5 Ways to Get More Inbound Links for Your Content
As a seasoned affiliate marketer, you’re probably aware Google penalizes sites for link schemes and keyword-stuffing. That means:
- Don’t spam your website link on irrelevant sites
- Avoid adding keywords that don’t make sense for content
- Your content needs to enhance the user experience
One of the most effective ways to boost your site (and the money you make off affiliate marketing) is to get more high-quality inbound links to your content. It’s no secret Google highly prioritizes links and content in its ranking algorithm.
So how do you get those high-quality links to your content? Use these five tips:
1. Create Amazing Content
Quality is key to Google. If the link doesn’t benefit the user experience, Google doesn’t want to show it.
First thing’s first: work with affiliate programs you feel confident will help you provide more value to your audience. Is the product something that appeals to your audience? Is it something you are able to provide expert insights on?
Always think about how to make affiliate marketing content relevant and useful to your audience. Some ways to provide value include:
- Feature information that helps your audience
- Make sure the content is fresh and unique
- Increase credibility by supporting your content with research and links to other high-quality content
If affiliate marketing is a side hustle and you’re pressed for time, it’s better to create fewer pieces of high-quality content than more content that doesn’t provide value.
2. Find High-Quality Websites You Want to Work With
When you promote your content on sites that have been penalized by Google or that provide little value, you’re guilty by association. Find better publisher partners with these tips.
- Use tools to identify the best sites: SEMrush and Link Explorer by Moz show how authoritative sites are based on traffic, backlinks and other factors.
- Find which sites link to your competitors: Check out their content and engagement. Run them through SEO tools to confirm their quality. They might be good for you to partner with, as well.
Do your research for partner sites. Again, inbound links should be based on quality, not quantity.
3. Build Publisher Relationships
Simply asking publishers you want to work with to feature your content can be enough to make it happen. Like in-person relationships, you want to approach publishers with respect and make your offer relevant and compelling — find tips here. You should…
- Introduce yourself and let the publisher know what you enjoy about their content
- Explain why your website content is a fit for their audience
- Propose a content exchange if that makes sense for your audience
Never approach a publisher unless you can provide something of value to them and their audience. Spamming publishers and asking for links only hurts your reputation.
4. Become a Guest Blogger
If you enjoy creating content, another way to get more inbound links for your own site is to become a guest blogger. Here’s how to leverage guest blogging.
- You create free, valuable content for a reputable publisher.
- You ask the publisher if they’ll be willing to let you include a link to a piece of your content, in the piece and/or in your author bio.
- You provide a great piece of content for their audience.
- You build up trust and authority as an affiliate marketer.
- You get a nice inbound link to your site.
Plus, you get some free promotion if the publisher shares your guest blog on their social sites—a win all around.
If you’re interested in becoming a guest blogger for the Fiverr blog site, email affiliates@fiverr.com to participate.
5. Comment on Blogs
Keyword-stuffing is a no-no, so is blog comment spamming. However, done correctly, commenting on relevant blogs can be a way to get inbound links for your content.
Here’s how it works:
You read content on the web you’re genuinely interested in, then leave a comment with what you thought of the piece. In some cases, the commenting tool will ask for a link back to your website. If not, you could link to a piece of content that’s highly relevant to the person’s post/your comment in your comment.
Be very careful about leaving links in comments. The publisher could mark your comment as spam, or other commenters could write you off as a spammer.
Simply leaving a heartfelt comment (and having a link back to your site as the commenter) could be enough to ignite interest in your site and drive traffic. The visitors who see the high-quality content on your site might then want to partner up with you.
Link-Building Needs to Be Part of Your Affiliate Marketing Strategy
If you’re finding success with affiliate marketing, you probably already have a content marketing strategy in place. On the other hand, if you want to take your work to the next level, you need to spread that content to more people and get more inbound links.
The best way to avoid getting penalized by Google or another search engine is to always prioritize quality. That goes for the way you build genuine relationships with publishers, the comments you leave on blogs, the content you create for your site and the content you create for others.
A good place to start is to look at what your competitors are doing. Think about ways to make their content and link-building tactics 10 times more effective. Publishers and users respond to great quality, so always make that your mission.