Improve Your Link Building: Strategies To Rule The SERPs In 2022
Link building is one of the major Google ranking factors. Each link to your website is essentially a vote of trust for its credibility. The more votes you earn, the better! However, not all links have the same value. There are quite a bunch of link building strategies that you can use to get more relevant websites to link to your website.
So, which link building strategies are you going to be focusing on this year? If you haven't made your plans yet, in this article, I'll share a few tips to take into consideration for your eLearning brand.
Oh, and don't forget, if you haven't already, make sure to add your eLearning business listing to our niche directory!
Interesting Link Building Strategies To Consider For Your Business
Having a solid linking strategy is the plan to follow if you want to show up in the first pages of the SERPs. Hence, SEOs create and implement such techniques to help websites organize, monitor, and optimize links. Of course, you don't have to be an SEO expert to start working on your link building strategies and see results.
Every good link building strategy needs a plan. You have to decide which pages you want to increase search visibility for. And then, you can use a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush to figure out how many links you'll need to build to get better search engine ranking.
With these ideas below, you'll manage to see a boost in traffic, sales, and an improvement in your rankings. Here we go:
1. Become A Real-World Event Sponsor
Have you ever considered using events as one of your link building strategies? Such events could be local, national, or international.
There are two approaches you can use:
Host An Event
The good news is that by hosting your own event, you can then have it advertised on third-party event sites. They'll definitely link back to your website and also help you get quality leads along with it!
Event websites are usually of high authority regarding SEO. So, these links are incredibly relevant and valuable.
For example, on our platform, plenty of vendors run successful webinars and leverage our built-in eLearning audience.
Sponsor An Event
On the other hand, if you don't have the time or resources to create your own event, you can always sponsor an event hosted by someone else. Most hosts will list your website (and link to it) as they do with all their sponsors.
Besides, this approach is also great for building good relationships with other authority websites in your niche industry. From workshops and conferences to lectures and clubs, you have to figure out what type of events are relevant to your niche.
Start making your event list and make sure to understand which ones are likely to be hosted online. For example, national or international events are better options.
Make sure to research for such events on sites like:
- Eventful
- Events.org
- MeetUp
Another way you can find events that you can sponsor is to use again Google searches and type these suggestions below:
- site:[website URL] inurl:registration +"sponsors"
- site:[website URL] inurl:events + "link to your"
- site:[website URL] inurl:events +"sponsors"
Once you have discovered all the relevant opportunities, you can set up your sponsorships for each event and start setting up Google alerts for any new sponsorship opportunities during the upcoming year.
2. Start Building Powerful Edu Links
Have you ever managed to get an .edu link for your website? If you don't even know what that means and why you need it, hold on. I'll explain in detail.
So, what are EDU backlinks?
Well, if an .edu domain links back to your website, then voila! You've got an EDU backlink for your business. Such domains could be official websites of schools, universities, and any other academic institution.
Plenty of SEO professionals are looking for EDU backlinks because these links can increase website domain and page authority. So, the more EDU backlinks you get, the more trust you'll earn from Google. That will lead to better authority, traffic, and rankings in your niche. Believe me, Google values immensely these educational domains.
If you are looking for high-quality backlinks, these are the best approach.
Let's say you want to see which educational links your competitor got, and then go after them. It's doable, but you'll need a bit of SEO magic to dig them out. For example, plenty of educational sites link to eLearning Industry because of the content relevance. That shows interest in this type of content, which is awesome news for eLearning businesses and LMS websites.
Reverse engineering is always the simplest and most effective approach. Still, it needs some creativity from your end. Make sure to open each competitor's earned link and figure out how and why they managed to get it. Be it quality of content or because they offer something unique and valuable, there are still ways to replicate it and create even better and more comprehensive content.
Do let me know if you need any help with your competitor backlink analysis.
3. Leverage Crowdfunding Sites For Link Building Purposes
If you're looking for lesser-known link building strategies, here's a reason to consider crowdfunding websites. Why? Well, when people raise money for their business through crowdfunding, they often place a link to each person that contributed to reaching the budget.
