Ask any seasoned webmaster and he or she will agree: backlinks play a critical role in where a website ranks in the search engines. Webmasters with a high number of backlinks from authoritative, relevant sources will rank higher than similar websites with few-to-no backlinks. But Google has cracked down on manipulative link building practices in recent years, penalizing offending sites. This has prompted many webmasters to seek alternative, safe ways to generate links, such as through content.
How Content Attracts Links
You might be wondering how content can attract backlinks. Well, let me first start off by saying that there’s no guarantee your content will generate links. If readers enjoy your content and are genuinely interested in it, they may share it with friends or family, linking back to it from their own website, blog or social media accounts. But if they view it as being just another generic article or blog post with no real sustenance, they probably won’t link to it (nor will they read it).
BuzzSumo
One of the most powerful content creation tools is BuzzSumo. Using this online tool, you can identify content topics that are currently trending on social media, sorting them by the number of shares they’ve received. So if you’re hoping to attract backlinks by content creation, you should publish blog posts and articles centered around some of these trending topics. Just head over to BuzzSumo and search for a keyword that’s related to your niche or industry. Non-paid members are restricted to 10 results, but this should yield more than enough ideas for a new web article or blog post. And if you like BuzzSumo, you can always upgrade your account to remove this restriction.
Make Your Content Easy to Share
You can’t expect to attract backlinks with your content unless it’s easy for visitors to share. Notice how many of the high-traffic blogs have social share buttons? That’s because it increases their social engagement, generating free, Google-safe backlinks in the process. You should do the same for your website, including buttons for Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, and Instagram so that visitors can share your content more easily.
Include Images in Your Content
Try to get into the habit of including at least one image in each piece of content you create. Images are among the most shared type of media on the net, receiving more Facebook likes and Pinterest pins than video, links, and text combined. So before hitting the “publish” button, upload an image or two. In the event that you don’t have access to a relevant image, you should be able to find one (or many) at Flickr Creative Commons. It houses millions of free-to-use images, with more images being added on a daily basis.
Have any other tips that you would like to share with our readers? Let us know in the comments section below!
Image attribution: https://www.flickr.com/photos/seoplanter/
