Are you building backlinks to rank higher in search? That’s great. But are you doing it the white hat way? 

Google, the Big Brother, is constantly watching things people do to climb up the ladder and achieve greater online visibility. 

If it detects the use of unfair black hat tactics for higher rankings, even if you aren’t doing it intentionally, it will penalize your site. While a search engine penalty puts many hurdles along the path, lower rankings are the biggest one of them. 

I’m sure that’s the last thing a website owner wants.

Gone are the days when just the number of backlinks mattered. From its Penguin update to the most recent Link Spam update, Google keeps emphasizing the importance of link quality over quantity.

So, it’s high time to switch to white hat link building if you want Google to reward your site with higher rankings.

White hat link building is the process of building backlinks in an ethical way without violating Google’s guidelines.

Ready to find out the white hat techniques to build backlinks? Let’s get started.

1. High-Value Blog Content Creation

Having a blog for your website eases you into adopting backlinks as well as internal links, which help in boosting your site through search engines. Content in the blogs should be of high quality and value to attract backlinks.

The keywords added in the content of a blog alert search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo to notice your website and rank it.

Place social sharing buttons on each blog post so it encourages users to share and, in turn, help your site receive more backlinks, traffic and better rank in search engine results.

2. Use Original Data

Including original data specific to your brand in your content adds to its authenticity and gives you a unique link building advantage. The data can be anything, including surveys, market research, case studies and more.

Whenever someone quotes this data to add value to their content, they will link back to you.

In most cases, webmasters will mention your brand name when adding your data. A brand mention means a sure-shot link placement either by default or on request.

3. Visual Content

Human vision can grasp an image at the speed of 1/10 second. It is a smart move to use your visual assets not just to boost engagement but also to acquire backlinks.

Visual content such as images, infographics and videos are more likely to be shared and talked about across platforms.

When someone uses your visuals, they link back to your site because that’s where the original source is. Create content with visual elements to get backlinks and authority in a specific niche.

4. Broken Link Building

Broken link building is a unique win-win link building technique. With this strategy, you can get a backlink to your site while adding value to another website.

Use the Check My Links or LinkMiner Chrome extension to identify broken links on a site relevant to your niche.

Reach out to the website owner and ask them to replace the broken link with a backlink pointing to your page. Highlight how your content can add value for your readers.

5. Broken Backlink Reclamation

It can be frustrating to know that you’ve lost some of the backlinks you’ve built from other reputed sites to your own. This may happen due to wrong or broken redirects, the removal of your link from the page or the non-existence of the page that once linked back to you.

But don’t worry. You can reclaim lost links. Use tools like Ahrefs or SEMRush to narrow down the links you’ve lost.

In case of backlink loss due to a broken redirect, the corresponding webmaster will be glad to replace it with the right one.

If you’ve lost a backlink because they’ve updated it with a new one pointing to a different site, try upgrading your content and reaching out to the website owner again.

On the other hand, if your link is lost because the page linking to you doesn’t exist anymore, find out if the site has other pages relevant to your content and go ahead to create an email pitch asking for a backlink placement.

6. Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is an effective way of building backlinks. Reach out to the best bloggers in your niche and ask them if you can write for them as the guest author.  

When your content gets published on their sites, you get link building opportunities. Make sure you choose the right anchor text to make your backlink contextually rich.

You will get referral traffic from those sites, which you can convert into profitable business prospects using a targeted marketing strategy.

7. Unlinked Brand Mentions

It’s easier to get backlinks from sites that are familiar with your brand than the ones that don’t, right? That’s what unlinked brand mentions are about.

Leverage Semrush’s brand monitoring tool to identify sites that have mentioned you but haven’t linked back yet. Narrow down places where your brand is mentioned on a positive note.

Get in touch with those sites and ask for backlinks. As the sites are already familiar with your brand name, they will certainly link back to you.

8. Skyscraper Technique

Creating high-quality content that people want to link to is the root of the skyscraper technique.

Here’s how it works.

Narrow down a keyword you want to rank for and find out the top search results for the same. Create content that’s better than what is already ranking #1 on Google. Promote it to the right people and acquire backlinks like a boss.

Besides getting you backlinks, the skyscraper technique also comes in handy to boost your site’s search engine rankings.

9. Influencer Outreach

Getting your content promoted by influencers with a substantiated fan following in your industry helps you build backlinks and attract more traffic.

When they talk about your product or service on their website and social media handles, they link back to your page.

Think of it this way. When an influencer with 50,000 followers promotes your content, they connect those 50,000 people with your brand directly or indirectly.

That’s the kind of impact influencer outreach can create. So, make sure you reach out to the right influencers to take your content to the right people.

10. Resource Page Link Building

Being a dedicated destination for third-party resources, resource pages are a go-to option for white hat link building. Use the Google search parameters below to locate resource pages specific to your niche and identify new link building prospects for your website.

• “Resources” + keyword ;
• “Useful resources” + keyword;
• “Inurl:links” + keyword;
• “Links” + keyword;
• “List” + keyword;
• “Tips” + keyword;

11. Industry Partnerships

Leverage your relationship with your partners and other field experts to get high-quality backlinks to your website.

