Many entrepreneurs, business owners and marketers can relate to the difficulty of growing a business. Backlinks are the foundation of Google's algorithm for determining a site’s page rank. What Google wants to see is authoritative and relatable links talking about your site. This is an authoritative website that is now linking back to DermWarehouse. Relevance: Does the website that is linking back to your website relate to your business? If you are writing a blog for a brand-new website that has no authority, chances are that nobody will find this on Google. It is important to spend time researching relevant websites where you’d like to contribute content. The more personal the pitch though, the higher your chances are of forging a relationship. Now it is time to write great content. Make sure you can contribute more articles to this same site so you have an ongoing relationship.
Many entrepreneurs, business owners and marketers can relate to the difficulty of growing a business. Not only do you have to execute on the day-to-day operations but you also have to serve as a sales rep if you want to successfully grow.
A great solution to get more business without having to dedicate valuable time to networking events and cold calling is link building. This has helped my agency, The Media Captain, grow into one of the largest digital shops in Ohio. I’ve also helped hundreds of clients increase their Google rank by following the methods below.
I’m going to teach beginners the basic foundation of link building and how it can help your business move from the fifth page of Google to the first. Our digital agency ranks prominently in the Columbus market (our hometown) for a wide variety of keywords. My family business, DermWarehouse, ranks nationally for skincare and beauty products after opening our doors less than a year ago.
As you can imagine, if you achieve page one rankings on Google, it can be a huge differentiator for your business. I’m here to teach you how to execute this strategy successfully for your own business.
What is link building?
Backlinks are the foundation of Google’s algorithm for determining a site’s page rank. If you want a complex explanation of the original PageRank algorithm, click here.
I’ll give you the CliffsNotes version: Google views your site as authoritative when other sites link back to it. It doesn’t want to see a site that is spammy linking back to your site. If you try and manipulate the system, you can get hit with a Google penalty and your site won’t rank at all.
What Google wants to see is authoritative and relatable links talking about your site.
A real-life example
Below is an example of a backlink I acquired for my family business, DermWarehouse. You can see that we got my dad, a dermatologist who is the face of the operation, quoted in Seventeen magazine. This is an authoritative website that is now linking back to DermWarehouse. Better yet, the content relates to skincare and beauty, which means it is relevant. Anytime you are trying to acquire backlinks, remember the following three components.
- Authoritativeness: How powerful a website is in the eyes of Google. You can use a metric called Domain Authority to gauge this.
- Relevance: Does the website that is linking back to your website relate to your business? Make sure there is a strong relevance when acquiring backlinks.
- Locality: If you have a storefront location, you’ll want to make sure you acquire local backlinks. This can be from the Better Business Bureau, a sponsorship of a local baseball team, etc.
One of the most common misconceptions is that blogging on your own site is going to help your SEO. New clients will always ask our agency, “How many links will you be posting onto our blog per month?”
If you build up the credibility on your website to the point where it has a high domain authority, internal blogs can be a great way to lure in new website traffic into your funnel.
If you are writing a blog for a brand-new website that has no authority, chances are that nobody will find this on Google. It is the equivalent of writing a great book but it’s not in any bookstores, so people can’t find it and therefore can’t read it. It is more important, especially in the early stages of a website, to write content for external websites. Is it helpful to have fresh content on your site? Yes. You can also promote this content on social media. This won’t move the needle for your SEO though.
Recommended strategy for local business
If you own a hockey shop in Cleveland, Ohio, you can find hockey-related websites where you can contribute article content talking about the best goalie skates for 2017 or the different sticks used by the top 10 scorers in the league. You can also write for a local Cleveland website where you give advice on the best spots for pond hockey in the city.
In the examples above, the Cleveland hockey shop would be getting links on authoritative, industry-related websites along with local websites. People reading the articles on the external sites where the hockey guru is contributing content would be able to find out more about the Cleveland hockey shop by clicking on the author’s bio or clicking on a hyperlink to one of the hockey skates he is referencing. This would result in high quality referral traffic, another positive to Google, in addition to the backlink. If this store owner sold goalie skates on his website, this could also generate new business.
Any business owner or marketer should try to acquire between 4-5 relevant backlinks per month. This requires a lot of…
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