By: Caitlin Garcia

Backlinking strategy – what a daunting project right?

You know links are important for search engine optimization, but the idea of dedicating the time needed to build a backlinking strategy just isn’t in the cards. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be as hard as you think! There are a handful of options that allow you to fulfill Google’s appetite for links without spending hours and hours reaching out to websites hoping for a response.

I’ve listed a few simple ways to get an SEO backlinking strategy foundation in place, but before we get to those, I need to lay down a few ground rules.

With all of the below ideas, you need to make sure the site the backlink is coming from has a higher authority than your own site. Domain Authority and Page Authority are two factors that you should always consider before choosing a domain for backlinking.

It’s easy to find the Domain Authority of your own site and others with the MOZ SEO toolbar. There are dozens of other tools out there, but Moz provides one of our favorites.

In addition to authority, don’t waste your time with a site that will only provide you a “NoFollow” link. You won’t get any credit with Google which is exactly what we’re trying to do.

Okay, now that we’re clear on the rules, let’s get to the list.

1. You’re already writing content for your site, right? Take that content and have it serve a second purpose. Write two versions of your blogs. One should live on your own website. Push the second version out to a website that allows “Follow” links and ask them to publish your content.

You can pre-write all the metadata and the backlink itself into the blog to make it easy for the web developer – they just have to copy and paste. This usually works because people are starved for good content in their industry space. Yes, this does require a little research into sites that you’d like to show up on, but once you have a good list of high authority sites, you can start reaching out. Templatize your email to make it more efficient. Even if they aren’t interested in the first piece of content you send, they may like the next piece.

2. Plan time for an infographic in your existing content calendar. Take a relevant idea and turn your post into an infographic. Infographics are incredibly popular, have high engagement on social media, and sites are usually willing to post them. Tools like Buzzsumo help you find what types of content in your industry are trending.

3. Start to make educated comments on industry articles and blogs with a link back to your homepage. I’m not talking about a sales pitch, say something insightful. Do you agree with the article? Do you offer something that complements the content? Make the comment and link as natural as possible. The best part? Most of the time you don’t need approval and you’ve secured that link (and some extra visibility) almost immediately.

4. Write Press Releases and distribute them through your normal channels. Make sure each one has a link back to your site.

Each of these ideas will take a bit of resource, but chances are you’ve already planned for that. Make your existing strategy work harder for you, and you’ll be on your way to higher organic rankings and hopefully higher traffic!