Can you see where I'm heading with this one? For example, a donation can vary from $1 up to thousands of dollars. As you can understand, you can find all kinds of projects to stand for across different niches. For this reason, crowdfunding sites are a brilliant opportunity to get backlinks for your website.
There are numerous crowdfunding sites out there to search through. But, Indiegogo is one of my favorites, so let's use it as an example. Say you want to find such opportunities on this specific crowdfunding website. If you don't want to go searching all around the website, you can use these keywords on Google search:
- site:[indiegogo.com] inurl:projects +"donor page"
- site:[indiegogo.com] inurl:projects + "link to your"
Similarly, you can search for link building opportunities on other crowdfunding websites by replacing the relevant URL in the above search query.
Do let me know if you manage to find any interesting crowdfunding projects to support!
4. Publish Testimonials About Relevant Programs Or Services
Let's continue with one of the easiest link building strategies. It only requires just a few minutes of work, and in return, you can build powerful homepage links to your website. For this one, you'll need to reach out to relevant websites and offer positive testimonials for services or products you are using. That way, you can have your testimonial published with a link back to your website!
Can't wait to start building numerous external links like these with your testimonials? Great! First off, you must generate a list of targets. So, you need to find websites for services and products that you could provide a testimonial for. Remember, each site needs to have existing testimonials, be relevant to your niche, and actually be about a product/service that you use.
Start by writing a list of products/tools/services you already use in your business. If you're struggling to develop any ideas, you could cheat a little bit.
Look at what other tools and services people in your niche use, or get help from our link building SEO experts.
Then, you have to find the right person to pitch to. More often than not, you can just ask via the contact form on the website. Some might also have dedicated testimonial submission forms. Or you can leverage these handy tools to help you find email addresses
- Find That Lead
- Hunter
Keep it short, sweet, and simple when putting together your pitch. A small intro will do. Also, explain how X tool has helped you, include specific results, and at the end, ask if you can create a testimonial for them.
5. Harness Internal Link Building
Sometimes a super easy strategy to implement, one that carries very little to no risk of penalization, is the way to go. Have you felt the same? Well, then you'll agree that internal link building is of the safest strategies. What I love most about it is the complete control you have over where you place your links. The same goes for the anchor text that you can use.
Internal links are very valuable, but most people don't realize just how much they improve your SEO rankings. Best of all, search engines like Google use them to discover new high-quality content on your website.
With a good site structure and quality content, you can leverage internal links to direct traffic to important high-converting pages. And, to everyone's surprise, this is one of the most underused link building strategies in SEO; it beats me why. Maybe because it's very easy to implement.
For a better manual internal link building process, make a list of your target keywords and URLs. Then, you can use Google to search for blog posts on your website where you could add relevant links with this query site:yourdomain.com keyword.
Such a strategy should be an ongoing process, so make sure to add your internal links (try to use exact match anchor text) from old content to new content every time you publish. If you feel less confident with the manual approach, you can benefit from tools like Yoast SEO if you're using WordPress. Or, you can utilize the SEO tools offered from Ahrefs, Semrush, Ubbersuggest, etc., to find relevant keywords and content to improve your website rankings.
Looking for new interesting topics? Find out how an SEO competitor analysis enables you to write targeted content along with extra keywords to link to!
Summing Up
So, what do you think about the link building strategies I've shared with you?
Of course, there are plenty of ways you can get an extra backlink if you haven't already. For example, you can showcase your presence on Social Media. Through your 'About' page, you can connect a new visitor to your services and products by adding a link to your website. Similarly, don't forget to add links to your posts. Plus, you can get more socially engaged with relevant communities and groups. Then, you can start sharing tips and even some links. But don't overdo it. Quora and Reddit might be great options for the above. Pinterest is even more interesting, especially for eLearning professionals. The opportunities are endless!
Also, consider implementing a strategic guest blogging approach. It might be much harder to earn a genuine link placement in 2022, but I sure hope the above backlinking strategies help you reach your SEO goals faster. Do you find link building daunting? Our SEO experts and content marketing specialists can help you create unique content that increases DA and boosts conversions.
If you need assistance in finding prospects, qualifying relevant blogs, and getting started, feel free to download a link building strategy sample for your company.
