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If it isn’t in this post it probably doesn’t matter enjoy!Most epic Guide on how to create backlinks to improve SEO in 2017Word count: 13,433 Reading Level: College Grad Reading time: 48.51 Mins[Last Update:22-June-2017] Now with more Whitehat, Blackhat strategy and infused hopsWhat follows is a very detailed guide covering; The different types of backlinks and how best to create backs to improve SEO for your website.Search engines, such as; Google, Google Mobile, Bing and Yahoo have been tightening their policies around Search Engine Optimisation marketing techniques to game a website's rankings. As a result, some old school tricks now can produce very negative results and what was average, but effective can also affect your rankings negatively.One universally website ranking factor is backlinks. MOZ and many others, including mebsites.com have tested and found backlinks and the creation of backlinks to be one of the most effective means to improve your website's search ranking.Factors affecting the effectiveness of backlinks in search engines are the quality and source of the backlink, such as; Domain quality (Domain authority) of the website you are linked to, the keyword anchor used, Whether they are following or no follow links, the number of the backlinks and ultimately the amount of traffic coming from those backlinks in relation to other rankings in Google. We believe backlinking is still one of the strongest factors for improving rank that can be manipulated by a search engine optimisation specialist. It is also a bit of a forgotten or rarely practised art by most SEO companies.Back in ye Olde times on the internets, link sharing between friendly webmasters was all the rage and somewhat effective. In the search engine algorithms of 2017, the ye olde link share in the footer is seldom effective and 100% negatively perceived practice by good SEO professionals. Additionally, visually it is very spammy from a users point of view. Therefore, when we refer to creating or adding backlinks we are not referring to this dated practice or anything similar to this nudge wink wink practice.Image: Monty Python, Nudge nudge wink wink sketchThese days SEO professionals need to build or better still earn quality backlinks to the target website and quality really does count more than ever before, since the addition of Googles new penguin 4.0 Algorithm. Since it is better to earn than to manipulate for a backlink, it becomes more important to 10x all your content. By 10x we refer to a term used by Rand Fishkin, from MOZ. Rand says and we agree, it is not enough to just publish good content. It is also not good enough to publish great content. Rand states you need to publish content that is substantially better than anything else out there and he does a great job of explaining why so I will let you watch his video to learn why. For continuity of reading I'll say most websites great content will come via informational; Webpages, images, blogs, videos and whitepapers. I will also add while it is good to have beautiful web pages the value on the page is the actual content on it. A pretty page might hold someone's attention for a few seconds, but great content will hold their attention for minutes or even hours and that is what you want.Note: Before you freak out about creating Great or 10x content, understand it is still a relative term in this context. Because your content greatness requirement is measured from the top performers in the search ranking hierarchy now. You don't need to create a literary or Oscar winning piece of content. It just should be much better than others in your space.So step one should always be to create and have great content first. However, just keep in mind if you are a small business, I do also suggest just doing it first to get in the habit, even if the first pieces of content are shockers (you can always take them down later). Subsequently, you should look to improve each piece of content you create. At mebsites.com we strive to always produce a better than last piece content each time we publish.The key is to attract others to link to your website because the content is great and relevant. Opposed to requesting them for a straight-out link share (which we already said sux). Furthermore, even if you use some of the white hat SEO tricks or even blackhat it will be for nothing if the world's greatest backlink takes users to irrelevant or poor content and they bounce. Objectively, you are just fooling yourself and will actually do yourself a disservice. Google is measuring user time on page and engagement so even if you get the ranking with poor content you will struggle to keep it.There are several critical aspects to be considered when trying to procure quality backlinks to your website to improve its search rank in relation to relevant/trending search terms.So step one, is create great content on your web pages. Spend the time that you likely didn't when your site was made to do it right. Step two, before you jump in and shotgun some backlinks is to make sure you can measure where you are ranking currently and be set up to accurately measure your improvements. Let me make this clear searching for your own website in Google is not an accurate form of measuring your ranking! Neither is searching for it on your mate's computer. There are tracking and relevance variables, which affect the rankings uniquely for each user, depending on previous searches, time of day and trends e.g. Google etc spies on you and then manipulates results to be the most personal relevant result for you. You need proper big kid software to create a baseline of where you are at and the improvements you are making. If possible it is a great idea to include your competitors in your measurements.1) To create backlinks effective you need to measure your search ranking accurately.1) Some form of user analytics. Google Analytics is fine and free and just needs a small tracking code or code snippet added to your web pages to work.2) Register with Google, Bing webmaster tools3) Quality SEO tracking software; I recommend SEOprofiler as it has really comprehensive tools. Like other SEO tracking tools, it is also bloody expensive for the small operator. However, we do offer live and monthly SEO reports for $9.95. Lipperhey also does a nice free report, however, we have found it updates very poorly. MOZ tools I personally think are very lacking compared to others. Ahrefs is great but expensive for most small operators.Let us get into the nuts and bolts of backlinking2) Laying a great foundation before you create your backlinksJust like a grand building, strong website rankings are created with a good foundation. A good foundation of quality backlinks from multiple sources.Generally, having a bulk load of mediocre backlinks to your site doesn’t do the job anymore, this did still work a couple of years ago until domain quality and relevance became factors (Note: If your competition is very weak it will still work). With other websites and blogs vying for top ranking on SERP’s, Google has started measuring more than 200+ signals to determine the quality and the relevance of your backlink before it will rank it. So your website must be technically sound, such as; Mobile friendly, tag correctly, readable, suitable performance and the meta details accurate to the content held within. Furthermore once ranked, Google will continue to monitor the backlink for relevance/quality for various search terms. For example if you temporarily rank highly for the search term 'bag sales', but the bounce rate for your page is very high above 70% your ranking for that search term will very quickly fade (refer What is Penguin 4.0). This is why it is imperative to put most of your time and effort to develop a technically optimised website with sound content to start with. Setting the foundation for building a top-notch backlink profile is all about the factors listed below:A technically optimised websiteImpeccable website architectureHigh content relevance to search termsFrequent, fresh content updates3) Hunt down technical website errors before you link to remove obstacles:A website with technical errors can easily earn a place in the bad books of the visitors and search engines alike. Once the search engine picks up technical errors within the website, it minimises the organic traffic to it. This is why it is highly recommended to have a detailed plan prior to developing a website, rather than winging the whole process. Invest ample amounts of time and effort in the development of your website, hiring a web developer who has a good understanding of SEO can be a good investment, half-assing it will only come back to haunt you later. There are no free lunches on the internets, often that cheap website template and website hosting will cost you in ranking and traffic a 100 fold more than doing it right would have cost. Here is a checklist of major technical errors that you should keep an eye out for when developing a website.Ensure proper use of 301 and 302 redirects and use optimised 404 pages to encourage user retentionCheck for HTML and XML sitemaps; ensure that these sitemaps compensate for any poor site architectureEncrypt the site traffic with an SSL certificate and it is a must the site has a payment gateway.Check for errors in Google Search Console and your SEO tracking software.Enable server compression transfer and browser caching. Consider a CDN service like Cloudflare - The Web Performance & Security Company | Cloudflare to help with server load at peak times and serving to a wider audience.Optimise all images via lossless compression technique (we love Kraken.io Image Optimizer for this)Use a reliable and fast hosting service, physically local to your market is best to reduce ping.You must use a responsive frontend framework for your website. Otherwise, you will fail Googles mobile responsiveness test and loose substantial rank.Install web analytics like Google Analytics or Mixed Panel and ensure the integration of tracking code on all the pages (in case of GA)Ensure proper use of “Rel canonical” tagsRegister the canonical variant of the site in Google/BING webmaster Search Console4) Ensure website architecture is seamless:A website with seamless architecture can bolster conversions even if there are only a handful of quality backlinks pointing back to it. Good website architecture encourages and enables Google to understand and present your site in the most efficient manner (it's all about speed). Usually, Google rewards sites with seamless architecture with better rankings. The following factors are critical to ensuring ideal site architecture for your website.A sensible easy-to-navigate menu structure (two-three clicks to the destination is best).Ensure menus are mobile friendly.Ensure the architecture is up to date with current standards.Ensure an optimum amount of navigational links, including on page.Logical subfolder system design (web devs use best practice don't just make up your own folder system).Link the logo back to the homepage.Ensure an HTML or XML sitemap.Make the navigational links descriptive of what they link to.Note: We believe there is a bias to HTML based pages. Technically this should not matter. However, time and time again we see drag and drop style website builders rank lower than they technically should or against their HTML competitors. Platforms such as; Magento and Wordpress have native and/or plugins to optimise for this.5) Produce frequent fresh content and updates:A website which is hardly ever updated is like a stall cold cup of coffee and will give Google little reason to revisit and potentially boost its rankings compared to competitors who always have their content served hot, fresh and regular. On the contrary, a website which is frequently updated will be picked up by Google, in turn, Google will frequent the website more often allowing your content to be indexed quicker and more accurately compared to others. Consequently, creating regular fresh and informative content will see Google index that page and related backlinks much quicker. Your content can quickly turn into a hub of information frequently visited by users, further improving your rankings. The net effect is quicker indexing of new content pages, which are then ranked and rechecked more often against your backlinks and other search ranking factors.6) Ensure high relevance to search terms and always produce high-quality contentThe best rule to follow when creating content is to be substantially better than what is currently ranking, as we explained before. For most industries, there is likely content ranked already. Make sure you check for any existing content and you also check for any relevant search trends using tools, such as; Google trends or buzzsumo. Additionally, check your research against whether users are searching in enough volume to warrant the expense of creating the content. Then create a substantially better piece of content for your website.You can combine this research along with any backlinking opportunities that may be highlighted in your SEO monitoring software. SEO profiler and ahrefs is a great resource for this information.Note: If you are going to outsource bloggers before you post their content, plagiarism test it and actually read it to make sure it is good. Many outsource bloggers are actually just using online tools to scramble other people's blogs. What you end up with is garbage for your home site. It might be ok for some crappy attempt at white hat tactics, but it will put off genuine customers.7) Start Hunting for quality backlinking opportunitiesOnce you have laid the foundation, you need to fully understand the anatomy of a backlink before you can master creating them.What are backlinksDifferent types of backlinksHow to spot a good backlinking opportunityHow to identify the link types that are the most beneficial with respect to your businessWhat are backlinksBacklinks are links (hyperlink in old school speak) that point to your website address from other websites or web apps web address. A backlink to your website on any 'third party' website serves different purposes for user and website owner:For users:A source or reference for contentA link recommendation from another userFor website owners/backlink creatorsTo bring in targeted traffic from a specific audienceTo bring in trust flow or link juiceNote: What is link juice? Is a colloquial term that refers to the equity passed to a site via links from external or internal sources. This equity is interpreted as a recommendation for your site. The equity can be negative or positive based on the status of the referring site and this is where you can be hurt if the referring site is a spammy source.Both of these aspects are really critical to boosting conversions, which is the ultimate goal of any backlink builder. While backlinks seem to be a godsend for webmasters, it is also essential to be aware of the fact that creating backlinks in bulk or creating backlinks via spammy practices can easily have an adverse effect on your website.Different types of backlinks:Backlinks are categorised into different types. Some of the major backlink types are listed below:8) Aim to create Dofollow over Nofollow backlinks:Dofollow (follow) and Nofollow links are the cornerstones of any type of backlinking strategy. Irrespective of the type of backlink (listed below) that you procure, it will be either a Nofollow or follow.The Nofollow tag was introduced by Google in 2005 with the intention of reducing spammy or blackhat backlinking practices. Search engine criteria say any link that is tagged with the Nofollow attribute is deemed invisible to Google. Taken literally, neither any trust flow nor any link juice is transferred via such links. However, Nofollow links are not entirely useless; these links can easily play a vital role in