How To Build Future Proof Your Backlinks For 2019 and Beyond

Google has a love/hate relationship with backlinks. Links are very much a core part of their algorithm which determines the rankings of websites and this will remain so for many more years to come.

However, many webmasters have found numerous ways to create backlinks that are definitely not to Google’s liking such as through PBNs, SAPE links, etc. As a result, Google actively clamps down on any website that is found guilty of unnatural backlinking, leading to waves of penalties almost every day.

Now, seeing that links are pretty much essential but can also be detrimental to your site, building the right backlinks is quite tricky. We will now take a look at a couple of future proof tips and guidelines that will ensure that the quality of your backlinks remains high and you get the maximum amount of link juice from them as possible.

Don’t Build Irrelevant Niche Edits

As you know, niche edits have become quite popular in the last year. This is when you basically get a link from an aged article on a site. This is quite different from guest posting since you don’t have to write a brand new post. The benefits of these are tremendous since you get a link from a post that has probably been up for a couple of months or even years, which means it has a significant authority which it can pass onto your linked site. Guest posts, on the other hand, are completely new, and even if the domain is powerful, the page itself isn’t, which means it will pass less link juice.

Now, one of the worst things you can do is build lots of irrelevant niche edits. For example, if you’re trying to get niche edit links for a site on blender reviews, but you get links from sites that are about the Blender 3D animation software, you will likely be hit by an unnatural link penalty. Relevance is the name of the game, so make sure that you get niche edit links on sites that are actually related to your site.  

Create Link Worthy Pages On Your Site

IThere’s an age-old saying; if you want to get links, build content that naturally attracts links. This is actually half true. You do need to build content that is actually linked worthy, BUT you also need to market it like crazy. You can start by searching on Buzzsumo for content in your niche that lots of people have shared or linked to. Then, you can go and create a significantly better version of that content. This can be an infographic, large how-to guide, viral post, resource, etc.

Once you have created your new super amazing page, you then need to contact everyone that linked to the original content, show them the new amazing content you’ve created and ask them to link to yours. The chances are very high that they’ll link to it.

In addition to contacting these people, you should create a new list of prospects that would benefit from your new resource and email them as well. Links are a numbers game, so if you want to get at least 20 links, then you should aim to prospect and contact at least 200 – 300 websites (7 – 10% conversion rate).

Personalize Your Outreach

Outreach is a very popular form of white hat link building, however, it takes a lot of time and energy to do it. As a result, many people have turned to various tools to automate as much of it as possible, which includes blasting templated emails at hundreds or thousands of contacts.

The downside of doing this is that you’ll have a very low conversion rate, probably under 4%. Also, since you’ll be sending templates, most people have already gotten accustomed to these and this will result in lower opens or responses. No one wants to talk to a robot.

So, to increase the number of replies and conversions that you get, it is best to personalize and customize each email as much as you can. This includes bringing up something that you read on their blog, being interesting and witty, etc. This will take a lot of time, so it is best that you hire a virtual assistant or train a new employee specifically for outreach.

Get Links Through Reverse Image Searching & Brand Mentions

If you have lots of unique or original images on your site, then you’ll be surprised to know how many other sites are actually using your images without any attribution. You can easily find these sites by doing a Google image search on each one of the original images on your site.

Once you have found sites using your images, all you need to do is send them a friendly email asking for attribution i.e. a link back to your site. This is extremely effective and will lead to lots of white hat links.

Additionally, you should look for mentions of your brand online that aren’t linked back to your site. This can easily be done using Buzzsumo. Once you find a site that mentions you or your brand without a backlink, simply contact them and ask for one.

Develop A Name For Yourself In Your Niche

Lastly, the final tip is to become known in your niche as an expert. As time passes by, Google keeps placing importance on relevance and authority. They want to rank sites that show they have content written by experts in their respective fields. For example, if you have a health site, then you need to prove that you’re a health professional or the content on your site is written by a health professional.

Unsurprisingly, not only Google wants to see this but other sites in your niche. More webmasters are becoming picky about what sites they link to and only want to link to authoritative sites written by niche experts. So, you should strive to position yourself as such by creating social media pages, LinkedIn profiles, guests posts that show your expertise, etc. Once you do this, you’ll find more and more prospects are more than happy to link to your site.

Summary

As you can see, building effective links in the future will become more challenging, but it is also not impossible. Once you put in the effort, you will see results which are not only more links but the real reward of higher rankings and more organic traffic.