5 Tactics for Building Quality Links in 2016

Links are the reason the internet isn’t an unorganized mess.

Links provide direction and structure. Without URLs that point to each website or page—and without search engines like Google to catalogue them—the internet would be a very different place.

Links are the highways of the internet, and backlinks are the exit signs that take travelers off the main path and into your website.

Whether it’s for traffic, SEO, or influencer outreach, building high-quality backlinks should always be on our minds. Today I’m going to show you 5 advanced and highly actionable tactics to build links smarter, not harder.

5 Ultra-Effective Backlink Building Techniques for 2016

Backlinks can come from anywhere, but not all backlinks are created equal.

The following tactics listed in this post will help you build high-quality links to your site.

Before we dive into those tactics, let’s quickly review what we’re looking for in a high-quality backlink.

A quality backlink:

• Comes from a relevant source.
• Is on a site with a high TrustRank.
• Provides consistent traffic.
• Contains relevant and varied anchor text.
• Is placed within the site’s content.
• Lives on an authoritive page (PageRank).
• Is surrounded by other high-quality links on the page.
• Comes from a source different than your other backlinks.
• Is not reciprocal.
• Isn’t easily earned.

You don’t need to check off this entire list for every backlink, but each element should be kept in mind when you’re hunting down new link opportunities.

Now, let’s dive into our link building techniques!

1. The Skyscraper Technique

When I first decided to create a blog, I was in the camp of people that thought backlinks would come naturally to awesome content. Once I created awesome content, people would stumble upon it and automatically link to it as they finished picking up the pieces of their blown mind.

Brian Dean taught me with his Skyscraper Technique that awesome content is not enough. Publishing great content is only the first step. You need to take a planned approach to promotion to ensure it is seen by the right people. That’s the aim of the Skyscraper technique.

The Skyscraper Technique is divided into three major steps:

1. Find content people are linking to.
2. Create something similar (but way better).
3. Show it to the right people (those linking to similar content).

For the first step, use a tool like Ahrefs to look at your competitor’s websites and see which pages are getting the most links. Ideally we should be looking for pages with 25 links or more. That data tells us that people want to link to that content.

Examine these pages in-depth and look for ways to improve them. Typical ways to improve a page include:

• Make your page longer and more in-depth.
• Update elements of the post that are outdated on the original page.
• Give your page more visuals and design elements.
• Find a similar but unique angle that covers the topic in-depth.

Once you've created your page, the final step is to utilize email outreach to get your amazing new post in front of the right auidence.

You should target the same people who were linking to your competitors by downloading all of the links pointing to that content from Ahrefs.

Remove any directories or forums and create a template to email the rest. Something like this will work perfectly:

Hey (site owner),

I noticed you linked to one of my favorite articles on (subject) + (URL).

I recently published a similar (and better) post that I think you’ll really like. It’s longer, more thorough, and up-to-date.

I thought I would let you know in case you want to mention/link to it on your page.

Thanks for your time!

Cheers,

(your name)

Simple and easy. This template will help you earn new links from high-quality sources, all while providing internet users with amazing content on your blog or website—assuming you've actually invested in creating better content.

2. Create and Promote a Scholarship

When it comes to backlinks, anything that comes from a .edu or .gov website carry the same level of authority you would get from a major TLD, so they’re absolutely worth getting when you can. A great way to do this with .edu links is to create and promote a scholarship.

Just like the technique above, this tactic isn’t something you can do half-hearted or even just once. You need to fully invest in this technique if you want to see lasting results. Here’s as step-by-step breakdown of this process:

1. Establish Your Scholarship

Start by answering the big questions like “how much will the winning applicant earn?” and what you’re basing the award on in terms of financial needs, academic performance, community outreach, or a combination of them all.

Decide if you want applicants to fill out an application, or if you want transcripts and an essay as well. Provide contact information like an email or phone number as well. I recommend creating a customer scholarship email for handling these inquiries, just make sure it is an email pointing to your business’ domain.

2. Create Your Scholarship Page

The next step is to create a page dedicated to your scholarship. Here you’ll include all the details outlined above. Make the page organized and functional, but don’t be afraid to make it visually engaging.

Hiring a designer to create a separate information sheet that you can include in your email outreach isn’t required, but it does add an extra layer of sophistication that shows you’re serious about your program.

3. Perform Email Outreach

Every legitimate tactic to secure quality backlinks requires you to perform email outreach at some point in the process, and this tactic is no different. You can start by looking for similar scholarships locally by searching for them using this format:

(City) College intitle:scholarships

Change out the word “college” with “university” and other terms to expand your results. You can also replace college with specific industries. Create a spreadsheet and start compiling lists of competitor scholarships.

Once again, use a backlink tool to see which schools are linking to these sites. You can also check local universities yourself and look at their financial aid page to see if they post links to external scholarships like your own.

When you have a list going, look at the school’s contact page to see if there’s a specific email for scholarships and use that address for your outreach.

3. Find High-Quality Guest Post Opportunities

Guest posting has been and continues to be a great way to earn backlinks to your site, while also gaining new readers through carefully crafted content. As you begin your search for opportunities here, start by looking for blogs that are in your industry or niche and are active on social media.

When you’ve found some that match your content, start performing keyword searches to narrow down your results.

A few advanced search strings to use:

• [Your keyword] “submit a guest post”
• [Your keyword] “guest post”
• [Your keyword] “guest post guidelines”

This will pull up specific submission pages so you can see which sites are currently accepting new content. The same searches can be performed on social media sites like Twitter for similar results.

Looking at your competitor’s backlinks, you’re also certain to find a few they earned from guest posts. Submitting a post of your own to one of those sites is also advised.

You can hire a virtual assistant using a platform like Upwork and have them compile a spreadsheet for you that incorporates the information you or your writers need to start producing guest posts.

A link to the guidelines for each site, contact information, and a potential topics to pitch them are all recommended elements.

4. Building Links With Infographics

If you don’t have design experience and you’re not able to shell out tons of money to a designer, don’t worry.

I’m no graphic design major either, but I’ve still made some awesome infographics myself with the help of inexpensive designers.

If you’re set on building your own infographics, then I wholeheartedly recommend Canva which is a free tool you can use to build amazing graphics of all shapes and sizes.

If you’re more interested in hiring someone. I recommend using either Dribble or Fiver to look for potential designers at a low cost to you. You'll have to be sort through quite a few submissions to find quality.

Once you’ve created a useful and visually enticing graphic, you need to create an embed code.

Luckily, I have the perfect solution for you in the form of Siege Media Generator. Put the infographic on your site first with a post surrounding it, and then you can send emails to others in your niche or industry with the embed code.

Ask them to share it on their site and offer to write a small introduction for the post so they don’t have to.

5. Earning Backlinks From Social Media

Backlinks on social media come from posts that you share and from others that share your posts. These links are rarely given much attention for their SEO value because they’re noFollow links, but the reason we’re bringing it up here is because noFollow links do have value for your site.

Consider these facts about noFollow links:

• noFollow links raise awareness of your business/brand.
• They lead people to your landing pages and create conversions.
• They can lead to other pages with doFollow links.
• They create natural variance in your backlink profile.

While you don’t need to prioritize backlinks from social media, you should keep them in mind as a means of raising awareness and balancing out your backlink profile to avoid penalties from Google.

Don’t write these off just because they don’t directly add to your SEO.

Final Thoughts