bringing in customers and encouraging conversions. After all, links also serve as a practical reference to users e.g. they will click on the link if it seems useful, which will earn you site visit.Dofollow (follow) links pass link juice to boost the page rank of the website to which the link is directed to. Procuring follow links using outdated techniques are really hard these days because most webmasters have automated systems or rules to automatically tag Nofollow attributes to links in comment sections and forums. That is why follow links are best earned on merit rather than trickery.9) Tag and share images and infographics to create backlinks:[Updated 22/June/2017] Image backlinks are the path or links back to images on your website. These backlinks are easy to build and with image search use being so strong currently, they can be an effective vector for your website. Furthermore, they can rank and bring traffic all on their own.When correctly named and tagged images can be more compelling than text when it comes to convincing the users to take an action. An image can motivate a user to click through to your page just as much or more than a couple lines of text to a search page. Additionally, competition for the image rank is not that fierce regarding trying to build image backlinks when compared to the task of building text backlinks.For example, brands that feature fashionable or trending products like apparel, footwear, tech etc can be really successful with procuring and creating image backlinks. Pinterest, Imgur and Instagram are an incredible source that can help you to create image backlinks with ease. Both Pinterest and Instagram are also mediums with a proven track record of selling for their content posters.For a small amount of effort to descriptively name and brand your images, with logo, website url, price or click bait text before uploading them and perhaps applying a branded watermark and then sharing the links, you can see wonderful results. Additionally, embedding your images in web2.0 sites or other will improve your images keyword ranking.How effective can image ranking be? Imagine a user searches for bug control and sees a whole bunch of images at the top of the search results with your brand and something compelling written on them. Do you think that will give your company an edge? You bet it does. Furthermore, one of the coolest image rank technics I have seen is stealing the rich snippet image for another website's rank. If you brand the image with your URL it basically gives the impression the snippet is yours (note: this might not be good if users will click through to the other businesses website thinking it's your product).Other types of images to get linked are; Inspirational images are very popular on social media but offer fleeting real value to users. They can give you some good social signals. Infographics, however, can have solid long-term value. They are popular to share on social media and create nicely indexable links from social media sites like Pinterest, Instagram and speciality infographic websites. Ensure you name your image descriptively with url. Recently I have had a lot of outreach enquiry from infographic designers offering their work to supplement a blog post for a backlink it appeared an attractive idea.How to rank images?Recent, research experiments from Matt at Diggity Marketing (M.Diggity, 2017) states they have had a lot of success, including stealing rich snippet images with the following techniques;1) Optimised Alt Text - You need to have a full match or partial keyword match for what you want to rank for. Semantic matches don't seem to work as well from our experiments.2) Topical Content relevance - The content on the page and the website topic you place your image on the need to match. For example, an image for 'best builder' would need to be on websites about building (Note: This could have implications for images hot linked as a means of negative SEO).3) Website Authority - This is so often the case you'll need to have your images on sites with a matching authority or better to steal away a ranking. This is especially the case if you want to take a rich snippet image for your own.Screenshot of Rich Snippit Image StealInfographics are awesome to share on social mediaNote: You can stop users from linking directly to your images from their websites, sometimes this is referred to as a hotlink. However, a better thing to do would be to give users a specific link for sharing, if it's going to cause resource issues or just don't allow it.10) Natural backlinks creation should be prefer over other types:Natural backlinks are the links that look authoritative and enhance a users experience. For instance, an article with a reference or link back to another article which was used as a source of valuable information. Such backlinks can be deemed as natural links. Natural links, in no way, look stuffed/spammy and are a welcome compliment to the host article or post, while sometimes carrying a natural anchor text.Note: Anchor text is the clickable text in a hyperlink. SEO best practices dictate that anchor text is relevant to the page you're linking to, rather than generic text.11) Paid backlinkings can prop up your ranking and backlink portfolio:Paid backlinks are links to your site that you can purchase for a temporary or permanent period. These backlinks used to be really effective in the past. However, Google has worked its ranking algorithm around such paid backlinks in the last couple of months. Therefore, Google can now identify paid links and minimise organic traffic to the pages that host them. Google also has clear views pertinent to judging whether a backlink is clearly paid or compensated for via some other method rather than money transfer, such as link sharing. You can learn more about Matt Cutt’s view of how Google evaluates paid links here.The ramifications for the usefulness, in SEO terms, of paid services such as; Yellowpages, true local, yelp, word-of-mouth etc is somewhat questionable. Especially, when most have Nofollow tags on the links back to your website. After all when was the last time you heard someone say I will look for that service in the Yellowpages... 10+ years?12) Use Social Media as a source for creating backlinks:Social media backlinks are easy to achieve but difficult to stand out. With such huge volumes of posts loaded on any social media site in a given minute makes it really hard to stand out with social media backlinks. This is a further reason why trending, valuable, quality and fresh content plays a vital role. If you plan your content with these factors in mind while applying lots of the “Sweat + Creativity” factor, you are bound to gain some natural backlinks in addition to the surplus amount of shares and social traffic from your social media platforms. Bare in mind engagement is an important factor on social platform analytics and also how search engines rank your site and posts. Posts with high engagement get shown more on social media channels and rank higher in Google. The net effect is more traffic and a better backlink.13) Cautious use of backlinks from Review sites is advised:This is where things can get serious. While all the other backlinks might play a critical role in boosting your site’s traffic or position in SERP’s. Review backlinks outline your services or product on offer and highlight any respective pros and cons, which can influence a potential customer to make a decision. Therefore, review sites and review backlinks can literally have a stronger role at the source with the user, than the actual backlink value in the search engine in regards to encouraging conversions. As per a survey conducted in New York (E Vreeland,2017)(Website Design Agency - Reviews ★★★★★ (117+) - LIVE CHAT, 2016), more than 90% of people who purchase goods online or who plan to visit a restaurant resort to review websites to make the final decision.Also worth noting that for Googles Local business listings, Google is adding the review statistics from major review sites automatically. So reputation management will also need to part of your backlinking processes. Fair or not a lot of negative reviews can put customers off. We will be posting a link to our reputation management guide here.13) The hardest to earn, but well worth the http://effort.Edu http://and.Gov backlinks are gold:Edu and Gov backlinks are considered the king of backlinks by most SEO professionals. Even though we have SEO experts who think otherwise, backlinks from trusted websites have a high value in your total profile. They can play a significant role when competing against another business. Domain names ending http://in.Edu http://and.Gov providing backlinks are really difficult to procure for businesses other than the ones offering voluntary works or non-profit organisation. Edu and Gov backlinks can vouch for your reputation of your website and hence even if you might not get many direct conversions from such backlinks, they play a strong role in convincing Google to list your website for relevant queries. If you find an opportunity to create some go for it.14) External and internal links to Case studies are very powerfulI love creating case study backlinks / Internal Links. Not only does it provide a credible source, but they are just damn good high converting content machines. Case studies are like testimonials on steroids. For just about any business I would recommend spending the time to create a couple case studies. Make sure to include the following;Before and after images or dataObjectivesPlanResultsDepending on your target market you may want to keep it brief or virtually produce a whitepaper on it. Likely whoever write it about may backlink to you and you may be able to submit it to relevant other websites, for example; suppliers, Industry associations, Tech institutes, review websites.15) Genuine Backlinks from blogs are bestSimilar to the case studies, genuine references and anchored links from relevant blogs high authority blogs are gold. Not only is your business being exposed to another relevant demographic, but you also will get some great link juice. The trick is how to get someone to write about you?Ask! If you don't ask you can guarantee you won't get anything. A good place to start is with suppliers and other industry people you may know.Example:Hey, supplier, we have been good customers for years now.Supplier: Sure are, we are very grateful.You: I notice you have a blog, how do you get topics to write about?Supplier: Just whateves', we actually struggle a little.You: Well I have a great customer success story about one of your products. How about we collaborate a little and you profile us a little and we tell the story of this customer. We can share it on our successful social platforms and you could too?Supplier: hmm sounds O for awesomeYou: Damn I'll even write it for you...lol (try to have them write it, but whatever will get the job done).Option 2:Write a great blog then send it to different blog writers offering to let them have it for free long as they retain your link. I get asked to do this all the time and once in a while if I a short on content/time and it really is good I will guest spot the blog.Note: Google representatives are making noises that paid blogs post backlinks are a negative and they claim to be able to detect the spammy; Forbes, Inc, HuffPost type posts and discount them. Something to consider before paying big dollars for a post.16) Using Private Blog Network (PBN) can be highly effective, but risky:I'll qualify risky first. Basically, any Search Engine Strategy has a risk, even the squeaky clean whitehat methods. Therefore, before ever doing SEO work you need to do the mental calculation of, what is the upside of what I am doing and is it work the potential downside of being caught and what are the ramifications of it. For example, if you are the head of marketing for K-Mart, is creating a private blog network for the latest product XYZ worth getting caught and penalised for...ah nope! If you are setting up a new product or service and you just want to sell short term and can afford to loose it, maybe it is.Private blog networks are not a whitehat SEO tactic. At best they are a greyhat SEO and at the extreme, they are pure blackhat SEO. The basic strategy is to create a pseudo-organic network of blogs with the least amount of effort to boost a target sites ranking. Some of these PBN networks can be 10,000 websites/domains strong. I won't go into great detail as PBNs are financially and technically out of range for most of my readers.A brief outline of PBNs: High quality expired domains are bought from expired domain auctions from potentially $7 USD to thousands. The domains are then used as a source or target. For a source website, the SEO Pro then creates a website or blog. Depending on the target or goal the PBN creator will either do minimal content work or the least possible to create a credible source/referring website. The amount of effort they put into the source sites really depends on how much they paid for the domain, who or what the target is, how long do they care the source will last, whether it is a tier one, two, three or web2.0 referring site and whether they want it to be able to pass a real visual google audit.Note: Tier one is a higher quality referring site and the higher the tier, typically the more spammy it will get.Once the source website/s are created the SEO pro will create content, with measured anchor text and backlink to the target website. Then they rinse and repeat as needed. The investment can be huge so PBNs are not really within the reach or interest of many companies looking to improve their SEO. Therefore, PBN services are often sold or are part of a clever (normally highly successful) SEO pro's bag of tricks.Why do blackhats go to the effort of doing this 'BECAUSE IT WORKS LIKE CRAZY!'