How to Build Backlinks for a New Website? (Link Building Technique)
One of the biggest problems I see with new bloggers and webmasters is a lack of knowledge on how to build quality backlinks for their website.
This prevents a lot of people from seeing the type of results and momentum that they desire.
Especially with a brand new website, it’s vital that you incorporate consistent link building work into your overall strategy to strengthen the authority of your website/brand.
We want to give Google positive signals that your website is important and relevant enough for other external sources to link to.
If done correctly, overtime, this is a surefire way to gain more traction in the search engines and increase your organic traffic.
In this post we will uncover a super simple technique to build quality backlinks for new website owners and a step-by-step process that anyone can follow.
Why Is Building Backlinks Important?
Before we get into the specific strategy for building backlinks to a new website, let’s briefly discuss why this is important in the first place. These are just a few of the many benefits of building links to a new website:
SEO Purposes
If you want to give yourself a better shot at ranking in the major search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo it’s essential that you adopt an on-going link building strategy. Google looks at the strength of your backlink portfolio as a ranking factor (this is just one of many ranking factors Google analyzes, but it’s very important). Every time you build a quality backlink to your website, you’re basically saying to Google “hey, my website is valuable and important and other people are linking to it”. This is how I’ve seen some of my most significant ranking increases for certain keywords, through building quality and natural backlinks each and every month. This obviously can also result in increased organic traffic when your organic keyword rankings improve. Just keep in mind that it takes some time for this technique to kick in and for Google to recognize new links built to your website. Stay patient and be persistent!
Brand Awareness
Having your link published on external websites is great for overall brand awareness and exposure. Even just one solid/authoritative website linking out to you can be a game changer. Every time you build a quality backlink you should also look at it as building additional buzz around your brand and/or company. Generating backlinks for a new website is such an underrated way to get your name and message out there and can potentially lead to more customers/clients/business down the road.
Referral Traffic
Increased referral traffic is the icing on the cake when it comes to building backlinks to a new website. Whenever your link is displayed on another website, you have the chance of people clicking on that link and visiting your URL. A few backlinks that I have personally built for my blog continue to generate me referral traffic on autopilot each and every month. This has directly led to more email subscribers, SEO/blog coaching students and product/affiliate sales. If your links are published on other relevant websites, this referral traffic is incredibly targeted, primed and ready to take action.
Now that we’ve discussed a few specific benefits of building backlinks to a new website, let’s look into a specific strategy to help you accomplish this.
How to Build Backlinks for a New Website
Now there are many strategies for building backlinks to a new website, but in this particular blog post I wanted to touch upon one of the easiest and most effective methods out there (especially for new website owners).
Guest Posting
Guest posting is simply writing an article to be published on another website relevant to your niche, subject or expertise. Within this article you are generally allowed to place your URL within the content or in an author bio section.
Through guest posting, you really tap into the three benefits we laid out above.
You get the SEO benefits of improved search engine rankings/organic traffic, you generate more brand awareness/buzz and you produce more referral traffic from people clicking on your link within your guest posts.
Also, it’s important to know that guest posting is a win-win for both the writer and the publisher. Other websites are always looking for fresh and unique content. They get rewarded with engaging content and you get rewarded with the backlink and increased web exposure. Truly a powerful tactic!
How To Find Quality Guest Post Opportunities
Let’s look into a few methods to actually find quality guest post opportunities.
1.) Research Relevant Blogs: Start by simply researching related blogs in your niche. For example, if you’re in the technology niche, you may do a simple Google search for:
- “technology blogs”
- “top tech blogs”
- “technology blogs accepting guest posts”
This may sound simple, but I’ve found some really quality guest posting opportunities this way.
2.) Use Search Queries: Drilling down even further, you should try to use strategic search queries in Google such as:
- “write for us” + “keyword”
- “guest post” + “keyword”
- “writers” + “keyword”
- “submit content” + “keyword”
- “contributors” + “keyword”
This will help you identify websites that are specifically looking for content contributions.
