Some methods of gaining backlinks might hurt your SEO rankings. While most people working in marketing know that “black hat” SEO practices are bad for business, not everyone knows that there are several types of backlinks.

If you only have one backlink, it can do wonders for your rankings, but it might not make much of a difference if you have a dozen. I’ve put together this short guide to help you improve your SEO link-building approach while adhering to Google’s revised Webmaster Guidelines for 2023.

Here are the best link-building strategies for 2020 that won’t get your site punished but will have a notable influence on your rankings.

Begin With Your Immediate Vicinity

Any online mention of your company’s name, phone number, website URL, address, or zip code is considered a local citation. Accumulating local citations aids Google in determining who your website or shop serves and whether it is connected to a real-world location. If you want search engines to take your business seriously, you must ensure they know where it is.

Many online registries and directories allow business owners to include their company and its contact information, making it simple to construct local SEO backlinks. To get you started on citing in your local area, here are some great resources:

You may find my business on Google My Business, Apple Maps, Foursquare, Yelp, Bing, Acxiom, Facebook, BBB, and Yellow Pages.

Spend Money On Content That Provides Real Value To Readers

While increasing your landing page’s domain authority is a worthwhile goal in and of itself, it won’t have nearly the impact on conversion rates or overall revenue that integrating blogs into your marketing strategy would. First, invest in good SEO content production to have at least 30–50 search engine-optimized blog articles on your website that offer genuine, unique value to people in your field before you begin building out links or guest blogging.

By maintaining a steady stream of blog entries, you may leverage inbound links to drive traffic to a conversion page. A review of treadmills, ellipticals, and stationary bicycles placed on your site, for instance, can assist in boosting sales if you’re an online retailer offering exercise equipment. However, you should always ensure that the blogs you link to are relevant to the searcher’s objective; for example, if the reader is only interested in learning more about a product, don’t send them to a sales page.

Make Guest Posts

Get in touch with the webmasters of authoritative sites in your niche and ask if you may contribute a guest article. Include a link to your homepage and a link to a relevant, instructive blog on your site in the author profile. Depending on the credibility of the hosting platform, these backlinks may increase the “link juice” your site receives.

Because of the reciprocal benefits they provide, guest articles are an excellent link-building tactic. They help the website’s host by providing more no-cost material. However, the guest blogger benefits from at least one free backlink to their website, which can positively affect their search engine optimization (SEO) rankings.

Do it with Quoted or HARO

Services like Help a Reporter Out (HARO) and Quoted facilitate interviews between reporters and credible sources. In addition, they are a straightforward method to get authoritative backlinks from respected media outlets like the New York Times, Boston Globe, and Wall Street Journal.

On these sites, reporters with tight deadlines post queries (called a “source pitch”), and individuals respond with their knowledge and insight. If an expert’s response is incorporated in the final piece, the author may provide a link to the expert’s website as a token of appreciation. My firm has employed this method for many years with great results.

Restore Inactive References

When a website page is destroyed, all external links to that page will return a 404 Not Found message. You will quickly discover any broken links if you use an external piece of SEO software like Ahrefs or SEMrush to do a link audit.

If you find any broken links on your site, you can fix them by changing the link’s destination to a new, appropriate page (a process known as a “301 redirect”). Never leave a 404 error page on your site; redirect the PageRank to another page instead.

Remember To Always Be Authentic

The best way to get backlinks is to provide content that is so useful to your audience that they can’t help but spread the word. If your site doesn’t have great content, high-PR websites probably won’t connect to it.

A vital component of any successful backlinking strategy is always maintaining your plan’s integrity. Any attempt to manipulate Google’s search results by breaking its Webmaster Guidelines, such as through the purchase of backlinks or the usage of a private blog network (PBN), will result in a penalty.

As unfortunate as it may be, quick fixes cannot achieve SEO success. Instead, you should be ready to develop shareable content and not be put off by the notion of selling such material to high-authority domains or thought leaders in your field. They will eventually link back to your site and boost your PageRank. You won’t even notice when you’ve risen to the position of intellectual leader.