. To put this in perspective, some blackhats are so good at creating PBNs they have skipped having clients and just target their own websites, which are normally affiliate farms, selling amazon products on commission for example.If you don't know this already backlinks are king of SEO nothing else beats it consistently. Yes you can go viral, but that is more of a unicorn event unless you are Tai Lopez. This is also why a lot of SEO agenciesyou need to be getting them. Moving around content with a splash of keywords on your pages will only get you so far and if someone starts talking about keywords in your meta, just run.17) You need to watch out for negative backlinks:Just as good backlinks do good things weak or downright bad backlinks can kill your website. You need to be on constant lookout for unfavourable backlinks.Negative backlinks can range from the not relevant to the spammy questionable origin, Viagra or Adult site backlink. Part of your SEO strategy should be to monitor and disvow these links as soon as possible.Where do Negative backlinks come from?Normally, they are either good links gone bad or a black hat SEO pro trying to piggyback some link juice off your domain. However, they can also be from that cheap SEO company you thought was great, that Fiverr gig to boost your rankings (oops) or even an attack from a competitor. Either way, use the method to remove them as quickly as possible.Note: Good Quality SEO tools will monitor and pick this stuff up for you. Our favourites are Ahrefs, SEO profiler. Again they aren't really affordable for small business so best to ensure your SEO person has enough scale to afford them.Negative backlinks as an attack:This is a shitty practice. However, business is ruthless and passive aggressive revenge exists. The idea behind it is to hurt the rank of the target by spamming them and bringing down the targets overall backlink profile.So instead of relevance, they link you to the opposite, though the go to is normally spammy affiliate adult site links and Viagra. Some blackhats even have PBNs just for this purpose. A sustained all angles attack a business, especially a small business would surely not end well. However, this is highly illegal and would most likely lead to exposing the perpetrator. The more common attack is the just enough approach by would-be competitors. They create or hire someone to create just enough negative backlinks to hurt the target then stop.This has two effects on the target; Their ranking will drop and they consume resources/time to combat the effect.Do not do this negative backlinking practice. It is illegal and your just kind of a loser dick for doing it. After all, it is honourable to lose on the battlefield to a greater foe. It is not honourable to bash them in the shin before you even compete...Tonya Hardening. Additionally, there is nothing wrong with ranking second, third ...9th on the first page of Google you will still make money. If you are ranking lower than the first 2 pages, you have other issues at play and you are wasting time doing negative tactics because you will not rank anyway.18) Make sure you measure your backlinking placement opportunity vs InvestmentWhen building backlinks for your website, it is essential for you to check to consider the following:Is the backlink you are creating consistent with your brand? Is it on a quality source or will the customer be put off? For example, is the backlink for a fashion item on a respected fashion reviewers website or from a comment section of an adult website. There are many angles to backlinks and context is also one of them regardless of the domain quality or authority.Will it hurt or help your brands positioning in the market? Will your competitors refer to your backlinks as a source of your poor quality and character? For example, why would you buy from someone who advertises education products on porn sites?Social networks are just that, networks of your peers. Are you posting content that will make your mother and friends cringe or will they like others think you are a social media wizard!Differentiating a good backlink building opportunity from a bad one is something that demands an enormous amount of research and innovation. Start by checking domain and page authority. The tools like SEOprofiler, Open Site Explorer, Ahrefs and Majestic can give you a clear picture of the domain and page authority of the website from which you are planning to procure a backlink. Factor-in aspects like trust and citation flow to ensure the website is actually worth it when it comes to earning a link.We have listed relevancy factor fundamentals which will also help you to determine a good opportunity, without the help of any tools,:Is my content relevant to theseThe page you want to link fromDomain topic and content to your pagePage content to your page contentTheir Domain to your domainAlways look for these relevancy factors before you link. Being linked to off topic sources is of little use. While it can improve your Google rank slightly, it will not have anywhere near the effect as if you backlink from a relevant audience. If you find this type of opportunity you are gold and should proceed.19) Always identify the link types that are the most beneficial with respect to your businessIdentifying a link type pertinent to your business can be an easy task, provided you have the time to invest in research. Shadowing your competitors is highly recommended especially finding what their backlink profile is. Tools like SEO profiler, aHrefs,backlink checker, Open Site Explorer etc will give you a detailed look into the backlinking profile of your competitors. Closely observe the types of links they have been procured from and the type of backlinks that have been more effective. Try to craft a backlink building strategy that mirrors these types of sources and of course 10x it.For example, if you are a restauranteur you can look at your competitor's profiles. You may observe backlinks from review site which is highly effective. You would then take the strategy of also being on those review sites and concentrating your efforts to get more positive reviews than your competitors and having a better profile on them.Similarly, you may actually find something completely non-intuitive, such as a lot of traffic coming from a local directory, hotel, forum or Instagram. Sometimes you just don't know. Often your competitors might not know either and you can capitalise big league.20) Always build the easiest backlinks firstBuild the easiest backlinks first, backlinks are usually hard to procure and time-consuming. Trying to attain the toughest backlinks first just makes no sense. Therefore, start building the easiest backlinks first. The more links you get the and the better your site ranks the easier it will be to obtain more. Additionally, you only need enough backlinks to rank on page one there is no other ranking before number 1. So once you have enough for a certain keyword that enough and time to work on the next.Jumping back to creating a good foundation, optimising your website with internal backlinks is an ideal first step. Interlinking your blog post to relevant pages on your main site and vice versa can help you to establish valuable navigation channels throughout the website with anchor text. Interlinks can help you attain the following:Efficient user navigation and fewer click stepsEstablish information hierarchyUniform distribution of link juice with the websiteTag interlinks with meaningful and accurate anchor text for enhanced user experience. Also be mindful not to spam your pages with excessive interlinks no more than a total 100 links per page is acceptable with the bulk of your content being non-linked items.21) Avoid using Subdomains and linking from themIf you have broken your site up into subdomains to gain some extra SEO juice, recent you may have found your sub domain sites have disappeared. If possible you may want to revert back to having everything under one domain. Running different platforms out of a directory, such as a host/ or corporate/ instead of http://host.yourdomain.com or http://corporate.yourdomain.com.Research from Rand Fishkin of MOZ (Fishkin, 2016) illustrates that having everything under one domain is better for SEO. We have also, noticed the same situation with once high ranking subdomains has in the last year become invisible or only ranking in the most pathetic degree. Soon as we moved the subdomain website into a directory of the main domain it ranked within a week or two.22) Piggybacking off links from other your other relevant existing websitesThe easiest way to start building links is to try and procure them from your existing connections. For instance, if you are a distributor, you could offer your wholesalers an authorised reseller brand to add to their web pages. You can then provide a small script to add to their page which will link back to a branded image with anchor text backlink.Another easiest way to build links back to your website is by creating them on the websites you already own. Most savvy online marketers would own more than one website, if you are one of them, you can start creating relevant links back to your site. Ensure that you do not create links that do not fit the ‘link building relevancy factors’ listed above.While creating backlinks from your own websites, ensure that the anchor text used are natural and the end result is really useful for the users to reduce chances of high bounce rates.23) Use Youtube for branding optimising to build backlinks[updated 22/June/2017]Youtube is the second biggest search engine. Not many businesses would ignore ranking in BING, but many neglect Youtube. Making Videos is easy in relatity, but in thought most business owners and SEO artists consider it to be to much effort and then spend 12 months to get to page two. Creating Youtube videos can provide easy rankings, quality in terms of Googles rank brain and provide backlinks, click through and most improtantly more business.If your brand has a YouTube presence, it is very important to ensure that the account profile is optimised with a backlink to your target website. Building backlinks from videos uploaded under the same profile is also an ideal strategy to establish a good backlinking profile. You can easily get a link back to your website by including it in your video description, even though the link will be a Nofollow, it can still help you bring in potential customers, providing the video content quality is good enough (always shoot for x10 better).Additionally, make sure the youtube video is embedded on pages with matching the relevant content.This is a very effective method for eCommerce store product pages, which are typically hard to provide backlinks to all the pages. Ideally, create a professional product video. However, a product image slideshow set to some music and containing some headings will be good enough short term. The idea is just have something.Don't use someone else's video or link from someone else's channel, such as suppliers. All you will be doing is helping them. Make your own so it ranks as unique to you. Duplication can have issues around copyright and simple duplication penalisation even though it is a video (Note: Google is pretty relaxed around this since youtube is its own product, but this could change so be prepared to loose out randomly).The benefits of Youtube embeds on your website [Updated 09/March/2017]What we find in general is Google will rank a website higher if they have their own youtube content on it. So if you are looking for a simple low-cost way to get ahead this is the one. We have seen success in local markets with el cheapo Fiverr type branded explainer videos, Spokesperson videos. However, we would recommend you spend a little more and either create your own or get something original. After all, if Youtube can detect copyright material it eventually will penalise you for a video similar to many others. There are online tools to make your own videos and resources for stock video which you could easily overlay some text and audio, without too many tears. We use Adobe CC Premier Pro to make videos however we don't recommend it.Ranking Youtube Videos For Direct Sales [Updated 22/June/2017]This technique can be whitehat: however, it is a great blackhat technique with not a lot of risk for local businesses.Have you ever searched for something and found a video ranking in number one SERPs position or page one? Three Page One Position from my Youtube Ranking - This brings in about 3-5 enquires a month on average. Will I retire on it no, but combined with a couple hundred other rankings you have a busy business.Part of the art of ranking, but getting traffic is to make your links appear attractive and keyword rich. You must admit the ranking links from youtube videos are pretty attractive! Well, how do you get these videos to rank. The technic is actually fairly simple. It was something I was doing back in early 2009 to 2012 and sort of forgot about. Recently I have been reading posts and watching videos from Holly Stark, which have sparked my interest again in this SERPS ranking trick. I am getting great results for local businesses, eCommerce products and How To type videos which lead to sales funnnels.The Method of Ranking Youtube VideosDo keyword research and aim for lower competitive keywords at firstStep one create a video based around the topic or just a basic advertUpload it to your Youtube Channel(Just note if you go too crazy with the blackhat stuff you could loose your channel or get your web pages penalised)Add the keyword/phrase to the title and first in the descriptionWrite a nice long keyword laden descriptionAdd three to five hashtagsPublish the videoNow embed the video to your topic matching web page on your siteNow share the video via social media and ask friends to get click through and watch the video it often doesn't take a lot to rank them locally for low competitive terms that will pay.Blackhat Addons By doing this these you will greatly increase the risk of being penalised by Google. You can also be penalised by Facebook and possibly have your facebook page banned, blocked or your website URL banned or blocked. So you have been warned.Embed like crazy into many web2.0 websites, it doesn't seem to matter who or what they are at this point in time, the more the merrier it seems.Buy views, shares, web2.0 embeds and social signals through horrible spammy services like Konker or FivverEncourage people to search and watch your video ;) Don't use bots for this it doesn't seem to work based on the ones I used.Note: I did get a sad tale of an SEO noob who share his video embedded into his web page hundreds of times through his facebook page and fake FB accounts and got his page banned. Facebook is a fickle platform with no recourse, I have been recommending clients use domains and lead pages as there listed website rather than their actual domain name. There reason is if you do get banned your domain will like not be touched and you can rebrand a new business page without to many tears. Yes it will suck loosing your followers, but having your domain removed from everything on Facebook is much worse. I have seen this happen to legitimate paid adverts too, from just to negative flags so there are other reasons to do this too.24) Sign up for business citations and quality relevant directoriesGoogle prioritises business listing to such an extent that it is even included in the pertinent local search algorithm. Signing up with business directories is an easy task and the real takeaway is that most of these directories, gets you a Dofollow link. (Note: We notice a lot of bigger directories are doing a bait and switch with these links. First doing a follow then switching when they get bigger. Often this was part of a covert link exchange where you have been ultimately duped. This practice especially sucks if you were paying for it.)When you set out in the hunt for business directories, you are bound to encounter many. It is not advised to build links back to your site with just any directory that you come across. Take some time to skim through the directories and determine the quality of the existing websites within the directory. One way of checking the quality of the existing website is by determining the page and domain authority via your SEO monitoring tools. Start with the reputed directories like Google, Yahoo, Bing etc first.Note: Many costly directories have Nofollow links and produce little for most industries unless your market is older or nostalgic.Here is a list of the top 30 Australian directories#Local Citation SourceMoz Domain Authority1https://mapsconnect.apple.com/1002www.yellowpages.com.au873http://www.whitepages.com.au/824www.whereis.com785www.truelocal.com.au756www.yelp.com.au677www.brownbook.net668www.hotfrog.com.au609http://www.startlocal.com.au/5710www.womo.com.au5711www.street-directory.com.au5612www.dlook.com.au5113www.cylex.com.au4914www.opendi.com.au4715http://www.enterprisesearch.com.au/4616zipleaf.auz.net4617www.yalwa.com.au4418www.aussieweb.com.au4419http://bloo.com.au/4020www.aubiz.org4021https://www.bingplaces.com/3922www.localbd.com.au3923local.com.au3824www.localstore.com.au3625www.atozpages.com.au3526www.atug.com.au3427www.superpages.com.au3428www.australianguide.net/3429www.nationaldirectory.com.au3330reviewgoldcoast.com.au33Here is a list of the top 50 for global website directoriesGoogleBingYahoo!YelpFacebookBetter Business BureauAngie's ListMerchant CircleLinkedInYP.comWhitepagesSuperpages.comYellowbookCitySearchMapQuest/YextLocal.comFoursquareCitySlickUSDirectory.comDex MediaBizJournals.comTeleAtlasDiscover Our TownEZ LocalKudzuCityVoterMantaUsCityAdvice LocalInfoUSAInfignosGet FaveMy HuckleberryYelloweeMojoPagesBrownbookMagic YellowCitySquaresMap CreatorJudy's BookTripAdvisorThumbtackYellowPagesGoesGreen.orgHome AdvisorShowMeLocalChamberofCommerce.comYellowbotHotfrogBrownbookInsiderPagesNow, let's