When it comes to improving your WordPress website’s search rankings, you will need to think about your linking strategy. Many people are put off by the word ‘backlinks’ as they associate it with being a black hat (unethical) SEO technique, however providing the links you create are natural and organic, they are completely ethical and what’s more, beneficial to your website’s SEO.
Create compelling content on your WordPress website / blog
Creating high quality content on your WordPress website or blog is a great way to gain valuable backlinks, whilst also demonstrating your expertise. The more interesting your content is, the more likely people are to link to it from their own websites and blogs. Increasing your number of natural backlinks will help you to gain higher positions on SERPs. Below we’ve outlined some of the key points to keep in mind when creating content.
100% unique content – It’s no good copying someone else’s content and using it on your site as that will likely result in you being penalised by Google. The only way to get natural backlinks is to create 100% unique content. Make sure it’s captivating, compelling and offers a new take on a subject.
Relevant content – In order for your content to have SEO benefits, it needs to be relevant to your business and the industry you are part of. In addition to helping you generate organic backlinks, relevant content will also show search engines that you are an expert and help you to rank for your keywords.
Updated regularly – Your website or blog needs to be updated on a regular basis. The more regularly you share fresh content, the more visitors will come back to read and share it, getting you the backlinks you need for SEO. Fresh content also attracts search engine spiders back to your WordPress website to crawl and index it more regularly.
Value – Don’t just create content for the sake of creating content. You need it to have a purpose and hold value to your customers. At the end of the day, they’re only going to link back to your WordPress blog or website if they find the content interesting, entertaining or educational. Give customers a reason to read your content and you’ll stand a much better chance at getting the backlinks you need.
Try guest blogging on high authority websites
Another fantastic way to get ethical backlinks to your website is to guest post on high authority blogs and websites. When a high authority website links back to you, they will pass link juice (page rank) to your page – something that Google and other search engines value when rankings websites. The more high authority links you have pointing to your WordPress website, the higher you will rank on SERPs. See the points below to help you get started with guest blogging.
Choose relevant sites – When finding guest blogging spots, it’s important to narrow it down to websites that are relevant to your business, audience or industry. It’s no good simply posting on any old site, as it will end up looking like a spam link.
High authority – We can’t stress how important it is to gain links from high authority blogs. If the site you guest post on is poor quality, it could end up doing your SEO more harm than good.
Offer value – Like with your own blog content, you need to make sure your guest posts are valuable to readers. You can’t just approach another blog or website and say you want to guest post. You need to give them a reason to feature you. Make sure you approach them with a unique content idea that will interest both them and their target audience.
Conclusion
When it comes to generating backlinks, there’s definitely a right and wrong way to go about it. Follow the tips outlined in this article and you can benefit from high quality, natural backlinks that will help you get the search rankings you deserve.