How to get quality backlinks for free

In this post I talked about what a link is and how to use it in SEO, and I mentioned that there were some off page links that were very important. Well, the time has come to talk about them, and for you to understand how important it is to have a link building strategy to get quality links for SEO.

Why is it important to get backlinks?

The Internet is a reflection of life itself. And an SEO link is the same as a referral. And if for example you are a personal trainer, the more references you have, the more people talk about you, the more confidence you will inspire in people. And the better you will be positioned in the industry, with respect to your peers.

The same goes for links to your website: the more links you have, the better you will be positioned for Google. Because if users and/or other pages talk about you, there’s a reason. This increases your “prestige”, your “popularity”, or what is the same, increases your authority in the eyes of the search engine.

So throughout this post we are going to discuss 3 basic aspects about getting links to better understand its importance:

1. How to get links
2. How they are reflected in domain metrics
3. What effect all this has on your SEO

How to get quality links to my website

First of all, you have to differentiate between types of websites and topics. Because depending on this, it will be easier or more difficult to get them. It is not the same to go to great lengths to get links for an e-commerce, than for a blog. And a blog about the reproductive habits of black-headed ants is not the same as a blog about decoration. In the first case, only very specific and specialized links will be useful. In the second, there is a much wider range of possibilities.

why does this happen? Because it is important that the place from where they link to your website is relevant to your topic. Ideally, they should be similar, or at least related. Therefore, finding places from where to talk about ant reproduction, when it comes to making a link building strategy, will be more difficult than finding sites from where to link to a decoration blog, which is a common topic and we all more or less talk about it at some point. Or we know someone who does.

That said, whether there are many links or few, every website needs a backlink strategy, in which links can be obtained in two ways:

Free quality backlinks

How to get quality (and free) backlinks can be further divided into several possibilities.

• Quality content. This is undoubtedly the best and most recommended way to get links. If you talk about something you know, if you do it in an original way, if you have a style that you like, if you rely on good audiovisual content, etc., the legend says that the links come by themselves. And the truth is so. But there are many yeses. And in very competitive sectors, you may need more than that.
• Link exchanges. That is, I put a link to your website if you put a link to mine. Be careful with this. If you do this in isolation, Google’s wrath will not fall on you, especially if you already have a worked link profile. But it is not advisable to abuse. So if you are going to do it, make it worth it. The best way is through a blog post on a related topic, where the desired link is included.
• Review links. There are tools with which you can see the links of the competition – such as MOZ, mentioned below – and if there are any that are not working. If it is because that content no longer exists (the link gives a 404 error), you can always contact the webmaster of the site in question and offer to put a link to a similar content of yours. Sometimes it works. And as long as your content is worth it, of course.
• Links in forums. It is very common, and it is also a good way to simulate a natural link profile. The normal thing is that people in forums ask questions, solve doubts, give recommendations … So it will not be so rare that your website appears in forums here and there. You can go answering yourself questions from users who are potential customers, leaving your link. Or simply open a topic and leave your link there. This will depend on the forum and its policy. Some don’t mind, but others do, and may delete your link or even expel you from the site. Also keep in mind that the more permissive the forum, the more “crap” there will be on it. And remember that you are looking for links from quality sites.
• SEO Directories. This is one of the first resources to be exploited when it comes to getting links in the link building strategy. Are they really good for anything? Once again, the key is quality. There are many business directories and free directories where you can create backlinks to your website, within the corresponding category. If you are starting from scratch, it is a good idea. You can do a couple of them a week, for example. Here are some of our recommendations regarding business directories that we consider meet the standards to get started:

1. 1. 1. Infobel
      2. Vulka
      3. Europages
      4. Yalwa
      5. Opendi
      6. Cylex
      7. Yellow.place
      8. Confidalia
      9. Indizze
      10. Cataloxy

Buying quality backlinks

The million dollar question, should I buy SEO links or not? Here are Google’s link building guidelines, which make it very clear that they don’t want you to do it. But like everything else, if you do it with moderation and head, with a good backlink strategy, – because you are going to buy quality links – it shouldn’t be a problem.

In fact, if you search on Google, you will see many platforms that are dedicated to just that, to give you a space where you can go shopping. So, what should I keep in mind when buying links? Here are some tips:

• That they are from the same country or at least the same language. We see it in almost all the clients that come to our hands. A Spanish company, and when we check their link profile, has 45% from Romania, Russia, etc. and 15% from Spain. What happened here? Those links are not only useless in the long run, but they can also penalize. Because Google is not stupid, what are they doing talking about your sunglasses in a massive way in Russia? Why do they hardly talk about them in Spain? It is clear that they are not very natural. They may be cheap, but good, no. So stay away from these tactics.
• Do not repeat domains. That is to say, it is no good to have 28 links from the same site, no matter how good it is. For Google, it will count as one time. I can talk about how good your cakes are 28 times, but I am still a single reference, and I count as such. And watch out for a special situation that can occur in these cases: from the same domain you detect 364 backlinks, and it is because they have been placed in the footer, in the feed, in the most recent posts, in the featured posts, etc. This can be considered SPAM, and if you already have thousands of links, well, it can be overlooked. But if you are just starting out, this smells funny to Google and you can be penalized for that particular URL that is being linked to.
• Business directories. Yes, we’re back to a point we mentioned earlier, but this time it’s about paid directories. In fact, many of those that are free, will give you the option to upgrade the service by paying a fee. Either directly to be able to put the link in follow, or to add your business description, etc. And others will directly ask you to pay from the beginning. If they are prestigious directories, it can be an interesting investment.

