Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
What is the best way to go about building backlinks?
-
I'm a newbie here and my head is spinning because I don't know where or how to start the backlink building process. My website is 1 month old and I don't have any backlinks yet. what is the best way to go about it? Should I study my competition's backlinks and go from there? I'm so confused I need help! Please help! Any information will be greatly appreciated!!
-
-
When talking about waste removal I guess it depends on the audience. If the website is for commercial clients, you could talk about the advantages of using this service. Look for any added value like:
- Tax Deductible benefits
- Recycling certification which can make clients more desirable
- Proper disposal of hazardous waste
- Educating clients
- How Brazil is using waste to power Rio
- Tech developments in the industry
- Sustainability and your clients
- Here is a link to 35 medical waste and disposal blogs
I agree that waste disposal is not a very captivating concept but if you can spin it to something that could be advantageous to business owners (waste companies clients).
All this is for content creation on a waste removal website but for backlinks you would need to reach out to webmasters whose readers would benefit from the content on your site.
-
Please private message me with your domain and I can give you more specific help. Thanks again and best of luck to you.
-
Welcome, don't worry most of our heads are spinning most of the time.
My favorite approach is to look at competitors backlinks like you said, use:
- Moz open site explorer
- Alexa chrome app - go to backlinks section - must pay to view all - 10 dollar subscription
- Ahref
- google search query "links exampledomain.com" to view all links to a domain.
- similar web for referring sites
- Spyfu
- WordStream
- Semrush
- many many more
When viewing blogs in your nich often times the commenters name will hyperlink to their site and sometimes its followed. Comment a lot and start a disqus account to track engagement to come back to started conversations.
Start an account on quora, stackexachnge (many communities and for sure one or more for your niche whatever it is), reddit account, other forums.
Start posting on social media 20/80 - 80 % to build authority promoting other influencers stuff and 20 percent your content - after a while your truely good content will get promoted by your network for the viral effect - To find out more about online marketing be sure to check out my Digital Marketing blog called Digital Marketing Skills
Please leave a comment or two and please thumbs up this post if you found anything here useful.
Overall three prong approach to backlinking:
- Create link worthy content
- Be active in the online community - comment on blogs, answer questions on forums, and share on social media
- Link out to reputable website on your website
-
Hi Dana,
Thank You so much for the two links you gave me, I'm going to start reading right away! Backlinks are the one stumbling block that keeps tripping me up as I'm sure it is for most newbies. I want to get my link building campaign going and I think the info you gave me is going to steer me in the right direction!!
I appreciate the info!!
Thank You,
Theresa
-
You can add me to that short list of Howdy Doody aquaintences.
-
In my opinion, the author of this type of content should know enough about the industry that he/she can easily identify (or immediately knows)
-- the public misconceptions (these often will be very interesting to people)
-- what people need to know that they usually don't know (this surprises them and is very sharable)
-- the "hot button" issues (plenty of these about waste and they can go viral)
If the author does not know these types of things about the industry then he/she is the wrong author or he/she needs to do a lot of learning. There are a lot of topics in this industry that can get venomous. Lots more that are very touchy. All of them must be 100% technically correct when there is a lot of misinformation about this topic out there.
I'd talk with the client about this and be prepared to say that I am not the right person for this content job.
-
"Howdy Doody"
Ha ha... I thought that Robert Fisher and I would be the only people posting here who know about "Howdy Doody".
Thanks for the laugh.
-
Wow! Thats a rough one. I thought the incredibly exciting niche of paper shredding was hard Well, I would be interested to know about some of the crazy stories of some of the guys picking up and dumping the trash. Have they ever found anything cool? Anything illegal? That type of thing.
You could compare pricing for a geographic region that you service and make it very graphic heavy. For example where we are some municipalities make you use their dumpsters. Others there are multiple companies all vying for business. You could get the data on the different prices for the different dumpster sizes across all the companies and municipalities in your region and do a mini graphic to accompany a blog post about that. Then you could contact all your typical customers and let them know about this handy reference. This would be good especially if your client was the lower price or has some other unique selling propostion since it would be good for his business.
I know that isn't earth shattering, but there is always a fun way to put a spin on a boring niche. I am sure others will have good ideas too
-
Hi Lisa,
I would argue that rubbish and waste can be completely fascinating to a certain audience...my boys for example, who are ages 14 and 10. They are completely amused by anything having to do with...welll..you know...
I recently saw a billboard here in town for a septic tank company that used the headline "Howdy Doody"
Yeah. I thought it was funny, but my boys thought it was hilarious. So hilarious that they kept talking about it for weeks. Guess who I called when I needed my septic tank cleaned out?
Need I say more? lol
Dana
-
Hi Joshua
I love your answer - I feel that good content should get links automatically. But im stuck, for example I am trying to increase links for a waste management company - they remove commercial rubbish! So it is not glamorous.
I feel stuck - what do I write about that people would think was excellent when it is to do with waste?! And also that the client is happy to have on his website.