review the prep work to set up these listings and signing up with some of the major directories in the above list.Before you start this process make sure you have the follow readily.2-3 Business listing titlesSubmission email addressBusiness contact email addressBusiness phone numberSocial media links2-3 unique business descriptions (Typically 200 words max)Several logo image sizes (150px,300px square and rectangular is good)5 branded and related imagesBusiness ABN for Australian listingsMethod of paymentPhysical addressMailing addressKeywordsIt is very important to keep your address details exactly the same everywhere. We would also recommend creating a spreadsheet to keep track of who you are listed within case you need to go back and make changes.Note: Keep passwords in a password manager program, such as Password Manager, Auto Form Filler, Random Password Generator & Secure Digital Wallet AppMost important setup a Google’s business/place directory listingI gladly consider Google as the mother-of-all-search-engines and hence I strongly believe that the first directory that you need to sign up for should be Google’s business directory. The task of signing up with Google business is really simple, follow the below given steps to accomplish this task.Visit www.google.com/business and commence the sign-up process by clicking on the “Start Now” button.The page that follows will present you a map along with a form, which requests business information like name, country, street address, business category, business phone etc. Fill in the form and click on the “Continue” button.As the next step, Google will require you to confirm the listing. You can confirm the listing via phone or email. However, sometimes they require a postcard be sent with a code to confirm. You can choose one according to your convenience; I prefer telephonic confirmation as it is much faster than the email confirmation procedure.Once your listing is confirmed, you will be redirected to the Google My Business page with a pop-up that asks whether you need personalized tips and recommendations, you can choose ‘yes’ or ‘no’ (it is better to choose ‘no‘ for the time being as getting your link up there is the primary priority) and then click on "Get Started".My Business Page will load with the primary information that you submitted while signing up and you will have additional options to edit the information together with the option to add the website and other additional information.Click on the "Add website" button and enter the website address into the popup the follow. Click “Apply” to get done with the process.Google demands a moderation period of at least 24 hours to process your listing and acknowledge it. Once it is done, you will have a Google Business Listing for your business.Signing up with Yelp directoryAdding your business to Yelp directory is really easy. The first step is to check whether you are already listed on Yelp, visit https://biz.yelp.com/ and perform a search with your business name and location.If your business is not listed in the directory, you will be redirected to a page with the option to add your business listing.Clicking on the “Add your business to Yelp” brings you an online form which requests business information like Country, Business Name, Address, City, Email Address, Phone, Web Address etc.Once you have filled out the form, click on the “Add business” button to receive a confirmation mail.Click on the “Confirm email address” button embedded within the confirmation mail to confirm you listing.Akin to Google, Yelp also demands some moderation time, as soon as your business listing is live on Yelp, you will get an email confirmation. If you can fight through Goole and Yelp you will be able to deal with the other listings without to much hassle.25) Ask for niche specific guest post opportunitiesJust like blogging on your own website guest posting is great for creating an online profile and further backlinks. The bonus is you are talking directly to a potential audience relevant to your business or website. Guest posts are an ideal strategy to foster authority throughout the web in addition to bringing in potential traffic to your website. The backlinks can be gold in the beginning; however, akin to all the other link building strategies, the use and abuse of this strategy placed it under the Google’s watchful eye. So quality again is the name of the game.Today, Google’s search algorithm is designed to identify and penalise spammy guest posts. Therefore, it is essential to put in a bit of additional effort to find guest posting opportunities from websites that hold the good page and domain authority. Ensure that you really do add value and don't half ass the opportunity, as it can lead to more opportunities. The most valuable information via your guest post can come from anchor text within your post. Also, make sure your guest post author profile contains a backlink. That way users who like you can follow you from your websites.How do you find guest post opportunities? You can use specific search queries in Google to find guest posting opportunities. For instance, if your business revolves around fashion and you would like to find pertinent guest posting opportunity, you can use the following search queries.Fashion + "guest post"Fashion + "guest writer"Fashion + "contribute to"Fashion + "write for us"26) Build backlinks from your social media profile/sBuilding backlinks from social media profiles are one of the easiest and important link building strategies. After all social media sites are now basically the new major search engine, a source of traffic and a metric for ranking. However, you must create a business social media account to do it. (How to Setup Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ for SEO)If you maintain a vibrant profile on social media, you are bound to get tonnes of followers> If your posting reflects nothing but quality, useful and new information you will generate plenty of click through and lots what is called reach (when someone shares your post to their followers). Additionally, often users will view your social profile as a sort of police check to see how you operate.All the great content you create and perhaps other sources of content you find you should share through your social media network. The extra click through from social will improve your website's authority and in turn rank. You will also improve your search results within the social media sites themselves. Many people now use Facebook and twitter etc as their primary search engine.Encourage staff to create their own work social media profiles Staff are often the biggest and most invested people in your business. Encourage them to create profiles as an extension of customer outreach. Have them link from their profiles and perhaps even27) Building links from broken domains and linksBuilding links from broken domains and links is an old but effective SEO strategy still today. The advantage associated with this strategy is that it is difficult to manipulate. What we mean here is, another SEO practitioners will find it really hard to replicate your backlinks so you will have a permanent edge over your competition.The ideal means to go about this type of link building strategy is to find expired domains relevant to your niche and redirect them to your website. You can either buy it directly from the owner or buy the domain from an expired domain clearing website. Then you just need to redirect the missing content in the backlinks to your relevant pages with 301 redirects.Another strategy of getting links back to your site is by finding broken links to other websites, mainly blog posts. There are several tools/plugins that can be used to identify niche specific broken links on third party websites, some of them are listed below:Check My LinksDomain Hunter PlusXenu’s Link SleuthUse these tools to find niche specific broken links and the next strategy would be to create an awesome piece of content relevant to the broken link. Once you have created the respective content, you can reach out to the webmaster via email and mention you found the missing link and that you can offer this suitable replacement. Yes, it does work because the webmaster with the broken link is in the same position as you. They don't want to be hurt for having a broken link but also don't want to loose the index for the page they have.28) Post and engage in niche relevant forums and blog comment Sections for backlinksBacklinks from forums and blog comments are really frowned upon. They mostly fall into the spammy category at best. If you overdo this, you may be penalised heavily by Google. Additionally, almost all forum and blog comment backlinks are tagged as “NoFollow”. However, if done correctly these backlinking strategies are still effective. The key is to appear to be genuine, slipping in buy from me all over the place is not going to work.You need to have a few key things, a profile with some age and activity relevant to what you plan to post. The content you post needs to appear to be a genuine attempt to add to the conversion. It is a long-term strategy as creating trust worth profiles takes time on forums.Putting it into action: If you are sharing valuable insight via blog comments or forum posts, you have no reasons to be concerned about getting penalised by Google or any search engine. Blog comments are one of the better ways to interact with niche influencers, you can always find the top influencers in your niche, interact with them, exchange ideas and probably learn more from them. This is something that will open up the opportunity to procure a link or even a mention from the respective influence, which can do wonders for your business. While commenting on a blog post, just focus on interaction with the author and forget the necessity of bringing visitors back to your site as that will come.Taking this a step further you could create other accounts or involve staff in the process. I don't want to advocate deceitful activity. However, it has been used to get many a startup off the ground. The basic strategy being to highjack the comment section with your own conversation and steer it for your own means. Reddit since the Donald Trump saga has been constantly highjacked by fake or coated commenters trying to steer conversations away from something negative or planting/controlling positive spin.Similarly, establishing 'yourself' as a niche Guru works well in forum websites. You can find beginners or intermediate professionals with different kinds of doubts and concerns with respect to different niches in most forum websites. Find forums relevant to your niche by using the search tactics like “your keyword + forum”. Join create a profile and provide find the right answers for the queries belonging to your niche and contribute in such a way that your insight adds value. Do a lot of research and post valuable threads and do not hesitate to post threads and ask questions, provided you have done sufficient research. This is not only a good way to network and gets new clients in the trenches, but it allows for you to post a sneaky backlink when relevant. The more you can interact with that thread the better it will rank and the juice will follow.Posting a link within your comment or forum thread/reply is not recommended unless and until it turns out to be an absolute necessity. Trying to win visitors via forum signatures is also not a good idea. The forum and the blog moderators will be keen to take down links which don’t seem natural. Just stick with the profile links and if you are successful in adding value to your conversation, people, especially potential customers, will not hesitate to do some research and find your website perpetuating the cycle of content, click, rank, search.29) Building backlinks via testimonials and reviewsEarning backlinks to your site via testimonials and reviews is a smart backlink building strategy. The first step is to get a list of products or services you have purchased in the past. For instance, if you own a beauty salon and if you have purchased any of the cosmetic products via Amazon, leaving a professional opinion about the product and comparing the same with its counterparts and outlining the pros and cons is a brilliant way of marking your professionalism and bringing back people to your website and eventually encourage walk-ins.Gifting testimonials to webmasters from whom you have purchased a product or service is another tactic to earn a backlink and most probably from the homepage of the respective website. If you have hired a web development company in the past, performing a background check on their profile and sending a testimonial that highlights their unique selling points or how efficient they were in listening and satisfying to your requirements is something that the webmasters will find too good to resist.It is all about quid pro quo, perhaps you suggest someone does a white paper, review or case study on your business ...along with said causal backlink! A lot of people who generate content struggle for ideas and giving them any easy one often means they will take it.Strategically places reviews on local citation websites [Updated 22/June/2017]If you look at any well ranked popular businesses their Google My Busness listing will have reviews from other high ranking sources in the SERPs view. Google calculates these reviews in its algorithm, especially for local and voice searches. You will be extremely downgraded if you have a high ratio of negative reviews to positive ones.Therefore, where possible direct your review funnels to the different citation sources you see on competitors listings in order to out review them on each. What you need is at least 5+ reviews on each source and a preference for most reviews going to Google. To outrank your competitors you want to have at least 5-10 more reviews than they have on each of the citations. Then direct reviews to the next source and repeat the cycle trying to keep them regular. If you do have an abundance of reviews just keep spreading them around as it does help to protect against the inevitable few negative reviews.In Australia, the best places to direct your reviews are; Google my Business, YellowPages, Truelocal and Facebook. All will positively and negatively affect your rankings. I'll note I normally recommend clients turn off the Facebook review feature even though it can be a very easy place to collect reviews. The reason is Facebooks appeal process is extremely slow and generally useless. If you combine this with an extremely easy method of posting negative reviews on Facebook it can be a major issue. Before you discount this because all your customers are happy and you do a great job, just remember negative reviews aren't always honest. One urgent reputation management job we had was a business who had a stellar 200+ FB reviews, then one morning they woke to find 500 negative reviews. The appeal process took forever even with evidence. The whole time the clients business had completely disappeared from Googles search results, as it was their only source of reviews.Note: Reviews left on your profile really need a reply to count.30) Earn backlinks by submitting to blogs and RSS directoriesIf you create content 10X better than your competitors, then submitting it to blog directories in addition to promoting them on social media will help you increase your conversion rates. In turn your backlink profile and ranking. The rule of thumb is to stick with the reputed and relevant blog directories if you wish to keep yourself away from the spammers; you can sign up with some paid directories. Most paid directories are free of spammers, choose a couple of directories which seem really relevant to your niche.You can also create content on sites like Medium – Read, write and share stories that matter, which is a mini