance the effectiveness of your link-building, or just learn a little more about backlinks from the experts, visit beefound.agency today and ‘bee’ found online by the clients and customers you want to attract.
