How many backlink opportunities exist out there? This article will explore this question. It will start by listing some of the backlink opportunities most commonly available in the market and will move on to emphasise how these opportunities can be explored. In doing so it will make a distinction between white hat and black hat SEO.
Backlink Opportunities
Social Signals. To create a social signal the user needs to be engaged in a community of other users and needs to interact in short or long messages with this community. The social experience is what separates social signals from social bookmarks and PR websites.
Users enter in dialogues and dialogues are the primary form of expression in these platforms. Websites like facebook, twitter or instagram are examples of these platforms.
Social Bookmarks. Social bookmarks are essentially websites where the only thing that is required is the introduction of one link to syndicate a particular content. There is no need, in contrast to PR websites, for the insertion of the whole content in the platform.
Once content is created somewhere else, it can be introduced through a link in these platforms. Places like Reddit or Stumbleupon are famous for the use of this type of service.
Web 2.0. PR websites are platforms where content can be syndicated freely – without the necessity of this content to be on the website. These types of platforms include places like quora.com, yourstory, buzzfeed or medium.com.
This is also known as article marketing. The intention here is to promote our content without the scrutiny of a guest blog post, for example. Some of these platforms are more demanding than others. And theoretically good would look at the level of demand to access how far these links can influence our domain authority.
Understanding how efficient this strategy continues to be is still a point of discussion among SEOs. Different platforms will say how efficient our backlinks are being constructed through the use of content hubs/PR websites.
One think is certain, google wants to look at interaction with the content to evaluate whether this syndication is having an impact.
Wikis. Wikis are essentially platforms where the user as the opportunity to edit and review the content. The most famous wiki platform is, of course, Wikipedia. But there are hundreds of similar websites that are dedicated to particular niches or segments.
Sharing Websites. A number of websites also exist where documents (pdf or powerpoint), images, infographics, videos and even audios can be added. These are websites that target a particular type of file therefore. The usefulness of these platforms resides in his aim to attract a particular type of file.
Forums/Blog Comments/Guest Books. Forums are other forms of web 2.0. Even though the social experience is pretty much the same as the one required for a platform to be consider a social signal one, forums are more based on queries replies. The essential purpose of a forum is to reply precisely to questions posed by a community of users.
It is therefore not social engagement that is the priority in these communities but rather the answer to specific – normally technical – questions. Forums are excellent places to understand how a particular community thinks and is looking for.
Similar to forums are blog comments and links that can be inserted in guest books. These links are similar because they require some form of interaction with the content that is already available in the webpage.
Directories. Directories are websites that are mainly destined to promote your business. These websites are therefore structured by industry type of theme and the goal of anyone using these services is to associate a particular business with a particular regional area. So the main advantage of these platforms is not just to associate your business with a particular industry but also with a particular regional area. They are very useful for Local SEO.
3 Ways to Create a Link
There are essentially three ways in which these backlinks can be created. Before penguim was introduced most of the work was done through the use of tools such as Ultimate Demon, GSA SER, and others. During this time quantity ruled. However, nowadays, google gives more importance to quality.
Create Individual Accounts. The first way is to individually create an account and start inserting the link in these individually created accounts. This takes more time but is more customizable. The user can therefore keep adding content or a link anytime he/she wants.
Add Link to Pre-Existing Accounts. This is also a white hat strategy but is less customized. Essentially the account is already created and the effort is just to insert the link or text to this pre-existing account.
Use Tools. In the days of black-hat SEO tools ruled. The goal in those days was to build as much links as possible so quantity ruled over customization and quality. These days are over however. Tools can be useful instruments still as long as they are kept under check.
But increasingly, SEO tools are being ruled out and its efficiency being questioned. Google today is all about customization and quality.
