Not all backlinks are created equal.
Here are seven types you should prioritize building for better off-page SEO.
Here are seven types you should prioritize building for better off-page SEO.
- Editorial links—the most valuable: When other sites cite you as a source. Apart from earning them organically, you can get these via HARO or connecting with journalists directly (discussed last week).
- Guest posts: These are best to do on authoritative sites that your target audience would read. And make sure you make them really good.
- Relationship-based links: Say you’ve received a link from a reputable site. If you reach out to the site owner with an offer to contribute more info it could lead to more links in the future. The point isn’t to negotiate for links, but to become a reliable source for journalists and writers.
- Business profiles: Links from business directories and social media profiles (think Crunchbase and Yelp). You can create these links yourself, but don’t go so far as to get them from irrelevant, unheard of directories.
- Public speaking: Taking part as a guest on podcasts, webinars, online courses, and conferences not only creates natural linking opportunities—it also builds your expertise (important since Google’s algorithm looks for EEAT).
- Embedded asset links: Think tools, widgets, awards, and badges that other site owners embed onto their sites.
- Reverse backlinks: This is a concept Brian Dean from Backlinko talked about. Instead of reaching out about backlinks, create content that people can't help but link to. Original research is the big lever here—other articles will cite your findings.
- Link farms or other low-quality sites.
- Posting on forums without meaningfully adding to the discussion.
- Paying for links (against Google's ToS).
- Sites that add "nofollow" tags to their external links. No real point since it won't count!