blogging platform social media site. If you create a following you can boost your backlink profile and direct click through.Submitting to RSS directories is another innovative means to bringing in a large volume of traffic to your website. You can start by submitting to some of these reputed RSS directories:http://www.1abc.orghttp://www.bloghub.comhttp://www.addfreewebdirectory.comhttp://www.aaf14.orghttp://blogville.ushttp://fuelmyblog.comhttp://www.linkroo.com31) Earn backlinks to your website using infographicsInfographics are really an extension of image backlinking. However, they are more as they convey more content, which means they should get shared more on social media and visited more on your site.So when the information you want to convey is not too in-depth, infographics are a better means to present to readers. After all, an image can say a thousand words? As a matter of fact, infographics can impart information much more quickly and efficiently than a written piece of content. Consider these factors while creating infographics:Is the topic selected, the latest one?Does the topic require a really in-depth exploration and presentation? (If yes, creating infographics may not turn out to be a potential solution as you may end up confusing the readers or find it really difficult to incorporate a great volume of content).Does the infographic present a strong call to action?Have you done detailed research on the topicMost infographics mirror statistics, double check through research to figure out the statics are correct. Quality is key!Ensure your infographic is formatted as JPEG and format the dimensions to work for the platform you will post to. For example, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter all use different sizing. What will look great on Facebook may look rubbish on Instagram.There are lots of cool tools for creating infographics so you don't need to be a top graphic artist. Canva is great and currently our favourite after adobe's CC suite.Once you have created an infographic that presents 10x valuable information effectively. The next step is to submit it and get it shared. Obviously, post it to your own site and share it through social media. Additionally, there are specific infographic-friendly sites which we have listed sites.Premium Content Creation for Better MarketingSlideShare.netInfographic Database: Share the Info, Love the GraphicBest Infographics - Infographics blog - Infographic finderBusiness 2 Community - Top Trends, News & Expert Analysishttp://amazinginfographics.comBlog About Infographics and Data Visualization - Cool Infographicshttp://designyoutrust.comhttp://good.ishttp://infographicjournal.com32) Link building by email outreachTrying to build links via email, social media or even old school phone outreach is an effective strategy, provided you are contacting the right webmasters with the relevant website and with the right piece of compelling content. Relevance is key here.For instance, you can send a backlink request email, by pointing out some suggestions to improve the website of your target webmaster, foster a good relationship with them by sharing your suggestions to improve his blog or other insights on the site and earn yourself a position, from there you could ask for a link back to your site, guest post or collaboration.33) Conduct interviews for content and link sharing of the contentInterviewing the professionals in your niche is a great strategy to get some backlinks with high PR in addition to extra social media credibility. When you interview a professional in your niche and post the interview on your blog, he/she will link to the same from their website and/or social media channels. The website of the so-called influence from which you get a link is bound to be a high traffic and authority website.In addition to earning a link, you also stand a good chance of earning some additional shares on social media. You might need little or no convincing for the influencer to share the respective interview blog from his/her audience.This can also be done as a paid interview and it can be well worth it. Just choose your expert wisely they are not all equal. The best times to approach them are when they are looking to promote one of their own offerings.Create link bait posts for high volume sharing and authority earningCreating a link bait posts or blog is one of the better ways to earn backlinks with authority. While easy said than done there is a process which can be broken down into several steps.Finding an intriguing or trending topicWriting 10x better content than the content already present on the web regarding the topicOptimising the headline and images for different social media platformsIdentifying the right hashtags and mentions to post with your topicGetting a list of influencers to reach out for procuring more shares and backlinksFinding relevant communities within the social media platforms to circulate the topicPerhaps spending some advertising money to share your post of social mediaJoining or paying to be part of a co-promotion collective for blogs/content, like copromote.The task of finding an intriguing topic can be achieved in different ways:One way of finding a high potential topic is by shadowing the blogs or social media profiles of your most successful niche stars. Figure out what they are working on and how they are presenting it and try to establish an awesome piece of content that beats their content from all the perspectives. The 10x method.Another means to find an interesting topic is to follow the social media profiles of top officials, brands or accepted influencer. For instance, if you are a sports shoe retailer specialising in limited Nike Jordans and other cool shoes, you can visit the Nike home website, social media profiles and join exclusive mailing newsletter lists to learn about the most recently offerings and news. You can then break this news and expand on it to your audience faster and better than others. Often who breaks the news first wins.My favourites are Google trends, Twitter hashtag trends and Facebook trends. These sites present and track what is trending on their platforms. If you can predict a trend you can capitalise by righting matching content. Last year we predicted heavily on Donald Trump and got huge gains from it.Lastly, using tools like Buzzsumo gives you an idea of the most shared content on the web with respect to keyword topics. Being able to measure the predicted potential audience can save a lot of tears when you spend hours writing something to get 2 people read it. If you research a topic and the max shares it has ever attracted is under 10, you know not to spend 2 weeks on it. However, if the share value is potentially epic and current you know to put the special sauce on it. I don't want to discourage you either, it is possible nothing share-worthy has been created on the topic.34) How to Create Google Stacks and do they work[Added 22/June/2017] This seems more of a sales pitch at the moment, but the idea is you can create Google based docs, slideshows, images, website, Map listings in a public Google Drive folder and backlink them to your target website or page using anchor text. They are supposed to be powerful because you are using the Google domain.We are still testing this currently, the results so far are mixed, but we haven't found any negative effects thus far. The logic is somewhat correct however Google is way ahead of the game so I don't believe it to be the massive loophole it's being sold as.How To Make A Google Stack1) You'll need a Google Account, don't use anything important.2) Create a Google Drive Folder and Share it publically.3) Now create 1-5 Maps, One Document, One Spreadsheet, One Google Website, One Image, one PDF.All using one keyword only and link to your target site.My suggestion is to spend time on these and make them good if it is to be directed and ranked towards your brand.Now share, link, embed your docs.It is fairly simple to execute and likely the more genuine the better if it does work. Comment or email me if you have any concrete data on Google Stacking.35) Ranking PDFsI haven't used this for a long while, but it should still work. The idea is to publish your content in .pdf format. In its basic whitehat SEO form you can just provide a link to the pdf off a topic related page in its notorious format you could be spamming it everywhere from torrents to forums.Techniques of ranking pdfs1) The title should be H1 heading and start with your keyword2) The first paragaph will get picked up as the description normally2) Share awayBack in the day, I used this to out rank a couple big financial institutions for loans to great effect.36) Charity / Donation BacklinksThe concept here is very simple you make a donation to a worthy site and in return they give you a link back to your target site and maybe some naming rights, such as this site http://www.seopanel.in/donate, Australian one is AWIA or the Retired SEO workers gild ;). For this to work you want a website with a strong domain authority upwards of 40-50+. Also you want to see that they rank. You don't want to be parting with money for a link that will drag you back down the rankings. Setup is pretty straight forward.The hard part is finding the buggers. Some good Gogle search terms to find them are;'donation list’ + ‘contributors'*'contributors page’ + ‘donate.’Happy donatingSummaryThat was epic, I am exhausted! Now you know the best possible means to manually create backlinks for your website in 2017 (Note: look to understand the manual process of backlinking and then look to automating and outsourcing as much as possible. The strategy takes brains the execution not so much). The trick of the trade is to be creative in addition to investing lots of time and effort. Remember to have patience and do not be discouraged by failures. A backlink building strategy like email outreach can be a real patience tester. The secret to success here is “Sweat + Creativity”. Always focus on high-quality backlinks from a reputable website as they can do the job of 1000 low-quality backlinks. If you need any assistance or want to hire us for your SEO just leave a comment or send an email.Download a this blog as a document hereThis article was originally posted here, at the Mebsites’ // Medmedia’s blog. If you have any other questions, feel free to contact me here or on my website. Also we don’t robo post or respond we watch all our posts and respond swiftly in person.Bibliography:Website Design Agency - Reviews ★★★★★ (117+) - LIVE CHAT. (2016, 30 Jul ) Correlation between conversion rates & user generated reviews [webblog] Retrieved 7 March 2017, from http://mebsites.com/blog/correlation-between-conversion-rates/Mozcom. (2017, no-date). Technical Site Audit Checklist: 2015 Edition . [Weblog]. Retrieved 17 January 2017, from https://moz.com/blog/technical-site-audit-for-2015Fishkin, R. (2016, August 02). Subdomains vs. Subfolders, Rel Canonical vs. 301, and How to Structure Links for SEO - Whiteboard Friday. Retrieved June 21, 2017, from https://moz.com/blog/subdomains-vs-subfolders-rel-canonical-vs-301-how-to-structure-links-optimally-for-seo-whiteboard-fridayYourseosquadcom. (2016, 16 December 2016). How to Create Backlinks Manually - Free White Hat Link Building Tutorial. [Weblog]. Retrieved 17 January 2017, from http://yourseosquad.com/create-backlinks-manually/Backlinkocom. (2013, 21 October 2013). How to Get High Quality Backlinks (Without Guest Posting). [Weblog]. Retrieved 17 January 2017, from http://backlinko.com/high-quality-backlinksGotchseocom. (2017, no-date). How to Build Backlinks in 2017 (NEW Guide). [Weblog]. Retrieved 17 January 2017, from https://www.gotchseo.com/backlinks/Shari , T.H.U.R.O.W. (, July 18). The Fundamental Checklist For Website Navigation Design & Architecture – Part 1. [Weblog]. Retrieved 17 January 2017, from http://marketingland.com/fundamental-checklist-website-navigation-design-architecture-part-1-90743Northcuttcom. (2017, no-date). Site Architecture Checklist: The 51-Step Audit | Northcutt. [Weblog]. Retrieved 17 January 2017, from https://northcutt.com/wr/website-architecture-seo-audit-checklist/Beginners to Advanced Guide to Building a PBN. (2016, October 28). Retrieved February 11, 2017, from http://lionzeal.com/pbn-guide/Linksmanagementcom. (2015, 18 May 2015). Types of Backlinks - LinksManagement. [Weblog]. Retrieved 17 January 2017, from https://www.linksmanagement.com/types-backlinks/Cory collins. (2017, no-date). Determining Relevance in Link Building. [Weblog]. Retrieved 17 January 2017, from http://www.pageonepower.com/linkarati/relevance-in-link-buildingSearchenginewatchcom. (2017, no-date). Matt Cutt's view on how Google evaluates paid links. [Weblog]. Retrieved 17 January 2017, from https://searchenginewatch.com/sew/news/2332787/matt-cutts-shares-4-ways-google-evaluates-paid-linksMozcom. (2017, no-date). Overview on internal links. [Weblog]. Retrieved 17 January 2017, from https://moz.com/learn/seo/internal-linkQuicksproutcom. (2017, no-date). A Step by Step Guide to Modern Broken Link Building. [Weblog]. Retrieved 17 January 2017, from https://www.quicksprout.com/2015/08/19/a-step-by-step-guide-to-modern-broken-link-buildingKrista, B.U.N.S.K.O.E.K. . (, ). Blog Traffic: How to Use Q&A Sites and Niche Forums to Increase Blog Visitors. [Weblog]. Retrieved 17 January 2017, from http://blog.wishpond.com/post/65245501112/blog-traffic-how-to-use-q-a-sites-and-nicheShoutmeloudcom. (2015, 21 August 2015). 101 Ways to Get Quality Backlinks To Your Blog. [Weblog]. Retrieved 17 January 2017, from https://www.shoutmeloud.com/101-ways-to-get-quality-backlinks-to-your-blog.htmlD. (2017, March 08). Why penalties are great. Retrieved February 10, 2017, from http://www.darylrosser.com/blog/why-penalties-are-great/Masternewmediaorg. (2017, no-date). Best blog directories. [Weblog]. Retrieved 17 January 2017, from http://web-marketing.masternewmedia.org/rsstop55-best-blog-directory-and-rss-submission-sites/Infographicdatabasecom. (2017, no-date). TOP 70 Infographic Submission Sites List 2017 (January) - Infographic Database. [Weblog]. Retrieved 17 January 2017, from https://infographicdatabase.com/list-of-infographic-submission-websites/Quicksproutcom. (2017, no-date). The Link Builder’s Guide to Email Outreach. [Weblog]. Retrieved 17 January 2017, from https://www.quicksprout.com/2012/12/07/the-link-builders-guide-to-email-outreach/Eric vreeland. (2017, no-date). The Ultimate List: 50 Online Local Business Directories. [Weblog]. Retrieved 17 January 2017, from https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/10322/the-ultimate-list-50-local-business-directories.aspxThe Ultimate Guide to Guest Blogging. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://blog.kissmetrics.com/guide-to-guest-blogging/How to Rank In Google Images in 5 Steps. (n.d.). Retrieved June 21, 2017, from http://diggitymarketing.com/how-to-rank-in-google-images-in-5-steps/How to Build Authority with Donation Links. (n.d.). Retrieved June 22, 2017, from https://www.quicksprout.com/university/how-to-build-authority-with-donation-links/

