Link building is one of the most effective methods of drawing traffic to your site while improving its PageRank, but it can be difficult to do without looking like a shill. It doesn’t help that it’s constantly evolving and changing, either. However, there is a simple way to get those links out there – and it doesn’t even need you to do anything different, strictly speaking.
All you really need to do is to give the king of websites – content – what it deserves. Respect your content, and you’ll find those links coming in before you can blink. Make your content useful or entertaining and it will go far.
Build Relationships
Classic link-building has been all about asking for it – but anyone who’s ever wanted to be respected knows that things have to be earned. Building a relationship is not just a great way to build links between sites, but it’s also a great way to get a new friend, one who might do more for you than share a single link.
A business relationship can be tricky, especially between websites, but it’s something worth working on if you want your site to grow.
Do It for Your Readers
At the end of the day, you’re making a blog because you want to make money or because you’re interested in the topic of your blog. What will make it successful is whether or not you what you’re putting up is related to the interests of your readership? Uninformed opinions, inaccurate information, boring videos – these are all a great way for you do not have a readership.
Whatever you put up must be of interest to you and to anyone else who shares your interests, or the target audience. The more interesting or relevant your posts, the more loyalty you’ll build among your readers – and nothing works better for the long-term health of a site than a loyal reader. If you’re running a website because you’re interested in the topic, only post things that you think would be interesting. If you’re running a site primarily to make money, consider what people interested in the topic would find important or entertaining.
Don’t settle for filler. Go with quality.
Improve Yourself
Doing it for your readers also means that you need to have a finger on the pulse of the topic of your website. Improve your website by becoming more informed, and sharing that information with your visitors. Visit other websites, find out what you end up reading about for hours, and apply it to your own website. Become a better writer. Feed the passion you have for the topic and it will show in your posts.
If you have people working on your site, make sure that they have the same spirit of self-improvement. Staying stagnant is a great way to fall by the wayside. Keep up-to-date, and keep learning.
Building links, surprisingly, is more about having a solid site rather than having people mindlessly sharing it. If you take anything from this, it is that modern link building is about you more than it is about sharing. It’s about presenting quality and letting the site speak for itself than trying to weasel someone into a quick share.
