5 SEO Tips for Getting Website Owners to Link Back to You

Anyone in the SEO business can tell you that the best way to boost your SEO is to be popular—or at least appear popular to Google. Google takes into account web traffic when ranking your site in search results, but they also measure your popularity across the web through links. That is, the more people link to you and your content, the more popular and authoritative you must be, so Google ranks you higher. But how do you build that top organic SEO rankings through links? Well, sometimes you just have to get out there and interact with other site owners and bloggers. If you’re looking to boost your SEO through link building, here are a few tips for getting your links posted on other sites.

1) Get to know the website

If you go to a website owner and ask him or her to post a link to your site, let them know that you respect their site and that you are a fan. This goes beyond, “Hey you have a great site. It’s very helpful. Could you post a link to my site?” Site owners can see through that. They don’t care about posting a link to your site unless they know you care about their site. Send an email or leave a comment that truly shows you’re interested in the site, that you know what it contains, and that you’ve been following it for a while. Cite specific examples and show the site owner that you know what you’re talking about. If they trust you, they’re much more likely to link to you.

2) Interact

Beyond simply sending a cold email to a site owner, try a little interaction first. If it’s a blogger, leave a few positive/constructive comments over the space of a couple weeks to get a conversation going. Do a little LA Twitter marketing and follow the site or site owner on Twitter. Or you could even mention their blog or site on your own and send them a link. Interaction shows the site owner that you’re asking for the mutual benefit not just for a link.

3) Offer specials and deals

A while back, there was some controversy over mommy seo bloggers who were getting free products from manufacturers in exchange for favorable reviews on their blog. This didn’t go over too well with readers who felt that instead of honest reviews they were just getting advertisements. So, there is a line you can cross when offering incentives to other sites in exchange for links. But offering discounts or special access to sites that post a link to your site is acceptable, especially if you are public about it and offer everyone the same deal.

4) Make it easy

If site owners or bloggers feel like they have to go out of their way to post a link to your site, they may not do it. So offer them an easy way to do it by creating a banner or widget they can easily upload and will look cool on their site. In fact, adding a visual element to your link will make it more clickable anyway. So why not try it?

5) Have good content

For most site owners, what it all comes down to is whether or not you have good content. If site owners feel like you provide great content that will be helpful to them or their users, they’ll be more likely to link to you. If you don’t have anything to offer them, then they won’t. Content is king. Make sure you have good content, and you’ll be more than halfway to convincing site owners to link to you.