I am wondering what the best approach is when you have a really boring topic e.g. rubbish removal - how do you get more links if all the content is about a mundane topic like waste removal?Any insight you can give would be appreciated.
thanks so much
Lisa
-
Theresa,
There was a recent blog post here on SEOmoz that addressed the best types of content to write about and post on your website in order to get links coming naturally to that piece of excellent content. It was this post here: http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/7-content-archetypes-that-generate-natural-links. I would recommend that if your website has a blog setup on it that you try to find something that your passionate, excited, and super revved up about to write about. The make it really good. There was also recently a whiteboard friday done by the folks over at vertical measures that explains what the content needs to contain to rank well. It was a very cool study that you might enjoy: http://www.verticalmeasures.com/vm-news/we-cracked-the-content-code-whiteboard-friday/. There is no magic pill or potion to getting backlinks, but if you write from your heart on informative topics that are what your website is about and then share the fact that you wrote something great with people on social media and other leaders in your space you will start to get links. I hope this helps you. Best wishes!
-
Hi Theresa, First let me say, welcome to the best SEO community in the world. There are so many ways to build backlinks, that yes, if you read all the posts here, it will make your head spin. So, let me give you a link to the Mother of all link-building blog posts. I have this bookmarked and every time I feel "stuck" I go right back to it because I always find some new idea every time I read it.
http://pointblankseo.com/link-building-strategies
I guarantee you, you'll bookmark this and go back to it over and over andover and still never exhaust all the possibilities. Hands down, the best, most complete list of strategies ever. Now, I'm not saying there isn't stuff missing off this list. I'm just saying, if you completely exhaust this list, you're going to have one kick ass link profile!!!
Hint - Investigate Tynt.com first....a fascinating link-building tool. Free. Easy to use. Yes, it's on the list.
Hope this helps!
Dana
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What are the best link-building strategies for 2024, considering Google's evolving algorithms?
Link-building remains a crucial part of SEO, but with Google's algorithms constantly evolving, many traditional techniques are becoming less effective. I'm interested in learning about the latest link-building strategies that are expected to be successful in 2024. What approaches or tools should we focus on to ensure our efforts align with Google's current best practices and avoid potential penalties?
Link Building | | Ibrahim-Khuzam0 -
Backlinks and SPAM
I was doing some back link review of competitors and I have noticed that many of our competition have 300+ do follow back links from Justia.com and an additional 300+ do follow links from law.cornell.edu (they share the same database). The links on Justia are from different pages and they are all going to the root of our competitors site. So the questions are as follows; 1: For the purpose of SEO is this considered SPAM 2: If not SPAM, then does it have a positive effect on the competitions website and should I attempt to emulate for my client. Thanks in advance. -Jeff
Link Building | | FriedmanSimon10000 -
Does backlinks in images equal naked backlinks?
I've discovered few backlinks in images came from websites points to my home page. What is the value of these links?
Link Building | | Eslam-yosef0 -
How to classify backlinks types
HI GUYS, I don't know how to classify backlinks types. Any kind of software can process those backlinks? Thank you.
Link Building | | primomc0 -
Best Backlink checker - OSE or Hrefs?
Hi Guys I am looking for a new back link tool but i'm not sure which one to go for. Should I continue using Open Site Explorer or should I go for something else like Ahrefs.com or something else?
Link Building | | AndersDK0 -
Best way to structure a service area page with many locations to maximize internal links to them?
Currently our service area page (http://www.njlimocarservice.com/services.html) very sloppily lists many of the towns we serve in multiple counties - over 50 approx (scroll down). They have been placed that way so there is links to them from one of the subpages directly linked from the root domain. I am now attempting to make it pretty and organized with my designer. I intend to maintain a link to each individual town/landing page for SEO purposes to keep it close to root domain. My questions is how to best structure this. I don't want to list by county because some people don't know what county the town is in. However an alphabetical list may be overkill as there is so many. The other option is to get a search form or dropdown list on there but how will my landing pages be recognized by crawlers if there is no internal links from my root domain? Eventually we plan to expand further so what happens when we add 100+ landing pages? What will then happen to my internal link juice? Thanks!
Link Building | | kabledesigns0 -
Does the complete url count as backlink?
Hi there, does the http://mysite.com count as a backlink if posted on a site? I post a press releae and the site only allows me to put urls like this. they get something or must be in anchor the url? Thanks
Link Building | | nyanainc0 -
Building backlinks on sub-pages instead of main page(rood-domain)
Hey Mozzers! I am facing a problem and I need advice. I have recently opened my new website, which purpose is to offer quality articles, optimized for SEO. The problem is that I cannot find the right keyword to use for the main(root) domain (http://xxxxxx.org) as it is consisting of many niches. Is it a good idea to build backlinks on pages (http://xxxxxx.org/the-keyword-for-ranking) instead of building them on my root-domain? So basically, my root-domain will have less backlinks than my pages inside? Please give me some advice and way to act with. Thank you
Link Building | | Ralchev0