Best Practices for Effective Organic Link Building

If you have been living under a marketing rock, you may not be familiar with the term link building or backlinks. These hyperlinks are essential to a successful SEO strategy and bringing your business tons of relevancy. There are different ways to build your link profile and make your company stand out from the sea of others, from paid to outbound, but we say that your focus should be on effective organic link building. It is known to carry more weight and is linked to longevity in the SEO realm.

The key to link-building success comes from generating natural, quality links. It is important to note, though, that links don’t come overnight. Building them is a gradual process, but it’s incredibly worth it when they start to yield positive results.

The ultimate purpose of effective organic link building is to improve your site’s ranking. However, it requires a bit of networking and employing other methods to find success. In the following sections, we’ll break down what organic link building is, along with six best practices for effective organic link building. Let’s dig in!

What is Link Building?

In its simplest form, link building is the process of building one-way hyperlinks, also known as backlinks, that get featured in company blogs with the goal of improving one’s search engine visibility. Google’s ranking algorithm determines a site’s relevance and trustworthiness based on factors like the inclusion of commonly researched keywords, quality content, and backlinks.

Link building is essential for SEO because it essentially tells search engines that your site is a credible and authoritative one, demonstrated by the number of links used that point to other trustworthy sites your company page is associated with. When you have a higher ranking increases the chances that your site is likely to pop up when someone searches for a keyword you rank for, which ultimately affects things like brand awareness, lead generation, and conversion.

Keep in mind that with effective organic link building, slow and steady wins the SEO race, as corner-cutting tactics like buying links are against Google’s guidelines and can dramatically harm SEO ranking. No one wants to see their hard work go down the drain, so don’t even risk it!

5 Best Practices for Effective Organic Link Building

Use Guest Blogging

Many companies are open to receiving guest post submissions and building mutually beneficial relationships with other companies. According to Hubspot, businesses that blog generate an average of 97 percent more inbound links and 55 percent more site visitors than those who don’t. However, when looking for sites to practice effective organic link building with, it is crucial to remember that you can’t pick just any old website to write a guest blog.

Your goal is to help your search engine ranking results, not harm them, and choosing the wrong website or submitting poor quality content can dramatically impact your efforts. Before you set your fingers to the keys, double-check that the site and the blog you aim to write for are relevant to the topic you desire to rank for. To be effective in building backlinks, you need to make sure your blogs are engaging, professional-sounding, well-written, and that they cater to both your and the guest site’s audience. By publishing useful content on trustworthy sites, you can tap into different audiences and drive traffic to your website, thus boosting your SEO ranking.

Check Competitor Backlinks

Sometimes your neighbors have the best stuff, and there’s no shame in peeking over the fence to take a look. With organic link building, this method works, too! As we previously mentioned, one of the key reasons why a site ranks highly in search engine results is because of backlinks. I.e., the more quality and trustworthy links you earn, the more visible you become to search engines.

The first in exploring competitor backlinks is identifying who your top competitors are and which webpages are your competition. You can use tools to conduct a competitive analysis and get the scoop on the number of links each piece of content has and who links to your competitor. Your research grants you insight into what you need to do differently to achieve the same success, whether it’s incorporating more guest blogging, social media, or networking.

You can also look into which keywords your competitors are ranking for. Chances are, you’re bound to come across a couple of keywords that you aren’t ranking for. This allows you to compete for keyword dominance. When paired with a robust link-building strategy, you can increase your SEO rankings slowly but surely.

Leverage Broken Links

Have you ever read a blog and clicked a link, only to find that it was dead? Frustrating, right? One of the best practices for effective organic link building is to use these opportunities to your advantage. You can use the broken links as a foot in the door by reaching out to the author, informing them of the problem, and plugging your own for possible replacement.

This strategy is a favorite of content and SEO managers who may not have the capacity to write new content for their blogs or a guest blog. Of course, you want to make sure the blog you’re recommending is similar to the dead link. It’s a beautiful partnership that boosts both parties’ SEO and can foster a relationship for future link building opportunities.

Create Link Roundups

Another successful tactic for effective organic link building is to network with bloggers and journalists. There are content creators in every niche, and some of them curate weekly or monthly roundups of the best content that has recently been published online. To build your backlinks, you must find sites that run roundups, reach out, and share your link with them.

Because these content curators are always looking for new things to feature, you have a greater likelihood of them reading your submission. If they like what you write, they will feature it in their roundup. The trick is to be genuine in your outreach. Inquire about their process and let them know that you enjoy their content and have written a blog related to a previous feature.

Whatever you do, don’t ask directly for a feature. You only get one chance to impress, so use it wisely. What makes this strategy so impactful is that you can build links from authoritative sites, boost your visibility, and build relationships with other companies and publications. You can even go as far as to create your own link roundup and earn attention and traffic from others while showing your appreciation for other bloggers.

Editorial Links

One of the most coveted link building strategies is editorial links. That is because they’re hard to get, and they can have a positive long-term effect on your search engine ranking. This makes them an essential piece in effective organic link building. Of course, to gain such a link, you have to earn one from other websites. Editorial links aren’t paid for and shouldn’t be directly requested. Let your work speak for itself.

Trust and authority are two significant components in link building. The only way to snag an editorial link is for your company to create quality content and use exceptional marketing tactics to share it with influencers and other outlets to get more eyes on it. When other companies find your content link-worthy, they will link to your page, thus highlighting you and signaling to their readers that your content offers a lot of value.

Joseph Studios

Effective organic link building is essential to your business’ visibility through SEO rankings, and search engines like Google value it highly over other rank-boosting tactics that many companies try. Although we may have inspired you with our sampling of best practices, we understand that you may not have the resources or the time to dedicate to this meticulous yet incredibly impactful marketing strategy. Thankfully, our SEO subscription can cover link building and more for you. Our team of marketing experts at Joseph Studios is eager to help you navigate the SEO waters.

If you’re interested in SEO link building or want to learn more about our other services, don’t hesitate to reach out!