As we have already mentioned them twice, let me go a little deeper into them.

What are link directories

Directories are sort of like “yellow pages”. In fact, yellow pages exist as a directory. They are websites where you can go and search for companies by sector, activity, location, name… That’s why it is very common for companies to register in them.

In this case, if you are going to register in directories, bear in mind one important thing: almost all of them will ask you to include a text describing what your company is, its activity, etc. But you cannot use the same text to register in all of them, because it is assumed that with this text, you will be positioned. Either in Google, if the directory is powerful, or within the directory itself, so if you do that, you are cannibalizing. And as we explained in the post that I link you, that is not optimal.

Measuring link quality

As you can see, throughout the whole post there has been one word I’ve repeated a lot: quality. I’ve been pretty heavy on the subject. But of course, how do you know if the link you are going to get on a site is quality or not?

Well, believe it or not, it’s very easy. There are a couple of free tools that let you see the backlinks and will let you know the domain metrics of the website you are evaluating. Based on them, you’ll know if it’s worth it or not.

Ahrefs DR

The DR is the Domain Rating, – the score of the domain – and it goes from 0 to 100. Obviously, the closer it is to 100, the more authority it has and, therefore, the more quality it will be for you. Just go to ahrefs and enter the domain name. It will give you a data like the one we see in the screenshot, in addition to checking the backlinks pointing to your website.

MOZ

It also gives you an approximation. Download the Chrome extension, and you can see the DA (domain authority) and PA (Authority of the specific page or URL you want to examine)

SEO links and the authority of a website

As I’m sure you’ve already thought, with these same tools you can check the value of your domain metrics, as they are going to count and evaluate the quality and quantity of links pointing to your website. That’s why the more quality links you get, the better these metrics should be, because it means that you are popular: people, users, talk about you. And this is something Google likes. So it will be more willing to show you in Google results.

But keep in mind that these numbers are relative and should always be analyzed with respect to the values that the competition has. That is to say, within your same sector, you have to know who talks about the same thing as you or sells the same thing as you and know their domain metrics. You can have a DR of 20 and look phenomenal. But if your competition is all above 50, that’s a big difference, isn’t it? It’s telling you that you still have a ways to go.

How does all this affect my SEO?

First of all, and despite what was said in the last line, remember that in SEO everything is relative. In our experience we have seen URLs with lower authority ranking above URLs with better DR or DA for certain searches.

But, for that to happen, the truth is that there must already be a history behind it. That is, a new website, in order to get somewhere, will have no choice but to comply with the rules. And the truth is, the better your domain metrics are, the easier it will be to stand out for Google and position you better in the search results. For the same reason that I have said from the beginning: Google likes people (websites) to talk about you, because that gives them an idea that you are liked, that you count or have something worthwhile. And this is achieved with links or backlinks.

7 tips for your Link Building strategy

This is the last point to discuss, and briefly, I want to indicate a small roadmap if your website is new and you do not know where to start creating backlinks. Aim!

1. Free directories. Sign up for a couple of them a week, for example.
2. Comments in forums. Rather than going crazy commenting on every forum out there, either you go to forums in your sector and start helping people with doubts, for example. Or you go to generalist forums but of powerful media, and do the same. But do not abuse, as I said, there are forums that do not accept links to be published or to be put in all comments, etc.
3. Get links in blogs. Either for free or paying some amount if you see that it compensates you, try to find blogs in the sector that can and want to link to you.
4. Write your own content. In case you have a web store, it is essential that you have a blog, because being informational content, it is the most likely to be linked. And obviously, from that content that offers information, that is a tutorial, etc, you are linking to your website. So indirectly, it’s a link. On the other hand, there are platforms like telegra.ph, medium, etc, that have good authority and allow you, for free, to upload content. So write something interesting, that links to your website and upload it to the platform.
5. Link to your homepage using sometimes the name of your brand (‘Reparaciones Antonio y Luisa’, ‘Muebles Comodidad y Más’) and other times, using the main keyword that defines you (car repair shop, furniture store, etc…) At least at the beginning. If you have a good web structure, all the strength of the external links that the home page receives, will be distributed by the categories of your store or blog.
6. You must have a ratio of 70-80% nofollow and 20-30% dofollow links
7. And be careful, because although you must use your brand name and your main keyword as anchor text, you can’t forget to use generic anchors like ‘here’, ‘in this link’, ‘this web’, etc, to simulate natural linking.

Conclusion

It is essential, especially if you are just starting out, but even if you already get links naturally, to have a link building strategy. This way, if you are a new website, you start working on your authority or popularity. And if you are a long-established site, you make sure you continue to get quality links.

Many times it is more a matter of time than anything else. Because registering in directories, each one with its peculiarities, looking for blogs where to put the links, writing texts, etc, takes time. That’s why, if you want or need a professional service, don’t forget that at IDX Engine we do Link Building and we can help you with everything you need in this regard.

And remember that you can leave any doubt or advice in the comments!