*** Note: This is a guest post from Contractor Charlie
If you have spent any time looking at how to increase your website traffic, you’ve likely run across articles on link building strategies. This is an off page SEO strategy that helps your contractor business get more leads. When your website is on the top page of a search result, people that need your services will be able to find you.
What Are Backlinks?
A backlink is when another website places the URL to your website in their content or page as a link. For example, if someone quoted your website as a resource, they would embed your link so their readers could go check you out.Backlinks are important because they tell Google that your website is a resource, therefore it establishes it as an authority. As long as you are getting high quality links, it will help your position on the search results. However, 1,000 low quality links will not be as beneficial as 100 high quality links. You need to know what to look for.
Link Building Best Practices
It is important to note that link building for contractors must be done the correct way or it will actually hurt your website. When you are looking for ways to get links for your site, make sure you stick with these best practices.
Don’t:
- Buy links
- Use private blog networks
- Get links on spammy or low quality websites
- Link using unnatural anchor text (anchor text is the clickable part of the link)
- Link using the same anchor text over and over
Do:
- Get links from websites with authority
- Get links from content that is relevant
- Get fresh, new links on a monthly basis
In order to prevent a penalty from Google, you should stick with these best practices. Adding a few high quality backlinks to your site every month is much more effective than doing quick fixes to get links.And so on that note, here are some link building strategies to consider…
SEO Link Building Strategies
1. Local Associations
If you belong to an association, then it is in your best interest to get your website link on the association’s member page. You may need to write a short description of your business and submit it along with your name and website address to the website. You can also look for opportunities to be linked to from charities, vendors, or suppliers that you work with.
2. Guest Posts
Write a high quality guest post for another website. You can either contact the blog owner through email and pitch them your ideas, or look for websites that advertise guest post submissions. Make sure that anything you link to in the content is natural and makes sense. Otherwise, the blog owner will remove the link before they publish it or deny it outright.
3. Prospect Broken Links
While this technique has been around for a long time, it can still be effective. You will look through popular blogs in your industry and search their posts for broken links. It is a more time consuming effort, but if you are reading those posts anyways, then it won’t take much extra effort to email the site admin about it.Simply use the contact form or email address provided and write a quick email. You could say something like:
Hi there,
I came across this post (insert post link) and noticed one of the links is not working. I thought I’d drop you a line to let you know so you can fix it. If you’re looking for something to replace that link with, you might like this post I wrote (insert a link to a blog post you’ve written).
Sometimes you’ll find a website owner that is willing to replace the link with yours. It’s not good for their site health to have broken links. You are doing them a favor by bringing it to their attention.
4. Local & Business Directories
Local directories are great for getting a backlink and a citation. A citation is the mention of your company name, address, and phone number (NAP). This type of link and NAP helps you rank on Google maps, which is just as important as ranking on Google’s search results page.These are a couple of reputable sites you can add your business link and NAP to:
You’ll also want to add your website to business directories that have strong domain authority. Generally speaking, links from directories that have a lot of age and authority can boost your SEO. They usually charge for inclusion, but it’s a good marketing investment. Here are a few you should consider:
5. Post Your Own High Quality Photos
Finding high quality photos for your industry can be quite the headache. It’s hard to find images that fit exactly what you do, especially if you are looking for royalty free photos. The best thing to do is invest some time into taking your own pictures. You can also create infographics with valuable information.Once you have posted your images, contact other businesses in your industry and let them know they can use your images with attribution. This is a great way to get backlinks and provide value to your own customers.When you have a link building strategy, you can increase your SEO and get higher in organic search. It takes time to see your website rank higher, but with consistency, you can get more traffic and leads.
About the Author
Contractor Charlie is an online marketing company specializing in SEO and blogging that was designed with contractors in mind. They offer solid link building strategies as well as on-page optimization best practices to help their client’s rank better in Google so potential customers can find them.