As you share a common niche and customer base, your partners and associates in the industry are more likely to provide the link back to you.

Also, contact experts in your niche market to get reviews about your product and services. It will help you to get more new backlinks. The feedback or testimonial they provide will enhance the credibility of your brand.

12. High-Quality Directory Links

Earning backlinks from directories that are specific to your niche will help you widen your reach, attract qualified leads and create some buzz around your brand.

BEWARE. Backlinks pointing to your website from random low-quality directories prompt search engines to eye your site with suspicion.

So, make sure you opt for authoritative directories to build links. That’s how you get high-quality directory links.

13. HARO Links

HARO or Help A Reporter Out is another good way to build powerful backlinks without violating Google’s guidelines.

Once you sign up for HARO, you will receive emails carrying queries on a regular basis. Spend anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour and answer queries that are relevant to your niche. 

When your response gets featured, you get a link placement on a high authority website.

14. Press Release Backlinks

Backlink building using a press release is a good white hat SEO strategy. This technique can help strengthen your link profile and also create increased awareness for your brand, especially when you know how to leverage it the right way.

Ensure that the press release features newsworthy content and doesn’t just sing your brand’s praise. An event, a product launch or a noteworthy feature update, for example, can bring you a high-quality press release backlink.

15. Interview Industry Experts

Inviting field experts and popular influencers in your industry and hosting interviews with them is another great white hat link building strategy.

When these people share corresponding interviews on their pages, they will link back to you. Such links will often be more powerful because industry experts are likely to have established themselves as an authority.

Publishing this type of content on your site will prompt Google to look at you as an authority in your niche.

Plus, interviews and podcast episodes also mean more social shares and increased brand awareness.

16. Social Bookmarks and Business Listings

You can avail free Google services for business listings. Listing your business in local directories is a smart white hat technique.  There are a plethora of local directories where you can do business listings such as Facebook, White pages, Bing, Yahoo.

Also, you can stockpile your bookmarks for further reference in social bookmarking online services like StumbleUpon, Reddit, and Digg. These sites stock, organize and control your web pages.

One of the trouble-free ways to get quality backlinks is s bookmarking sites. Bookmarking sites are said to render high-quality backlinks for any website.

17. Offer Free Tools and Downloadable Resources

Offering a free version of tools and other content-rich downloadable resources useful for your target audience is yet another way of building the white hat way.

Such tools and resources make it easier for you to earn backlinks naturally because they add value and catalyze user engagement for any relevant content.

18. Create Round-up Posts

When you create a weekly or bi-weekly round up of write-ups featured in authoritative sites, your chances of acquiring backlinks from those sites are high.

As your round-up posts exclusively cover and encapsulate content pieces from specific sites, you give them a genuinely compelling reason to link back to your content.

Cool, right? That’s the backlink potential of round-up posts.

19. Blog Commenting

Commenting on blog posts is a simple yet effective link building strategy. It comes in handy to build relationships with online communities in order to get high-quality backlinks to a site.

Search for and narrow down high-quality blogs in your niche and begin posting comments on top-performing blogs. That should fetch you some backlinks.

 Make sure you stay on the topic and keep your comment short and to the point.

20. Internal Link Building

Most people overlook internal link building. But the truth is it renders great benefits.

The presence of internal links on your site lends you full control over links and assists you to transfer link juices through web pages.

Most importantly, internal links allow Google to understand your site better. Linking your new pages with relevant older pages will help Google to discover, crawl and rank them faster.

Make sure you create a robust internal linking structure and don’t let any of your pages be orphaned.

21. Local Link Building

Local link building is a targeted link building strategy for your website to attract location-based leads and rank higher for local searches. 

You can acquire these backlinks by targeting local business blogs and directories, building relationships with local businesses and organizations and joining local business associations.

With a focused local link building strategy in place, you can transform your site into a go-to resource for searches related to a particular location.

22. Niche Edits

What if I told you you could build backlinks without creating new content? Niche edits can make it possible.

Niche edits involve the process of building contextual backlinks using existing content. This saves you a lot of time as you don’t invest in fresh content production. 

Plus, unlike new guest posts, older posts are more likely to be already ranked by Google and other search engines. That means niche edits can bring you referral traffic at a faster pace. 

Get in touch with webmasters and suggest adding a backlink to your content in their existing articles. Convincing them to provide you with a link placement can be easier, especially if you use your email pitch to tell them how your link can add more value and context to that particular article.

23. Online Community Participation

Taking part in online communities and discussion forums is yet another easy way to build links to your site. 

Respond to questions related to your niche on platforms like Quora to create backlinks that point to specific landing pages on your site. 

Make sure your content answers a particular query and offers value to users. The content surrounding your link gives it context and helps unlock its potential to magnetize referral traffic.

Backlinks built using white hat techniques are the show stealers. If you are looking for long-lasting SEO results, white hat link building is a must-have.

Besides helping you dodge search engine penalties, white hat link building drives more organic traffic, boosts your authority and improves your SERP position.

Implement the above tried and tested white hat link building strategies and I’m sure you won’t regret it.

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