By following the right formula to obtain backlinks, you can significantly heighten your website’s rankings and authority. Today you will be learning some underrated and new implementation techniques to acquire baclink by using the same old methods. Happy reading!
Become a Source For Reporters and Bloggers
If you want your website to be one of top top-ranking websites, then you need to build white hat links from authority news sites and blogs. Becoming a source for reporters and bloggers isn’t as tricky as it sounds. All you need to do is reach to free platform named Help a Reporter Out (HARO).
What is Help a Reporter Out (HARO)?
HARO (Help a Reporter Out) is an online platform that connects journalists seeking information with sources who can provide relevant answers. Journalists post questions about the topics they are covering.
HARO is known for the slogan “a source for every story.”
Both journalists and sources benefit from HARO. Journalists save time by finding sources quickly, while sources can multiply their reach and heighten their credibility. This is a method to build white hat backlinks if the journalist links to the source.
HARO is used by journalists from major authoritative news sites like Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, as well as other smaller niche websites.
How You Can Use Help a Reporter Out (HARO) to Build White Hat Backlinks?
Using HARO is a highly effective method for those seeking to build high-quality backlinks at scale. However, it requires effort and strategy. Hope these step-by-step guidelines ease the backlink-acquiring action:
- Register as a source.
- Choose a free or paid plan.
- Provide your contact information and list your company.
- Select your HARO preferences.
- Monitor requests you can contribute to.
- Only opt for queries in your areas of expertise to increase your chances of getting featured and improve your visibility for relevant terms.
- Before pitching, make sure that the query is relevant to your business, and that you’re eligible to offer a valuable and meaningful contribution.
- Finally, send the journalist a concise and valuable pitch.
The Formula for Writing High-Conversion Pitches to Reporters
Reporters receive hundreds of responses to their queries, and many work on multiple articles simultaneously. To stand out:
- Target overworked journalists: Highlight your unique angle to stand out from the competition.
- Your Subject lines should be clear and concise: Immediately tell reporters the query you’re addressing and the outlet you saw it on.
Here’s a formula to follow:
[Outlet Name] – [Query] (Unique Angle)
To 10x your chances of getting the backlink, direly focus on the query’s requirement, come up with a unique angle, and double-check your subject line to avoid unprofessionalism.
To reflect the unique angle in your pitch:
- Share a relevant anecdote or experience that connects with the query.
- Link to original research conducted by your company that supports your perspective.
- Respectfully debunk a popular misconception related to the query.
Note that about 75,000 journalists and bloggers use HARO. But being discouraged is not the solution. By writing well-targeted pitches, you can increase your chances of landing media coverage.
Publish “Skyscraper” Content
What is Skyscraper Content?
The skyscraper content technique is an SEO research and content development framework designed to make your website the internet’s tallest “skyscraper.” The goal is to create content that is larger, better, newer, more engaging, and more relevant than other websites on your topic.
Skyscraper content typically ranges from 1,500 words and beyond and includes long-form content pieces such as:
- Blogs
- Whitepapers
- eBooks
- Help articles
Unearthing Existing Content
Begin by identifying a piece of content in your industry that has already achieved strong backlink performance.
To do this easily, conduct a Google search for your keyword and review the first page results. It’s evident that pages ranking prominently are those with a substantial number of backlinks, as backlinks serve as a fundamental Google ranking factor.
Analyzing the Competition
Let’s understand the whole method by using an example. Let’s say your goal is to create skyscraper content for ” Best keyword research for SEO“
Search for “keyword research for SEO” and analyze the top-ranking articles. These are your established skyscrapers. Note their commonalities – tools they recommend, research approaches, and target keyword discussions.
See if they focus on free or paid tools. Are they talking about advanced keyword research techniques, or keep it beginner-friendly? Make a list of their strengths – clear explanations, case studies – and weaknesses – lack of advanced techniques, outdated tool recommendations.
Create 10 Times Improved Content than What you Found
You can create 10 times improved content than what you found by introducing freshness, depth, and unique angles in your existing content. For example, if search engines are displaying relatively short content forms for your search query, then it’s the best time to capitalize on the situation and create a long-form piece that nobody else has produced.
Freshness: The best way to introduce freshness in your existing content is by increasing the length and by making the design interactive. You can also identify outdated parts of the original article and update them with some new images, stats, research, screenshots, etc.
Depth: For depth, you can increase the number of sections in your content form to make it more detailed. For example, if your chosen best content has listed information. Now your goal should be to fill them up with further details.
Unique Angle: To provide your Skyscraper content with a unique angle, consider creating something innovative, nuanced, or presenting a fresh viewpoint. This can be achieved through:
- Conducting original research
- Interviewing experts
- Utilizing unique data sets
- Presenting a dissenting viewpoint
- Introducing a Novel Approach to addressing a longstanding Issue
- Simplifying complex subjects through visualization techniques
Promote your “Skyscraper” Content
After publishing your initial blog post or article using the Skyscraper Technique, you can initiate outreach efforts to promote your content. Develop a personalized email marketing campaign aimed at contacting site owners who have previously linked to similar content. Each email should notify them of your new publication, suggesting it as a potential addition to their page.
Use Content Formats That Attracts Backlinks
Most of the content over the search engines is completely ignored and have zero backlinks. How to tackle this situation? Well there are few content types SEO experts say are best at attracting links. Let’s discuss them:
Infographics
Studies show infographics are a dominant content type for link building. Over half (53%) of SEO professionals create cornerstone infographics, and a significant majority (61%) find them successful in acquiring backlinks.
