10 Incredible Link Building Strategies to Improve Your Blog Rank

1. Competitors link analysis
2. Guest blogging// guest post writing
3. Broken link building
4. Submitting your site to directories
5. Posting on forums
6. Adding a link in the comment
7. Posting links to the question-answer site
8. Adding links in press release articles
9. Submitting the link to RSS directories
10. Adding your links in local citation

Strategy #1: Competitor's link analysis

Let's assume that we have done all prework work that needs to be done on the website. i.e. added quality content, keywords, and optimization of all pages for search engines. Now, our next goal is to get backlinks from the right sources.

To identify the quality link sources for backlinks, you need to study the websites which are already successful in your niche. Competitor's link analysis lets you understand how they are connected to other sites on the internet and what methodology and platforms they are using for link building.

To identify your competitors, make Google search by using primary keywords of your blog and list 10 websites that appear in the search result. Check if these sites fall into your blog niche and complete the list of 10 websites in an Excel file.

There are a couple of free tools (OpenLinkProfiler, SEMRUSH, Open Site Explorer) with limited functionality which I assume are sufficient enough to perform competitor's link analysis at a small level. However, if you wish to use premium services that give full details without any limitations I'll recommend using SEMRUSH for the simplicity if offers to use the service.

By using link tracking tools mentioned above track the competitor's website for backlinks sources, high authority domain links, testimonials links, directory links,  guest post links, and dead links. Also, you will have to keep a tab on it by making this check-in every week or a month to track new backlinks acquired by your competitor.

An excel file with backlink data should also have details like domain authority rank, anchor text, top-ranking web pages from these domains which will help you plan a strategy for your backlinking exercise.

Finally, our aim of tracking the competitor site is to get high authority backlinks for our site. Therefore, approach site owners for any link opportunity you find through this tracking process, submit your site to directories, or fix broken links by offering your site link as a replacement.

Strategy #2: Guest blogging/Guest post writing

Guest blogging or guest post writing is nothing but writing a blog post on someone else's site and in return, you get a backlink to your site. Guest blogging could be a highly effective strategy for link building and getting traffic to your site. Despite that many of the bloggers doubt it's effectiveness and write content for the sole objective of getting a backlink.

Keep below-mentioned tips in mind when writing a guest post:

• Write a quality post that provides valued information and experience to the user than writing a low-quality post. A qualitative post will influence readers to visit back to your site for more such work.
• To get approval for a guest post from an established blogger, you should engage yourself with the author. Commenting on his blog posts, sharing his content frequently to grab his attention are some ways to grab the author's attention. 
• A guest post should be just like any normal post you write on your site. You may include high-authority links from external sources and maybe just 2-3 links of your own site rather than spamming it with too many links.
• If you are aiming to borrow traffic from the website for which you will be writing, then choose a website that writes a post every 2-3 days or every week. Highly popular sites that publish 2-3 posts or even more posts daily would make your guest post lost in the flow.

Strategy #3: Broken link building

Broken link building lets you create a backlink on another site by reporting a broken link to the site owner and offering him your link as a replacement for the broken link. Broken links cause harm to SEO efforts as well as user experience. Hence site owner may agree to your proposal if your post has relevant content.

We have already seen how to look for a competitor's link profile in the first strategy. In the same way, we can use backlinks finder tools to locate site URLs of these niche sites which gives a 404-page error (broken link error). Later, you can approach these site owners to replace the link with your own page link.

Strategy #4: Submitting your site to directories

Web directories are nothing but the sites that list various sites in their database under several categories. Getting backlinks from these directories is one of the effective ways to build your linking profile.

What are the benefits of submitting the site to web directories?

• Spam-free web directories could provide you quality backlinks which will help you rank better in SERP.
• Web directories not only help us in building backlinks but also in getting massive exposure to your site. Increased traffic could help you increase your revenue or sell your products faster.

In a notepad or excel whatever you prefer and write down the following things:

• Your site URL
• Site title
• Description text
• Important keywords
• Valid email to register
• RSS feed URL
• Social media links
• Site category

Now visit authoritative web directory sites and fill in these details to include your site in these directories. I made several searches to find free web directories that actually work in 2017. Many of them list either paid sites or have outdated site listing. I find this article useful from the rest of the sites that list High PR Directories.

