1. Become a Source For Reporters and Bloggers (HARO)
If you want to rank on the first page of Google, you need to build backlinks from authority news sites and blogs.
(I’m talking about white hat backlinks from authority news sites and blogs)
Fortunately, this isn’t as hard as it sounds.
All you need to do is use a free service called Help a Reporter Out (HARO).
HARO is like Tinder for public relations.
It connects people that need sources (bloggers and journalists) to people that want links and exposure (you).
And I’ve personally used HARO to build white hat backlinks from mega news sites:
To be clear: this strategy takes work. And it’s not always easy.
But in my experience, it’s one of the BEST ways to build high quality backlinks at scale.
With that, let’s dive into the step-by-step process.
First, register as a source.
Next, choose a free or paid plan.
Then, keep an eye out for requests that you can contribute to.
Finally, send the journalist a VERY brief and valuable pitch.
For example:
A while back I saw a request from someone asking: “What’s the difference between graphic design and web design?”.
You submit an article or email answering the question
You will get a reference link to your site as a contributor.
Not too shabby.
And if you thought HARO was good, wait until you see our next strategy.
2. Publish “Skyscraper” Content
You can use “Skyscraper” content to build backlinks from authority sites like Entrepreneur.com, Hubspot etc
Here’s the step-by-step process:
First, find a piece of content in your industry that’s already performed well (in terms of links).
The easiest way to do that?
A simple Google search.
Just search for your keyword…
…and check out the first page results:
As you know, backlinks are a super important Google ranking signal.
So if a piece of content is ranking on the first page, lots of people have probably linked to it.
That’s step #1.
Next, create a piece of content that’s 5-10x better than what you just found.
Create something that was 10x better.
Was this piece of content easy to make? Heck no.
Finally, promote your “Skyscraper” content.
This is KEY.
Yes, a piece of Skyscraper content already puts you WAY ahead of your competitors.
But to get the most out of your content, you need to actively promote it.
Now:
There are a million ways to promote your content.
So let me show you one quick strategy that works GREAT:
Promote to people that you mention in your post.
They will promote your post very happily
3. Build Links From Outdated Resources
Using “The Moving Man Method”
1. Your first step is to find sites in your industry that have:
Changed names
Moved to a new URL
Stopped offering a service
Stopped updating a resource
Shut down
How about an example?
A while back SEOMoz changed their name to Moz (and moved their site from SEOmoz.org to Moz.com):
After I heard the news, I realized that this was a PERFECT opportunity to reach out to the hundreds of people still linking to the outdated SEOMoz.org URLs.
2. Our second step is to find sites still linking to the old, outdated URL
This step is important:
Now that you’ve found a site that recently re-branded or a site feature that’s no longer there, it’s time to find all of the links pointing to that page.
Just grab the URL of the outdated resource and put it into your backlink checking tool of choice.
(I’m using Ahrefs in this example but there are lots of link building tools that you can use to do the same thing):
Then, check out all the sites that link to the old URLs.
Depending on the site, you should have quite a few link opportunities to work with.
Either way, you want to focus on sites that have the highest Domain Authority (DA).
Then, move onto step 3…
3. Last up, reach out and get your links.
Your last step is to reach out to all of the people that still link to the outdated resource.
You want to give them a quick heads up about their outdated link…and gently suggest that they add your link to their site.
And because I added value to their site twice (once from the heads up about their outdated link and again by showing them my valuable resource) people were more than happy to add my link to their page:
That’s all there is to it 🙂
4. Use Content Formats Proven To Generate Links
BuzzSumo recently did a study of 1 million blog posts and articles:
So, what did they find?
They discovered that most content is completely ignored.
In fact, they found that 75% of all online content gets ZERO links.
(Zero!)
That’s the bad news.
The good news is, they found that certain TYPES of content performed great.
Specifically, they discovered that the following content formats tended to generate lots of backlinks:
In other words, if you want to get backlinks, focus on these content formats:
List Posts
Quizzes
“Why” Posts
“How to” Posts
Infographics
Videos
This shouldn’t come as a surprise. The BuzzSumo study found that lists posts outp