The creation process for link-worthy infographics can be broken down into three key steps:
Topic Selection: Ensure the chosen topic is highly relevant to your target audience and maximize specificity. For instance, if your niche is social media, focus on a single trending platform.
Data Gathering: Collect data points, ideally from original research, directly related to your chosen topic. Subsequently, structure these data points in a logical flow for presentation on the infographic.
Visual Design: Prioritize clear visuals. Employ large fonts and represent all crucial statistics with engaging visuals to ensure they stand out for viewers.
The Concept of Guesto-Graphics
Guestographics, a hybrid of infographics, guest blogging, and link-building, target backlinks for website pages. They are infographics co-created with a partner site or designed to acquire backlinks. This cost-effective strategy contrasts with traditional infographic promotion, where you plead for others to share your work. Instead, guestographics incentivize partner sites to embed the infographic directly within their content.
Similar to guest blogging, but with a visual element, guestographics uses the strengths of infographics: data visualization, high shareability, and engaging design. This combination can generate high-quality SEO backlinks.
The guestographics backlink acquisition process involves two initial steps: target identification and proposal development.
Target Identification: Locate existing blog content demonstrating organic traffic but lacking an infographic component. This content represents an opportunity for mutually beneficial collaboration.
Proposal Development: Craft a compelling pitch to the site editor introducing the guestographic concept. This pitch should ideally request an outline of the target content to ensure alignment and maximize the infographic’s effectiveness within the existing blog post.
Including Recent Data, Research, and Case Studies
It’s important to note that while 70% of respondents believe data and research are the most effective types of content for building links, only 54% have actually done it. The reason is simple: creating studies and compiling original research takes a lot of time and planning.
To bridge this gap, consider the following three key elements:
Audience Targeting: Identify the specific questions and information needs of your target audience.
Content Authority: Establish your brand as a thought leader within your niche. This may necessitate the creation of multiple research reports to solidify your credibility.
Goal Setting: Clearly define the objectives of your research before data collection commences. Determine how you plan to leverage the data and the anticipated impact of your survey findings.
Ultimate Guides
High quality backlinks remain a cornerstone of achieving high search engine rankings. While the importance is established, the question remains – how to acquire these links? “Ultimate Guides” present a compelling solution.
Their effectiveness stems from the comprehensive nature of the content. These guides consolidate a vast amount of information on a single page, creating a robust resource. It’s normal for such guides to surpasses 5000 words in length.
Multiple SEO ranking factor studies consistently demonstrate the positive correlation between long-form content and improved Google performance compared to shorter articles.
Ultimate Guides address an entire topic definitively within a single resource. This depth establishes them as the go-to resource for a specific subject, increasing the likelihood of backlinks whenever that topic is addressed within another blog post.
The implementation of Ultimate Guides for link building requires a three-step process:
Topic Selection: Identify a popular topic within your niche that hasn’t reached saturation in terms of existing content. Aim to avoid creating redundant guides; focus on offering a fresh perspective or addressing an under-explored aspect of the chosen subject.
Content Outlining: Develop a comprehensive outline for your Ultimate Guide. This outline should clearly set out the subtopics that will comprise the larger thematic framework.
Content Creation: Write your Ultimate Guide, ensuring it covers all relevant aspects of the chosen topic. Aim for in-depth coverage to establish your guide as the definitive resource within your niche.
Find Broken Links
Broken link building uses broken links within your niche to acquire backlinks. The process involves identifying broken links (“404 errors”) on relevant webpages and subsequently contacting webmasters to propose your own resources as replacements.
This not only improves user experience by rectifying broken links but also presents a win-win scenario: webmasters benefit from a functional link, while you gain a valuable backlink to your website.
The broken link building process can be implemented through a series of well-defined steps:
- Target Identification: Utilize tools like Dead Link Checker or Ahrefs’ Broken Link Feature to locate relevant websites within your niche that contain broken links.
- Broken Link Discovery: Once target websites are identified, pinpoint the specific outbound links that are no longer functional.
- Content Creation: Develop new content that thematically aligns with the topic or anchor text of the identified broken link.
- Webmaster Outreach: Initiate contact with the website manager. The outreach message should be personalized and reference the discovered broken link. Clearly articulate the value proposition of your content as a suitable replacement, and include hyperlinks for easy reference.
- Content Recreation (Advanced Tactic): For advanced users, consider recreating the content originally linked to by the broken link. This advanced tactic offers an alternative solution for webmasters.
Guest Posting
Guest posting is a widely-used link building strategy where you write and publish content on another website, which includes a backlink to your own site. These “guest post backlinks” represent valuable inbound links earned through guest article contributions. They play a crucial role in SEO by enhancing website visibility, driving organic traffic, and solidifying your brand’s digital authority.
How to Find High-Quality Sites for Guest Posts?
There are two types of guest posting websites:
High-quality websites
High-quality websites typically adhere to rigorous content guidelines and publish well-written, original content relevant to your niche.
Low-quality websites
Low-quality guest posting websites prioritize link building over content quality, often resulting in irrelevant or poorly written content.
For new entrants to guest posting, this distinction is crucial. High-quality backlinks from reputable websites positively influence search engine rankings.
In contrast, backlinks from low-quality sites offer minimal to no ranking benefit and may even incur penalties from search engines for violating guidelines against manipulative link-building practices. These penalties can manifest as disregarded backlinks or reduced website ranking.
Over To You Now!
There you have it: 5 proven ways to earn white hat backlinks. Now is the time for implementation. For expert advice, never hesitate to reach out to a professional link building agency. Good Luck!
