Some Easy Ways to Build Backlinks

Guest post by Shashank. How to build backlinks? Back links are important for any site and it requires a lot of time to build quality links. Ask any pro-blogger the amount of effort that goes into building links in the initial days, and you’ll know what it takes.

There are tons of articles on the internet talking about the importance of quality backlinks. So, I’m going to assume you know the basics.

To start off, there are basically two methods of building links: The traditional way and the non-traditional way. My strategy falls somewhere in between. There are few tricks that have worked from me – and I am sure they would work for you as well.

The Tried and Tested “Lists”

I believe human psychology is tuned to click list based posts. There is something about these articles that makes users to click, share and link to them. These articles are a great way to build traffic, get noticed by other blogs and go viral on social media sites – and if you have a number (like “Top 10…”) in the headline, then your job is half done.

Personally, I do not like list based articles because there is too much of generic content and very little in-depth analysis. But having them once in a while on your blog won’t harm your reputation that much.

But do not overdo it.

List articles stuff too much information to be gulped down in a single read. That is why users save it, share it and above all link to it. One thing that separates a great List based article from a mediocre one is the amount of original content it has. I have seen text directly copied from the resource sites/ pages.

Rather, write your own thoughts and opinions about the product so that the users have a reason to believe what you have to say.

Spark Controversy

Last week I wrote two posts slamming Google+ and its ineffective management. The articles generated quite a lot of interest from people and ended up being linked by other blogs.

So why did I succeed in generating backlinks?

Simple, I challenged the status quo. There was a lot of buzz on the internet about the rise of Google+ and how it had reached 50 million users already.

I could have gone ahead and rehashed the same stuff, but I took a detour and wrote the opposite of what people believed. Well, I did get slammed by ardent Google+ fans, but then, they stood up and took notice of me.

That is how things work in real world and trust me, that is how things work online too.

Write about startups and companies

This strategy was discovered accidently. On my blog, I write a lot about companies and startups and after writing for about couple of months, I noticed that these very companies were linking back to me — and these were no small ones.

Companies like Hootsuite generously linked to my articles that explained about their product. A quick glance at their PageRank will reveal you that they have a healthy PageRank 6! I now have about a dozen top-notched companies linking to my blog and the effect of this strategy: Page Rank jumped from PR0 to a more respectable PR3.

While some might argue PageRank is no longer relevant, but believe me, it feels great to be linked by a reputable source.

These tips are just an addition to the traditional ways of building backlinks. It has been said over and over again that no matter what, quality of articles separates one blog from another. The three tips that I spoke about won’t work for you if you write poorly.

Spend some time, take breaks and write an awesome article that compels users to link to you. Hopefully you’ll find these tips useful. Do comment and let me know if you find these strategies worth trying.

Guest author Shashank Harwalkar is a social media enthusiast who runs the social media news blog Fastgush.com. He covers social networking news, social media marketing and social media startups. If you would like to reach him, send him an email at shashank@fastgush.com. You can alsoguestblog here. Image by ivanpw under CC license