13 Best Backlink Sources to Outrank your Competition

Internal Links

What is easier than building your own backlinks on your own website? All you have to do is to link your pages internally by adding links to connect one page to another. You might think that Google will ignore them because they can see that the links come from you for your own content, but no. They count! They also help spreading the link juice and establish an information hierarchy for the given website.

For wordpress users here is a great plugin: http://wordpress.org/plugins/internal-link-builder/ (if you know a better one please let me know)

Blogging

The best way to get new backlinks is to blog often and consistently. This will attract customers to your website and help you increase the visibility of your website by adding new links to your products and previous content. This is a very effective technique and, as you can see, I just used it in the first phrase of this article.

Usually other bloggers or webmasters will not share your website in their posts because, of course, you are their competitor. This rule is broken when your content is high quality and useful, so if you want backlinks from bloggers and webmasters. There is no point to populate the web with redundant information, when a topic has already been well documented by somebody else. What matters the most is to bring value to your readers and if this means linking to other websites as I did in the previous paragraph, then do it. It’s a classic win-win situation.

Also write about a topic that many people are interested in. If you have no idea what is the hot topic for today just read the news and write about it, put a meaningful photo and share the article on the social networks.

Need help getting organised? Use this wordpress calendar plugin so you can stay consistent and plan ahead of time.

Infographics

Building one is not as hard as it sounds and the efforts are well worth it. Places where you can easily create your own:
http://infogr.am/
http://visual.ly/

Guest Blogging

Once you get into the blogging industry you will know people in the same niche and you will be able to get backlinks from guest blogging. If they see that you are a good writer, the webmaster will allow you to write guest posts, giving you the link you want and organic exposure, too.

This is my favourite method, writing a great article helps build my reputation and also it will be value for the blog that’s hosting it.

RSS feed

Using RSS feed to get backlinks will allow you to put links to your content at the end of your post or in the excerpt. A wordpress plugin that offers this feature is Yoast.

Also you can submit to RSS aggregators. Some of them are free, some of them are paid, you can choose the ones that suit you best. What they will do for you is to drive highly targeted traffic that will reward your efforts. Bellow you can find a list of the best RSS and blog directories where you can submit your blog or RSS feed.
Technorati.com
Alltop.com

Profile links

When you start a new profile on a website, many of them let you add a link. This is your chance to add a new backlink to your website. Do you have a twitter account? A facebook page?

Press

If you have a great product, why not advertise it in your local newspaper for example? Including the link to your website will definitely help you increase not only the number of your visitors, but also your status with a backlink coming from a popular high-ranked source.

If you wish to get larger coverage why not use HARO? If your pitch is right you might get coverage. Here is a tip:

“Journalists often get an overwhelming number of responses to their HARO requests and will write their stories from the responses. So include salient information and easily quotable language in your pitch as well as detailed information about your background and contact info. If I seek interviews and get only a handful of replies, I respond to everyone. If I get dozens of replies, I’m choosier and go with the sources that provide the best information.”

-Katherine Kotaw, CEO of KOTAW Content Marketing, an international marketing agency headquartered in Los Angeles

Blog Comments

By getting into discussions and visiting other people’s websites you will definitely get some feedback yourself. You should not be aggressive and start commenting desperately on as many blogs as you can by simply putting the link to your website there because no one will approve your comment. Just go with the flow and the moment where you can show your work will come naturally.

Reviews

Everyone reads reviews before buying or downloading a product. You can get some backlinks from well-known websites that compare and review products. Or offer your product to a blogger so they can talk about it and you will gain more credibility and a valuable backlink.

Forums and online communities

If you are good at what you do, why not share your knowledge and get some support yourself? Backlinks from forums and online communities will definitely increase your popularity among the people in the same industry and will allow you to know people that might want to work with you/recommend you.

Videos

So, you have a product. Why not show it to the world? Unpack it, describe it, show all its great features and let others admire your work. Or if you offer a service why not say more about it on video, this way you can gain more credibility. Blendtec is a great example where they take blenders and create viral videos with them.

Support and sponsor an event

Everyone has a passion. Whether is music, film, sports or anything else that you might feel drawn to, why not contribute to spreading it and keep it alive? Wouldn’t you like to hear your favourite artists say „big thanks to X” and see a huge poster in the back with a link to your site? You might enjoy the morning show on the radio in your area, so why don’t you support it? Let the voice that you love tell the world around you about your website at the end of the show.

Spying on your competition

This backlink source is one of the best way to find good link opportunities by checking your competitions link profile. But you should be careful as some of those links might not be good quality. A tool that I like to use for this is:
opensiteexplorer.org