Strategy #5: Posting on forums

Forums are user communities where users who seek the same interests, gather and share information, and solve one another's queries. Forums could help you get quality backlinks by providing a solution to those who are seeking the information. Add your site link in the feedback form while you share content on the forum with other users.

A simple way to get traffic and the backlinks from a forum is to search for the problem statement by using specific keywords. Before this, create your profile with basic details and your site link. Once it is done, click on the relevant thread that relates to your site page and provides a solution to the problem mentioned in a thread. Finally, mention your site link in the description.

• Be relevant to the topic of the thread and don't go off the track. Don't spam every thread with the same content but be creative in your communication.
• Engage in conversation with other members and build a friendly relationship with them. 
• Also while you help other members create a value-add through your solutions.

Strategy #6: Adding links through comments

Adding comments on others blog help you get quality backlinks to your blog. This is one of the easiest methods to get quality backlinks to your site, but there are certain checks you must do before you start commenting on other's blog aggressively.

• Generic comments like, "Nice post!" create no value and hence not much beneficial. Rather will get ignored more likely.
• Create a profile on a couple of blogging and social media platforms. Add an image to your profile to prove that you are an authentic user.
• Write descriptive comments that add value and relevance to the post content.
• If you use your business name or important keywords as a user name which could be more beneficial as it gets hyperlinked and hence better from the SEO perspective, but the site owner may not like your comment thinking it as spam comment. Though, if your comment is really contributing to the thread then your comment might get posted.

Benefits of commenting:

• Commenting on other's blogs increases the chances of getting your blog indexed by Google more quickly.
• Do-follow or no-follow comments, it still helps you get backlinks from high authority websites.
• A well written descriptive comment helps to influence the visitors of the site and may also create curiosity in his mind to follow your blog.
• Commenting provides a chance to connect with established bloggers and help you get recognition in the community.

Strategy #7: Posting links to the question-answer site

Question-answer sites are the common platform to get any question answered by the users. These sites have high page ranking and it is a good platform to get backlinks to your site.

Start looking for the questions on these sites which are related to your blog posts. Once you locate these questions you may answer them in writing a short descriptive solution and a link to your site.

This post I came across lists the top 15 question answer sites of the year 2017.

Best SEO practices:

Strategy #8: Press release articles

Companies use press release articles to make important announcements or product launches to syndicate news media. Later these media houses may cover stories on such press releases.

Though a trend became common for companies making press releases every in a while, these press releases help them get backlinks from the webmasters in good numbers. No sooner Google started to penalize these companies and even those sites that shared these links.

However, nowadays no-follow links still can help you get a good number of backlinks without upsetting Google.

• To use press release articles, your article needs to have something potentially good to be shared. 
• Press release articles should have important keywords only. A spammed article may get penalized by Google.
• Add no-follow backlinks in your article to ensure that it doesn't get penalized.
• Choose the right words for your anchor text for its effectiveness.
• Include only 2-3 links to your site in your article or it gets penalized.

Strategy #9: Submitting a link to RSS directories

Nowadays every leading blogging platforms provide you RSS service and some directories list your articles based on your RSS feed. Some of these directories provide high-quality do-follow backlinks which help in improving your Google ranking.

This article lists the top 20 RSS directories where you can submit your blog feed. Some of the blogs in my niche which are highly popular use these directories to improve their link profile. So these are worth noting.

Strategy #10: Adding citation on local platforms

A citation is nothing but online references to your business name, business address, and business phone number. A citation can be included on your website, local business directories, and apps. But, as we are looking at this from SEO and link building perspective, hence we will consider external options.

It is far easy to rank high in local business directories than the global platform. A citation is one of the factors Google takes into consideration for ranking your site in local search results. Having citations on several business directories ensures the trustworthiness of your site and ranking in Google SERP.

• Include the citation for your blog in local directories, social media platforms,  as well as industry-specific directories. 
• The local, geo, or industry-specific directories vary from business to business. Hence find out them and add your blog citations into these directories.
• Also, a citation strategy may not apply to all blog niches.