The number and quality of the links to your site from other websites has always been important to your Google ranking, but getting people to link from their site to yours is not always the easiest thing to do. This is another area where having unique, quality content can help. Without good content on your site, there is nothing of value for people to link to.

A big part of your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and content strategy will be deciding what types of content will benefit your audience and cause other sites to want to link to it. Often, this means creating content that is informative, resourceful or which addresses a common need or pain point.

Links can almost be considered "votes" vouching for quality content. As far as search engines are concerned, this isn't the most democratic process in the world: A link from a major national newspaper is a higher-ranking vote than one from, say, a random social post on X. 

And links from sites that are semantically similar obviously make more sense -- and therefore count more -- than a link from something wildly unrelated, say a site about politics linking to a page about Christmas cake recipes.


How do you get other sites to link to you?

1. One of the best strategies for getting people to link to you is, of course, to link to them. 
   
   
2. Another approach is to follow relevant sites, blogs, online video channels, and social networking presences in your particular vertical and to comment on them, with appropriate and relevant links back to your own content. 
   
   
3. Authoring articles and other types of content for third-party sites is also a valuable link strategy. Most of these will have an "about the author" blurb that creates a link back to your own site or blog. 
   
   
4. Internal links are also highly valuable, as links are what search engine spiders follow to find content in the first place. This is where site maps, tags, category pages, and well-considered taxonomies come in handy. They not only help visitors to find relevant content, but help search engines to find it, too.
   
   
5. Making content as sharable as possible is another valuable link building strategy. It's why so many sites contain those small icons encouraging visitors to share on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, or X. Individually, social media links might not be as valuable as a citation from The Daily Telegraph, but many sites are seeing highly significant portions of their traffic originating from social media sites thanks to such efforts.
   
   

Your checklist

Use this checklist to plan how to use internal, inbound and outbound links to increase your Search Engine Optimisation. The tactics are ranked in order of importance.

1. The anchor text of inbound links.
   
   • When setting up links it is important to use specific suitable anchor text for the inbound links. ideally your backlinks should use a wide variety of anchor texts, reflecting different keywords and phrases that are relevant to you.
   • If you have one of your primary keywords/keyphrases in the anchor text in a link from another site then this suggests to the search engine that you are particularly relevant on this subject.
   • Also the text immediately before and after the anchor text is important because it further indicates the relevance of the link (it also helps to demonstrate to the Search Engine that the link is real, and not artificial).
   • Links deep into the site, specific to a particular product, are often the most valuable.
   • Anchor text for internal links also matters to your SEO, but not as much as inbound links.
     
     
2. The origin of your links.

   The greater the perceived relevance/importance of the sites linking to you, the higher your perceived value to a searching audience, with your SEO listing rising accordingly.
   
   

3. Linking with other sites within your business sector.

   If your perceived competition is linking to you then this is seen by the Search Engines as a vote of confidence by your peers and a reason to boost your SEO listing.
   
   

4. Linking to certain non-commercial sites

   The Search Engines believe that the .gov and .edu sites are the most discerning in who they link with, and that these links are harder to obtain, so they rank them as more reputable a link than a .com, .biz, .net and the others. So this makes these links much more valuable to your SEO strategy.
   
   

5. What about the number of inbound/backlinks you have?
   
   
   • The more (quality links) you have the better for your SEO. Start with these easy options:
     
     
     • Ask friends, customers and suppliers to link to your site. Do you sponsor a local team or charity? Then ask them to add a link too.
     • Post comments on forums and discussion groups with a link back to your site.
     • Write guest columns or articles for online media.
     • Register your site with credible directory websites, and if users like it they will bookmark it, creating a link back to your site.
     • Issue an online press release which will get you links back to your site with whatever coverage you get.
   • Remember - the better the linking site’s reputation and SEO listing, the better for you.
   • The more relevant their anchor text, especially if it contains relevant keywords, the better for you.
   • The more established a business they are, the better for your SEO.
     
     
6. Inbound/backlinks from directories.
   
   • Links to established directories should be beneficial to your SEO listing, and can rapidly increase your inbound/backlinks.

     Always try to vary the keywords you use in the links to give the impression that yours has a good and natural linking structure.

     But don't sign up to hundreds of directories as it can have a negative impact and may be perceived as link spamming.

   • Inbound links from link farms don’t affect you, as you have no control over who links to you, but even so, link farms should be avoided.
   • Outbound links to link farms and other suspicious sites can do your SEO a lot of harm and should be avoided.
   • Equally avoid cross-linking (where site A links to site B which links to site C, which links to site A).

     To search engines this looks like reciprocal link trading with the result that your site’s SEO gets penalised.
     
     

7. The age of each link is also important.

   The older the link, the more established the relationship, and the less chance that it’s been bought (and the higher your SEO listing).

   Equally, if lots of new links suddenly arrive on your site then this is seen as suspicious by the Search Engines (and your listing falls accordingly).
   
   

8. Outgoing links.

   Ideally the fewer you have the better.

   The search engines want to see visitors coming to you site, not leaving it.
   
   

9. Don't forget:
   
   • The better your content, the more likely other high quality sites are going to want to link to you. So make this a priority.

     Providing clear linking instructions on your website is well worth considering.

   • Consider giving visitors to your site the option to use your content on their site (provided that they give you a credit and a link).
     
     

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This page content was reviewed in September 2024.