How to build quality backlinks to improve your SEO and increase traffic to your site

As an SEO affiliate marketer, you rely on traffic to drive conversions and generate revenue for your business. Backlinks are still an important way to build your site authority and rank for top converting keywords.

Here are four ways to build quality backlinks to rank for top terms and drive traffic to your site.

Skyscraper Content

Creating skyscraper content involves building upon what others have already written. Here’s how it works. First, use a relevant keyword to search for a piece of content in your industry that ranks on the first page. Look for blog posts or articles, not directories or high authority sites. Next, check the backlink profile of the URL. You can use Open Site Explorer or other free tools to review the link profile of a piece of content.

Once you’ve identified a piece of content that’s performing well, you’ll need to create one that’s better than it. Easier said than done, we know. What does better mean? More words helps but those words should be informative. For example, if the piece you are building on is a compilation of tools, make sure your version includes a more comprehensive list.

When your Skyscraper content piece is complete it’s time to promote it. The first step towards promoting your content is to reach out to the people you mention in your content. For example, if your content is a list of the top software for an industry, you could reach out to all the companies you list in your piece.

Let them know how hard you worked on your piece, what it includes and let them know you would appreciate them linking back to it. Try to avoid being pushy.

Become a Source

Another great way to get quality backlinks is to become a source on Help a Reporter Out or HARO. To rank on the first page of Google search results, your site will need quality backlinks. Those rankings will help you drive more traffic to your affiliate offers and generate more sales/leads.

HARO is a free service for bloggers and journalists. It connects them with the sources they need for the articles they’ve been commissioned to write. To get started, you will need to create an account. You can select the free or paid version.

Next, you’ll need to watch out for requests that you can contribute to. Look for topics relevant to your blog. When you find one, submit a pitch. In some cases, journalists receive multiple pitches from experts. Your pitch should include why you are qualified to contribute, so the journalist will pick you to site in their piece. Not all journalists will include links, so be sure to ask if the writer is willing to link back to your site in your pitch.

Look for Outdated Resources

The first step is to identify websites in your industry that have changed their name, changed URLs, closed, or have stopped offering a particular service.

Next, look for websites that are linking to old our outdated sites. They could be sending a lot of traffic to 404 pages. Use a backlink checking tool like Site Explorer and input the outdated URL. You will find a list of all the sites linking to that old domain.

Focus on sites that have high Domain Authority, since links from these sites will give you the most SEO juice. Next, reach out to these sites and let them know they are linking to an outdated or broken link and that you have an updated resource for them to include instead.

Produce Content People Share

If you’re perplexed as to what content people like to engage with, we’ve got tips for you. In a recent study, BuzzSumo found that 75 percent of online content gets zero external links and 39 or fewer shares. They also identified the types of content that performed best including:

• List posts
• Quizzes
• Why posts
• How to posts
• Infographics
• Videos

List posts outperformed every other content form including videos. List posts generate both more shares and more links than other types of content formats.

Summary

Your blog needs high quality backlinks to rank on Google. You need to rank for top converting terms on Google to drive quality traffic to your site. You need targeted traffic on your site to generate leads or sales for your advertisers.

Use one or all of the strategies above to generate more quality backlinks for your site and increase affiliate revenue.

Ready to start earning more? Start generating leads for ArrowShade today.