Just replace “keyword” with something relevant to your niche. For example, if you’re in the technology niche you might try “tech”, “technology”, “web apps”, “computers”, “smartphone”, “automation” etc.
Here’s an example of a guest post opportunity I found on Teckrr.com using the search query “write for us” + “technology”:
3.) Utilize Guest Posting Tools: There are tools out there that can help you find guest posting opportunities in your niche that may also be helpful. A couple examples below are:
Spot Check the Domain Authority (DA)
You will want to look into the domain authority of any potential guest post opportunity.
See MOZ’s domain authority description below:
- Domain Authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs). A Domain Authority score ranges from one to 100, with higher scores corresponding to a greater ability to rank. Read more here from MOZ.
If you’re trying to build backlinks to a new website, your own personal domain authority is most likely a 10 or below. Therefore, I would only target websites that have a domain authority of say 15 or higher (the higher the better).
To start, building links on any website that has a higher DA than yours will be super helpful.
To check the DA of other websites you can use this free DA checker here. Paid SEO tools such as MOZ and Ahrefs are also another option when looking into the DA of a website.
Here’s an example of what you’ll see:
Organizing Your Guest Post List
Now that you know the general process of researching potential guest post opportunities, I recommend compiling/organizing a list of at least 20-30 websites to start.
Important: You need to make sure that the websites you are targeting for your guest posting efforts are relevant to your niche/industry. You only want your content published on websites that make sense so you do not raise any red flags in Google. For example, if your blog is about technology, you wouldn’t want to publish content in the “dog training” niche. Make sense?
The simplest way to put together your list is by using Microsoft Excel or Google sheets. Here you will have columns for the URL, Domain Authority (DA), Contact Email, Status etc. It’s a good place to add notes and keep track of your progress. See below for example on how you can set up your list generation documents moving forward:
Crafting a Guest Post Email Outreach Template
Now that you’ve generated your list, you will want to come up with an email outreach template that you can send out going forward.
Keep this simple and to the point but also make sure it’s unique/compelling (as websites get pitched all sorts of stuff all the time).
You want to make sure your email stands out from the crowd and explains how you will provide value to the webmaster. Point out maybe a specific article of theirs that you really like to demonstrate that you’ve actually taken the time to browse through their website.
It’s also really important that you pitch them 3-4 blog topics right in the initial email. I’ve tested this and found that when I presented topics upfront it led to quicker and higher conversion rates.
Here’s an example outreach email for guest posting (feel free to modify to your liking):
SUBJECT: Guest Post Contribution for (INSERT SITE NAME) | Contributing to (INSERT SITE NAME) with a Guest Post
BODY:
Good afternoon,
My name is Evan Hoeflich from EvanHoeflichMarketing.com and I really enjoy the quality content you publish on your website. I especially like this article here (INSERT LINK) as it correlates directly to what I write about on my website. I’m reaching out to see if you’d be interested in a guest post on one of the topics below. I believe it would be of great interest to your readers.
Would you consider any of these topics for your blog?
Topic Pitch 1
(brief description: 2-3 sentences)
Topic Pitch 2
(brief description: 2-3 sentences)
Topic Pitch 3
(brief description: 2-3 sentences)
Kind regards,
Evan Hoeflich
Writing Your Guest Posts
If you get the go ahead from any guest post opportunities, you are now ready to begin writing your article.
Generally you will have to follow some writer guidelines provided by the webmaster, or sometimes you can find them directly on their “write for us” page, example here.
Make sure to abide by these guidelines for the best chance of your article getting published.
Also, make sure that you are provided a do-follow backlink within your article for the best results. This will ensure that Google will follow and credit you for this link.
Conclusion
Mastering the guest posting process takes time, practice and dedication but it is truly one of the best ways to build backlinks for a new website. You need to make sure that you implement this strategy on a consistent basis in order to see the best results. For new websites, this can be an excellent method to get your name out there, increase your search engine rankings and generate more awareness around your company.
Is guest posting something you’re willing to try to build backlinks?
Have you had any trouble with this strategy in the past?