I think this really depends on how sophisticated the HR function is in any organation, i.e. is it just transactional or does it incorporate the higher / strategic HR functions?HR has 2 levels of work: transactional and strategic. You'll have to do transactional before strategic. You need to have an interest in people, and a conviction that the below HR functions (not exhaustive) collectively improve workplace morale, culture and productivity and make an organisation known as a place people want to work for -by current and prospective employeesTransactionalAssists / advises managers withrecruitment - job design, salary benchmarking, methods to source candidates, interview formats. diagnostic testing, referee checks. etcdevelops tools for staff - such as orientation checklists, easy to find policy archives, procedures for how to rake leave, staff entitlements, etcconducting performance reviews / performance improvement / staff grievances / complaints by advising agianst policy, providing templates, advice on appropriate language, timing, issuing formal correspondence to affected staff; acting as a neutral resource for affected staffEnsures HR systems are in place for efficient transactions - eg staff leave approvals, staff hire requests, etcStrategicThe HR Dept is custodian of the staff engagement / capability objective of the company’s strategic plan; and actively develops, implements, reviews and improves actions based on consultation with key stakeholders to achieve people related KPIs and objectivesCompany has a suite of HR polices that are current and meet the legal / legislative requirements of their jurisdictions, as well as any niche requirements of the business. This includes process for oversight of ethical conduct in the company including guidelines to mitigate risk and investigate etc.Have processes and controls in place (Board approved) to monitor the implementation of HR policies continuously, and reports on them regularly to the senior leadership team and company BoardInitiates workforce planning / risk assessments with managers to identify gaps against future objectives, any cultural issues or matters relative to staff demographic that may impede future operations (eg: a number of staff at retirement age, die for long service leave, etc)Works with managers to advise and and implement on org change projects /review of organisational structures; and /or best way to upsize or downsize a business to achieve strategic / workforce needs, whilst adhering to policy and relevant legislation to protect the company from litigation, and act fairly to affected employeesSets staff rewards and recognition principles, guidelines and activities that are aligned to strategy, transparent, fair and regularly reviewedHR negotiates enterprise bargaining with workplace Agreements for organizations that have them - and advocates for the organisationEnsues appropriate systems and record keeping protocols are in place for all current and former staff good governance and to be ready for audits, litigation, etc.

1. Write Useful Content (aka Create Content That Answers Questions)It sounds obvious, but most SEO-focused content boils down to this:Answer a question that a lot of people are asking online, that isn’t being answered well.If you have a question, what’s the first thing you are likely to do? You Google it.It can be literally anything. From what is a meme, to where the best place to live is to why were cornflakes invented:Examples of questions people search on Google2. Write Evergreen ContentEvergreen content is content that will continue to be relevant way after it’s been published.It can include things like:Types of evergreen content (Image source: Keyword Research, Competitor Analysis, & Website Ranking | Alexa)3. Publish Long-Form ContentThere is no right or wrong content length. The ideal word count for your content is the one that best covers the topic fully.Having said that, it has been observed that longer content works best:Word count vs ranking position in Google (Image source: SEO Training and Link Building Strategies – Backlinko)4. Publish More List PostsA list post is an article whose headline features a numbered collection of things.There are a lot of list posts floating around the internet. BuzzFeed publishes mainly list posts:Examples of list posts ranking in Google5. Create a System (Hint: Use a Content Calendar to Plan Out Content)Driving traffic to your site is like a lot of things in life, it’s all about consistency.Consistency in your content strategy not only keeps you relevant to your audience but also signals to Google that you are on a reliable source of information,Slowly but steadily publishing blog posts is better than a frenzied and erratic posting schedule.And one of the best ways to manage this is with a content calendar. Somewhere you can store ideas and plan out what you are going to publish and in what order.You can use an editorial calendar, your project management app of choice like Trello or Asana, an alternative or a spreadsheet or even pen and paper (well, that’d be old-school).Example of an editorial calendar Trello board (Image source: Trello)6. Repurpose Content on Other Channels (And in Other Formats)Repurposing content is best described as finding new ways to reuse your existing content.It is useful for reaching new audiences on different mediums, breathing new life into forgotten content as well as making the most of your content efforts.Ahrefs does a great job of repurposing their content across their blog and YouTube channel, like with their content audit article + video:Example of repurposed content by Ahrefs7. Create Content That Appeals to InfluencersMost industries have influencers: individuals with large followings who seem to get loads of likes, shares, and links to their content.Wouldn’t it be great to leverage their authority for your own content?If you want influential people to share your content, you need to create content that appeals directly to them.Here’s a simple process for creating content influencers want to see:Find influencers in your industry with influencer research tools or do a quick search to find their direct email address.Analyze what they are talking about.Look for a common theme.Create content about this theme.Get your content in front of the influencer.8. Write Eye-Catching Headlines (Using Headline Analyzers)Headlines are one of the most important parts of your content.They are likely to be one of the first things people see in Google Search results. Without a compelling headline, even the most comprehensive blog post may go unread.To help you craft eye-catching headlines, you can use a headline analyzer like Sumo’s headline generator:9. Improve Old Blog PostsThe solution to increasing traffic to your website is probably something simple that you already have: old blog posts.If you’ve been blogging for a while, you probably have tons of posts sitting in your archives in need of some love to bring them back to life and get them generating search traffic.Look for pages that are hovering at the bottom of page one or the top of page two of Google’s search results. These pages are perfect examples to improve.But how do you improve them?Here are some quick ways to improve old blog posts:Update any outdated information.Add more images, screenshots, videos, etc.Improve your introduction (to make people want to read on).Increase your word count (if it makes sense to do so).Add links to and from related posts.Improve readability with shorter paragraphs and bullet points.Republish them and promote them again as new.Sometimes though, instead of updating old posts, you are better off just merging them…10. Merge Similar Articles (+ Redirect Them)If you have a backlog of similar articles covering the same topic and keywords, it may be worth merging them into a single post.By consolidating similar posts into one page, it is likely to perform better in Google as well as cleaning up your site architecture.Why?Because you aren’t spreading the ‘authority’ across multiple articles. Instead, you have one focused and strong post. You’ll also have one longer post that goes deeper into a topic, leading to more traffic.11. Use the Skyscraper TechniqueThe skyscraper technique is a marketing term coined by Brian Dean of Backlinko.Basically, it is a system for turning content into high-quality backlinks.Here’s how it works:Step 1 – Find existing content with lots of backlinks.Use tools like Ahrefs Content Explorer or BuzzSumo to find URLs with a lot of social shares and links.Finding successful content (to replicate) with Ahrefs Content ExplorerStep 2 – Now go and create something way better.Now you need to figure out how you can improve upon it. Can you add more up-to-date information? Maybe you can improve the visuals or expand it to include more points.Step 3 – Promote your skyscraper contentGo to the sites linking to the original content and ask for links to your superior content.Here’s an outreach template you can use:Hey [NAME],I was reading your post about [TOPIC] and noticed you linked to this page: [INSERT LINK]Just wanted to let you know that I just published an updated, more in-depth version of this page.Here it is: [INSERT SKYSCRAPER LINK]Might make a nice addition to the page?[YOUR NAME]12. Create an Expert Roundup PostExpert roundup posts are blog posts that collect quotes from experts and then use them in the article.Here’s an example from Databox about the best free SEO tools according to experts:Expert roundup post example by DataboxEmail MarketingIf you are doing anything online, you need an email. No matter the size of your business or website, being able to email your audience is vital.Seriously, half the world’s population uses email:Email statistics by OberloWith so many people reachable via their inboxes, email is one of the best ways to drive traffic to a website because:Your email list is already interested in your site.Traffic is almost guaranteed as you are talking directly to your list.Emails drive targeted traffic to the pages you choose.13. Increase Website Traffic with Email MarketingEmail marketing is a fairly inexpensive but effective way of reaching your audience.Aside from following email marketing best practices, here are some essential steps to take for increasing traffic with email marketing:Build a subscriber list as soon as possible.Choose the right email marketing software.Keep your emails to the point.Write eye-catching subject lines.Add social sharing buttons to your emails.Add a CTA (Call to Action).Don’t send too many emails.Make sure your email template works on mobile and don’t get marked as spam.14. Use Content Upgrades to Get More SubscribersContent upgrades (or lead magnets) are resources you give away in exchange for an email address. Here’s a list of some of the best lead generation WordPress plugins to check out.If you get the right upgrade, your audience will gladly sign up to your email list in order to get the free content.However, you’ve got to understand your audience and know what they would want. Perfect Keto does a good job of this:Content upgrade example by Perfect Keto15. Create an Email Welcome SeriesA welcome email series is a sequence of emails that are automatically sent to your subscribers when they first opt into your list.Just remember: it’s your chance to make a good first impression. This can go a long way in increasing your website traffic, as well as increasing your subscribers.Drift does a good job with this email that gets straight to the point and directs new subscribers to popular content:Welcome email example by Drift (Image source: HubSpot | Inbound Marketing, Sales, and Service Software)16. Add a Way to Capture Emails to Your SiteTo start leveraging the power of email for traffic, you need a way to collect email addresses via your website.You can use a sidebar or in-content sign up form like this:Example of Kinsta’s email signup form17. Submit Your Content to Aggregator SitesA content aggregator is a website that doesn’t create its own content. Instead, they collect content from other sites and “aggregate” it into one location.Users generally like aggregators as it gives them the chance to find a variety of content in one place. On the other side, publishers get their content in front of people who want to see it.18. Write Some Guest PostsGuest posting is when you write a blog post for a site other than your own. In return, you’ll get a link back to your site.This sends traffic to your site, gets you a backlink, and helps to increase your brand awareness.One of the biggest challenges with guest blogging is finding suitable websites that would be willing to accept and publish your guest posts.Thankfully, with just a quick Google search (+ some search operators) you’ll be able to find tons of guest post opportunities relevant to your niche:Finding topic relevant guest post opportunities with Google19. Promote Your Site With Blogger OutreachBlogger outreach is the process of finding relevant blogs and sending them a personalized email highlighting your website, service, product, etc.Step 1 – Find Blogs to Reach out ToYou could reach out to bloggers:who you have already featured on your site.who have written content on the same topic.who have previously linked to similar topics.who have tweeted related articles.Step 2 – Find the Right Contact Details for ThemBefore you can get in touch, you need to find the email address of the blogger you are reaching out to.There are a few ways of doing this, but one of the quickest is using an email lookup tool like Hunter.io:Find email addresses with HunterStep 3 – Write Your Outreach EmailNow you need to write the email you are going to send.If you need some help crafting your pitch, check out these email outreach templates by HubSpot.All that’s left to do now is hit “Send”.20. Invite Others to Guest Blog on Your SiteDon’t forget: guest posts are a two-way street.Don’t think you can only write content for other sites. Invite other people to write for your blog too. Providing they write a high-quality and original article that’s interesting for your audience of course.Not only do you get some new content on your site, but the guest blogger is likely to promote the article, bringing in more traffic to your site.Everyone’s a winner.21. Write on Medium (+ Other Sites)Medium is a user-generated site that prioritizes and suggests articles based on their users’ reading habits.You should consider writing on Medium because:It can send consistent traffic back to your site.It boasts a built-in and engaged audience.They even have a dashboard which shows how your articles are doing:Article stats/performance dashboard on MediumThere are also a couple of sites like Medium you can write on like:Write.asSvbtleSteemitMake sure to read our Medium vs WordPress guide.22. Promote Content in Relevant Online CommunitiesOnline communities are places where your audience hangs out on the Web and can include Facebook groups, Reddit, Slack channels and forums.Finding relevant online communities is easy if you are already part of the niche.If you are not, here are some helpful resources:Directory of Slack communities400 Slack communities500+ Facebook Groups (via Dropbox)5000 Top subreddits23. Post Useful Content On RedditReddit is a large and active community. There is probably already a subreddit related to your site’s niche.Leverage Reddit can send lots of traffic to your site if you get it right and don’t get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of discussions happening at any one time.In fact, you can use a tool like TrackReddit to track Reddit discussions:Track Reddit discussions happening that are relevant to your siteHowever, promoting things on Reddit can be hard. And users don’t pull any punches if they don’t like what you are doing.24. Get into Facebook Groups (+ Share Your Content)You should join some Facebook Groups related to your niche and share your content inside them.Again, you should respect the specific rules about promotion within those groups first.Facebook Groups cover a wide range of niches where your target audience may hang out. For us, WordPress support based groups like WordPress Freelancers or WordPress Speed Up are likely to have members who would be interested in our content.You can actually search for groups to find discussions happening related to your content:Digital Marketing Questions is a popular Facebook group25. Answer Questions on QuoraQuora can be great for driving traffic to your website.If you don’t have one already, first you’ll need to create an account. Once you have a Quora account, you need to find the right questions to answer.We grew our traffic 1,187% with WordPress.We’ll show you how.Join 20,000+ others who get our weekly newsletter with insider WordPress tips!Subscribe NowSubscribe to the Kinsta newsletterSubscribeI agree to the Terms and Conditions and Privacy PolicyThis is simple, just enter a keyword and Quora will suggest you related topics:Quickly find niche relevant questions to answer on QuoraChoose your topics and you’ll be able to see the latest questions related to that topic.Just hit “Answer” to add yours. Try to answer the questions fully and provide a link to any relevant content you have on your site if it makes sense to do so.If you to get the most out of Quora, fully complete your profile, pick questions relevant to your audience and add in links where it makes sense to do so. You should also check out our Quora marketing tips to help increase your reach.26. Post on Product HuntProduct Hunt is a community that curates the best new mobile apps, websites, and technology products every day.Product Hunt homepage can drive traffic back to your site27. Drive Traffic To Your Website From ForumsForums have been around since the very early days of the web. Since then, people have been using them to drive traffic back to their websites.Niche forums may be ugly, but they can drive good (and relevant) traffic to your websiteEven though certain forums can look outdated, if they have an engaged audience, they can be a great source of relevant traffic.28. Create Your Own ForumIf you can’t find a good forum for your industry, you could look at setting one up yourself. In fact, with WordPress forum plugins you can be set up fairly quickly.WordPress forumIf you do go this route, you need to make sure your users are producing quality content, you have moderators, and your forum has good UX.Getting that right could mean a steady stream of traffic back to your site.SEOAll the keyword research (more on that later) and content in the world won’t save your site if you have ignored SEO.SEO is one of the best ways to get consistent traffic flowing into your site. As long as you rank high in Google, you’ll be able to generate organic traffic to your site.Now that sounds great, but nothing in life comes for free or without some work.To benefit from SEO, you need to write about topics people are searching for in Google (which we covered in the previous section). But to fully benefit from it, you also need to ensure your site is optimized for search engines.Here are some things you can do right now to use SEO to drive traffic to your website:29. Pay Attention to Your Website’s SEO HealthSEO is pretty simple. Most of the benefits from following best practices to make sure your website is healthy and has everything Google expects to see.Getting these things set up can make a big difference on the amount of traffic to your site.Here’s are the SEO fundamentals you need:An SEO-friendly CMS like WordPress.A responsive design and good mobile usability.A valid SSL Certificate.A fast and reliable web host.Links from relevant sites.Content that people actually want to read.There can be more elements to SEO obviously, with website technical health being one (we’ll cover this later on), but this should lay the groundwork for you.30. Build Backlinks to Your WebsiteLinks from authority and relevant sites are like votes of confidence for your site.A simple overview of how backlinks help your site’s SEO (Image source: SEO Training and Link Building Strategies – Backlinko)The types of links to build will differ depending on your niche. Here are some useful link building resources:9 EASY Link Building Strategies (That ANYONE Can Use) by Ahrefs50 Local Link Building Tactics for ANY Budget by Loganix60+ Link Building Techniques Checklist by Mangools31. Get Your Content in Featured SnippetsSince its inception, Google has been adding more information to the search results to enhance the experience for users.One such feature is featured snippets:Featured snippet example32. Use Analytics Data to Find Under-Performing Pages (& Vice Versa)If you are familiar with Google Analytics open up the dashboard.Got to Behaviour > Site Content > Landing Pages and then hit the Sessions column to order from low to high.You’ll get something like this:Finding underperforming pages (to improve) in Google Analytics33. Optimize Your Best Traffic SourcesIn Analytics, go to Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium.Now you’ll see where your traffic is coming from:Finding top traffic sources in Google AnalyticsIn case you are unsure:Source is the place users are before seeing your content, like a search engine or another website.Medium describes how users arrived at your content.From here, you want to ask a few questions about your traffic sources:Which send the highest volume of traffic.Which send the highest-converting traffic.Which send the most engaged traffic.From there, try and figure out why those sources are effective. Then try to replicate it.And it’s not just your traffic source you should be thinking about…34. Steal Your Competitors’ Traffic SourcesSometimes the best way to get more traffic is to see what is already working… and then do that.One of the quickest ways to do this is by ‘stealing’ your competitor’s traffic. If you feel bad about stealing from your competitors, let’s just call it reverse engineering instead.Now you will need to use an SEO tool for this one.Here are two quick ways to spy on your competitors:Competitor Traffic Method #1 – SimilarWebGo to SimilarWeb and paste your competitors URL in the search box.Scroll down to the Referrals sections to see exactly where they are getting their traffic from:Spying on your competitors traffic using SimilarWebCompetitor Traffic Method #2 – AhrefsGo to the Ahrefs backlink checker. Input your competitor’s domain and click check backlinks.Now you’ll be able to see the top 100 backlinks and how much estimated traffic they are sending to your competitor:Spying on your competitors traffic using AhrefsArmed with the knowledge of what is working for your competition, you can go out and try to replicate it.Keyword ResearchKeyword research is the process of finding relevant phrases (keywords) that your audience is searching for.Once you have a list of keywords, you want to include them in pages with the intention of these pages showing up in search engines.There are lots of ways to generate keywords, using both free and premium tools.Let’s get started:35. Target Topics with Traffic PotentialSEO is one of the best ways to send consistent traffic to your blog (more on this later in this article).But to get Google to send visitors your way, you need to be showing up for the right keywords. In other words: you need to target keywords with traffic potential.After all, you want your traffic to look like this:The type of graph all website owners want to see: organic traffic increasesThe metrics you want to keep in mind when doing keyword research are:Search and Global Volume: how many people are searching the keyword each monthKeyword Difficulty: how difficult the keyword will be to rank for.36. Target Long-Tail KeywordsLong-tail keywords are 3+ word phrases that are very specific to whatever you are selling or the information you are providing on your blog.Here’s an example:Longtail keywords = more conversions (Image source: http://semrush.com).37. Do Question-Based Keyword ResearchAs we mentioned earlier, you really want to be writing about things people are asking.Two great tools finding these question-based keywords are Answer the Public and QuestionDB.Just drop in your keyword and you’ll get loads of question ideas.Here are the results for the keyword ‘credit card’ on Answer the Public:Use AnswerThePublic to generate lots (and lots) of question-based keywordsAnd here are the results for QuestionDB:Use QuestionDB to get loads question keywords people are askingAs you can see, from just one keyword you can generate lots of potential questions you can turn into articles (that people in your niche are asking).38. Identify Keyword GapsThis is just a fancy way of saying find keywords you don’t rank for that get a high amount of monthly searches.And then — you guessed it — try rank for them.The quickest way to find keyword gaps is with this free content gap finder or with Ahrefs.If you choose the latter, here’s a quick walkthrough:Fire up the Ahrefs Content Gap tool and drop in the domains you want to compare:Use Ahrefs Content Gap tool to find keywords to targetHit ‘show keywords’ and you’ll see any potential keyword gaps:Keyword gaps in AhrefsIf you do this for your site and a few of your competitors, you’ll be able to see all the keywords they rank for, but you do not.Based on your competitors, you’ll be able to prioritize the keyword gaps to go after and try and rank for.39. Optimize Your Content With LSI (or Semantic) KeywordsLSI, which stands for “latent semantic indexing” (also sometimes referred to as semantic keywords) are words/phrases that are related to your main keyword.Since Google Hummingbird, the search engine has put more importance on understanding a topic fully. LSI keywords are a good way to help the search engine crawlers.You can use a tool like LSI Graph to find them. Just drop in your main keyword and it will give you a list of terms related to your topic:Examples of LSI /semantic keywords using LSI GraphTry to add these to your articles and pages.To be honest, if you are writing good content, you will be including semantic keywords anyway, but it’s worth keeping in mind.40. Prevent and Remove Keyword CannibalizationKeyword cannibalization is when two or more pages on your website are competing against themselves by trying to rank for the same term.It’s actually quite common, especially with large sites with lots of pages. Here’s a pretty detailed article from Moz about it.The lesson to learn here is: you want to avoid keyword cannibalization as it can confuse Google (it won’t know which page it should rank). Having two similar pages competing against one another is not helpful for driving traffic.It can also:Lower the authority of your page.Dilute any links you have to the page(s).Impact your conversion rate.Often you will be better off consolidating these into one post. You can use this free spreadsheet to find keyword cannibalisation and run a quick “site:yourdomain.com ‘keyword’ query to surface potential issues.41. Find Easy-Win Keyword OpportunitiesHere’s a quick traffic win you can do if you have an existing site:Find pages that are performing relatively well, and then improve them to give them a boost.Let me explain:Pages/keywords that are ranking around the top of page 2 of the bottom of page 1 are ideally suited. These may just need a few tweaks to get them to climb up the ranks and send more traffic to your site.Some ways you can improve these easy-win keywords pages are by:Doing keyword research to target the main term + related terms better.Improving your on-page SEO.Adding more content.Pointing internal links to the page.Building some backlinks to the page.To find these pages you can use the built-in keyword filtering of SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush again, use some free SEO spreadsheets for SEO tasks or go through the performance report in Google Search Console.Technical ImprovementsAnother aspect of SEO that determines how much traffic your site will get is its technical health.In order for search engine bots to find, crawl, and index your site, there are some technical elements you need to tick off.Let’s check them out:42. Follow Technical SEO Best PracticesTechnical SEO is the process of optimizing your site for Google’s crawlers.It is an important step in getting traffic to your site. If Google can’t find, crawl, and index your site, you won’t rank. No ranking = no organic search traffic.It is called “technical” SEO because it is less about the content of your site and more about the infrastructure.Technical SEO can be a big topic. But in terms of getting the best practices down, here are the things you want to do:Specify a preferred domain (www or no www?)Optimize your Robots.txt file.Optimize your sites URL structure.Have a logical site structure and website navigation.Use breadcrumbs to improve UX.Add structured data markup.Set up canonicals.Set up and optimize your 404 pages.Use 301 redirects.Have an XML sitemap.Install an SSL certificate.Make sure your website loads fast.Make sure your website is mobile-friendly.Set up Google Search Console.This is by no means an exhaustive list. But if you can tick off everything above, you are on the right track for a healthy site.43. Submit Your Site to Search EnginesYou want your site to show up on Google and Bing right?Then you need to submit your site to search engines.Actually, this process is very quick. Most of the work is done for you, but it is worth doing so you have control of indexation in the future.Search engines don’t technically require you to submit your site. But there are plenty of scenarios where it makes lots of sense to do. Think of:New sites with little to no backlinks.Rehauled sites with new content and structure.Recently hacked sites.Big chunk of updated content now available.Manually submitting your site to Google and other search engines should cut down on the time required to get re-indexed properly, hence gaining organic traffic regularly flowing towards you.44. Improve SERP Click-Through Rates (with GSC Data)Click-through-rate (CTR) is the percentage of searchers who click through to your website from the Google search results.Here’s the great thing:By improving your CTR, you can effectively increase traffic.To see your CTR, go to Search Console > Performance, now make sure Average CTR is selected and choose Queries. From here you will be able see your best and worst queries in terms of CTR:CTR performance report in Google Search ConsoleSome ways you can improve your organic CTR are:Improving your page titles.Making your URLs clearer and more descriptive.Improving your meta descriptions.Adding Structured Data.Improving page speed.45. Fix Lost ‘Link Juice’ on 404 PagesWhen you delete a linked page, add an incorrect URL to a page, or incorrectly change a URL, a broken link is created. These are bad for UX.No one wants to go buy some Lego and be greeted with this 404 page:An example of a 404 page on the Lego websiteOkay, so maybe they kinda do because that’s a good 404 page.So, how do broken links affect SEO?When a search engine is crawling your site and they find dead links, it can stop the spiders from crawling your site. This can stop it from being indexed.In other words, when searchers (and/or web crawlers) browse through your site and click on the link, they may be directed to a page with a 404 error.I don’t know about you, but when this happens, I either get a bit annoyed with the website in question or just leave.Don’t take the risk. Go find and fix any potential broken links.46. Boost Authority with Internal LinksInterlinks are links that point from one page on your site to another page on the same site.You will have seen them countless times before:An example of internal linkingInterlinks (or internal links) usually occur naturally when you are referring to past content or related pages in your content.Adding internal links can:Help visitors (and search engines) navigate your own website.Help to establish an information structure.Spread link juice or authority throughout your site.47. Make Sure Your Site is ResponsiveAlmost everyone has a smartphone. And almost everyone browses websites on their mobile.In 2019, there were 4070 million unique mobile internet users!Mobile internet user statisticsThat’s a lot of potential mobile visitors to your site. Google recognized this with its introduction of mobile-first indexing.If you don’t have a responsive website, here why you should:It improved site usability for visitors.It will load faster.It will reduce bounce rate.It may improve social sharing.48. Enhance SERP Appearance with SchemaAlso known as structured data, Schema is a markup easily read by search engines.It makes it easier for search engine crawlers to find and index your page. Because it gives search engine bots more information about your site, your site can get rich site snippets (which can improve your CTR).If you’re featuring reviews on your site, you could score rich snippets like the one below:An example of schema showing (review stars) in GoogleWe’ve actually got a more detailed guide on how to add schema markup to a WordPress site.49. Make Sure Your Site is FastWe’ve touched on this a bit already, but how fast your site loads does affect SEO.Page speed is a direct ranking factor, and can also affect rankings indirectly via increased bounce rate.Mobile page speed benchmarks (Image source: Home - CodeMeRight)Page speed is important for users. Think about: if a web page is loading slowly for you, what do you do? Do you wait for it to load or do you go somewhere else?Chances are you leave.Faster loading pages are more efficient for keeping people on your site. And Google knows this too. That’s why way back in 2010 they announced that page speed counts as a ranking factor for SEO.John Mueller of Google says to make sure web pages load for users in less than 2-3 secs:John Mueller’s (of Google) advice for fast loading pagesWhen it comes to speeding up your site, there are a few things you can do to boost performance like compress images, use a lightweight WordPress theme and have a good hosting setup able to deliver high performances.Social MediaIf you want traffic, go to the places online where your target audience hangs out and shares content. Social media can also help you build brand recognition as well as a community.And it’s not just sharing memes and cat videos: 43% of adults in the US get their news from Facebook:Tired of a slow host for your WordPress site? We provide blazing fast servers and 24/7 world-class support from WordPress experts. Check out our plansSocial media statisticsHere are some ways to drive traffic to your site using social media:50. Get Active on Social MediaThis sounds like an obvious step, but you actually need to set up your social accounts if you want them to drive traffic.The rule of thirds (Image source: Award Winning Web Design and Development Company in Chicago)Here are the essentials to complete across whichever platform you choose:Fully complete your profile (don’t forget to link to your site) and your business pages (Facebook and LinkedIn).Promote your blog content.Be sure to share interesting content (follow the rule of thirds).Post when your audience is online.Talk with your audience.In terms of which platform you should be on, depends on your audience.The best social media platform is the platform where your audience hangs out.51. Post On Social Media at Strategic TimesThis will be very dependent on your audience and the platform you are on.There have been lots of studies into when to post on social media like this one from Hootsuite or this one from Sprout Social.52. Add Social Share Buttons to Your SiteOh, and don’t forget to make it easy for people to share your content on social media.(Pssst, if you are reading this on desktop, just look to the left.)An example of social share buttons we use on all blog posts at KinstaThese improve your online exposure since users find pages and posts they enjoy, then share them on social media sites.The easiest way is to set up a WordPress social media plugin for your site.53. Use a Social Media CalendarWouldn’t it be great to get more click-throughs on social media?Well, the answer may be in using a social media calendar.This type of calendar helps you to understand:Why your audience shares (or doesn’t share) your content.Which types of content people prefer.What’s more, it also stops you from over sharing the same type of stuff too often and allows you to plan on sharing content you know works.It doesn’t take long to set up your calendar, a spreadsheet will do the trick:An example of a content calendar you can use to promote blog postsThis simple addition to your social media strategy can help you improve shares and get traffic back to your blog.Head over to the Post Planner blog to grab a free social media calendar template.54. Research Your Competitor’s Social StrategyA great tactic for improving the amount of traffic you get from social media is to spy on your competitors. See what they are doing that is working, and then try and replicate it.Here’s a couple of social media competitor analysis tools to use:BuzzsumoHootsuiteSprout SocialWant a super quick social competitive analysis plan?Let’s go:Step 1 – Find Your Competitors’ Social Media StrategyUse a tool like Sprout Social to see what your competitors are doing:Competitor research using Social SproutThen think about things like:What keywords are they using?Who are they following?What social networks are they on?How big is their audience?How often do they post?Step 2 – Analyze Their Profiles and ContentHave a look at each of their social profiles. What do they do well, and what don’t they do well?Look for things like:Are they posting relevant and up-to-date content?Do they have good or bad customer service?Are there spelling mistakes?What kind of images are they using?Are they using unique angles to promote themselves?Step 3 – Monitor Any ChangesSocial media is a never-ending stream of content so monitor what your competitors are doing (some of the tools mentioned above can help).Check out how to leverage LinkedIn to grow your site traffic, how to take advantage of Facebook and Twitter for your marketing.Armed with this information, you’ll be able to hopefully see gaps where you can do something effective on social media to get traffic to your site.55. Put Social Media on AutopilotSocial Media can be a great way of promoting content to your audience.The only problem is that it can take hours out of your day, especially if you are posting a lot of content.Take for instance promoting new blog posts. You’ve got to add the title, a social sharing image and a link to the new post to each of your social accounts. And that’s for every post.Remembering to update all your social feeds like this when you publish a new blog post can be a time suck.Not if you use this Zapier Zap to automatically Tweet your new WordPress posts:Use Zapier to automatically post new blog postsThis is only scratching the surface of what you can do. Head over to Zapier to check over 100 different ways you can automate social media.56. Use Buffer to Schedule and Publish Social PostsWhile on the subject of automation, you can use a tool like Buffer to schedule your posts in advance and automatically post them to your channels:Use Buffer to schedule and publish social postsAlongside posting your content, Buffer can also suggest the best time to post. Nice, isn’t it?57. Use Quuu PromoteQuuu Promote is a paid tool that can drive traffic by promoting your content automatically to the right audience.Quuu Promote can help you generate lots of social sharesSo how does Quuu Promote work?In a nutshell:You create a social media post (with a link to your content).Quuu puts this in front of people in your niche who have signed up to get suggestions from Quuu.Some of these people may share it on their social profiles.You earn more traffic.58. Drive Traffic with These Twitter Marketing TipsBefore you even get started, you need to pick the right Twitter handle, profile photo, and header image. For Twitter to be an effective traffic generating machine, you need to be proactive.Did you know: the average lifespan of one tweet is just 18 minutes:Average lifespan of a tweet (Image source: SEO Software for Smarter Marketing)And with over 7,000 new tweets being sent every second, to get any meaningful return from your Twitter, you need a plan.59. Drive Traffic with Promoted TweetsPromoted Tweets (aka Sponsored Tweets) are standard Tweets, except they’re paid for by advertisers attempting to increase their Twitter reach and/or engagement.They are pretty easy to spot as they have a ‘promoted’ label beneath them:An example of a promoted tweetPromoted Tweets increase reach and drive traffic to your website and post-click landing pages, which in turn, increases lead generation and sales. For more in-depth tips on using Twitter to grow your traffic, check out our guide.Go here to get started running Twitter Ads.60. Drive Traffic with These Facebook Marketing TipsDriving Facebook traffic back to your website is essential, and FB traffic provides a great opportunity to target your ideal audience.If you haven’t already, create a Facebook page for your site, and then follow these Facebook marketing tips to help you generate more traffic:Use images on all your posts.Keep your updates short and to the point.Ask your fans short questions.Use a quote from blog articles when sharing content.Use videos.Curate content from other websites in your niche.There’s also Facebook Ads too…61. Use Facebook AdsYou are probably pretty familiar with Facebook ads:Example of a Facebook adWhen used correctly, Facebook Ads can be an effective (and low cost) way of sending traffic to blog posts.But if you know what you are doing, they can be the opposite of that: expensive and ineffective.You want to use targeted Facebook ads to drive traffic from Facebook back to your site, so make sure you are going after the right (and interested) audiences.If you are confused at all, look into using a Facebook ad tool.62. Retarget Visitors With Facebook AdsDon’t forget you can also use Facebook retargeting ads.Ad retargeting is the process in which you target ads to users who have previously been on your website or social media platform but haven’t converted.You need to have your Facebook Pixel installed and tracking your site traffic and website events.63. Drive Traffic with These Instagram Marketing TipsIt sounds obvious, but uploading good images and videos that are relevant to your audience is the key to success on Instagram.Think about it: if your audience is B2B, is this content useful?A popular Instagram meme page64. Use Instagram AdsLike Facebook ads, Instagram ads can be a great way of getting in front of your target audience.An example of an Instagram adInstagram ads can be set up through Facebook’s advertising platform You can run different types of ads including Photo, Video, Carousel, Slideshow, and Stories Ads.First, you need to connect your Instagram and Facebook accounts:Instagram/Facebook ad dashboardVery simply, here’s how you get started advertising on Instagram:Go to Facebook’s Ad Manager.Set your objective.Set your target audience.Pick your ad placements.Set your budget and schedule.Create your Instagram Ads.65. Drive Traffic with These YouTube Marketing TipsWith so many videos uploaded every day to YouTube, it’s easy for your content to get lost.Thankfully, there are some simple steps you can take for generating organic traffic to and from your videos.Here are some proven tips for getting traffic from YouTube:A reason to visit your site like a free PDF, ebook, course, or exclusive content.Add a link to your site in your channel header.Use cards to help views navigate around.Add a website link in your video descriptions.Use a clear CTA on videos66. Don’t Forget YouTube SEO (to Rank Your Videos)One of the best ways to get more video views is with YouTube SEO.In a nutshell:YouTube SEO is the process of optimizing your channel (including video playlists, metadata, descriptions, and actual videos) so that your channel shows up for the right people.You can actually optimize your videos for search results inside YouTube and Google.67. YouTube AdsWith a lot of your potential audience already on YouTube, it makes sense to target them with ads.An example of a YouTube adTo get the most from YouTube Ads, you need to:Target your audience.Choose the right ad format.Create engaging ads.Check out this guide to YouTube advertising by HubSpot for more information.68. Drive Traffic with These Pinterest Marketing TipsHere are some tactics you can use to harness Pinterest traffic:Sign up for a business account (and get access to Pinterest Analytics).Make sure each pin description is detailed, helpful, and actionable.Pin at the right time.Create pin-worthy images (that are the right size & include text).Join relevant Pinterest group boards.69. Use Pinterest AdsPinterest ads are useful for getting your content in front of more people as they search and browse Pinterest.LinkedInWith over 600 million users, LinkedIn is the go-to social network for B2B.LinkedIn is the place people go to when they want to connect with people in their industry, learn about their industry and share related content. If you want to drive traffic to your B2B blog or website, this is your platform.90% of social traffic is driven by LinkedIn to B2B sites (Image source: The #1 FREE email capture tool)70. Drive Traffic with These LinkedIn Marketing TipsLinkedIn can be a great traffic source if you use it right.Here are the essentials you need to start driving traffic from LinkedIn today:Create and optimize your personal Profile.Join groups (or start one).Create a company page.Regularly share useful content.Don’t share too much.71. Republish Articles on LinkedInDon’t forget you can leverage LinkedIn’s publishing platform to reach their massive audience.Republishing articles on LinkedIn is a great way to send traffic to your website and get in front of a new audience.To get started, just hit ‘write an article’ on the LinkedIn homepage:The “Write an article” feature in LinkedInBefore you publish your article, there are two things you want to make sure you’ve included:A short bio – add this to the end of your post to direct people to your homepage or blog.A CTA – directing people to a specific resource on your site that you think may help people.72. LinkedIn AdsYou can also use LinkedIn Ads to target your audience with sponsored content, sponsored or text ads.An example of a LinkedIn adLinkedIn is obviously most suited to targeting a professional audience. So if your site isn’t targeting that demographic, you may be better of saving your money.This guide by Hootsuite provides a good walk-through of LinkedIn ads.73. Use Paid TrafficWe’ve touched on this already with social ads, but paid traffic can be an effective way of getting eyes on your content. It’s also highly scalable (providing you have the budget).Types of paid traffic you can send to your website (Image source: http://charlesngo.com)Here are some of the best-paid traffic sources to consider:Display ads.Paid search ads (through Google AdWords or Bing Ads).Paid discovery (like Outbrain or Taboola).Sponsored content.Depending on the ads you’re buying, you could pay per click (PPC), pay per view (PPV) or pay per acquisition/action (PPA).74. Appear on Niche Relevant PodcastsMonthly podcast listening statistics (Image source: Content Marketing Consulting and Social Media Strategy | Convince & Convert)Doing podcast interviews can be a great driver of traffic.Not only do you get a relevant recommendation on the podcast but you also get in front of a new audience. And if you are on a niche relevant podcast, you may have gained new audience members of your own.75. Start a PodcastIf you are struggling to find podcasts to appear on, or you just have a burning desire to share content, why not create your own.Here’s how to quickly start a podcast:Pick your topic(s).Come up with a name, show description, and artwork.Set up and test your recording equipment.Plan your episodes.Record your episodes.Edit and then finally publish your episodes.Hey presto, you’ve just launched a podcast.76. Do Some Interviews (with Bloggers in Your Niche)Many people will be willing to talk to you if you just ask them, even if you only have a small audience.It’s pretty simple to get started too:Just send out a few emails requesting an interview to people in your industry. For the ones that get back to you, publish the interviews on your blog.