What is Link Acquisition: 10 Tips for Successful Campaigns

Key Takeaways for you – What is link acquisition

– Link acquisition is like citations in a research paper – it helps search engines determine the relevance and authority of your website based on the quality and number of other sites linking to it. – High-quality backlinks are crucial because they act as “votes” that vouch for the trustworthiness and usefulness of your content. – When acquiring links, ensure they’re relevant, come from reputable sites, and appear natural or organic. – Link juice refers to the authority passed between websites through backlinks. Do-follow links allow the flow of link juice, while no-follow links don’t. A healthy backlink profile should include a mix of both. – A diversified backlink profile consists of links from unique root domains, relevant websites, and diverse anchor texts, with a balance between do-follow and no-follow links. – To build or acquire high-quality backlinks, focus on creating valuable and authoritative content that naturally attracts links from other reputable sites in your niche. – Link acquisition is vital for boosting your website’s SEO, and there are various strategies like creating linkable content, guest posting, and broken link building to help you achieve that. – Engaging with industry influencers, syndicating content on platforms like Medium and Quora, and participating in online communities can also help you build valuable backlinks. – Don’t forget to monitor your backlink profile and list your business in directories, but always prioritize high-quality links and avoid spammy tactics. – Remember, link acquisition is an ongoing process, so keep exploring new strategies and opportunities to improve your website’s ranking and visibility.

Have you ever come across a research paper?

If you have, it will be easier for me to explain what link acquisition is.

But if you haven’t, here’s how it works.

In a research paper, you cite other sources to support your arguments and show that you’ve stated something after going through some credible sources.

But mind it, you simply can not cite just any other papers, blogs, or online articles. You need to cite and use research papers written by experts and other research scholars from reputed universities and institutions.

Link acquisition is quite similar to a research paper. 

For other sites to give you backlinks, you need to write relevant content that reflects your experience and authority over the topic. Also, you need to get links from credible and authoritative sites and not just any site out there. 

Wondering how can you acquire links from these amazing sites?

Let me help you understand. 

Before that let’s check what is link acquisition. 

What is Link Acquisition?

To understand what link acquisition is, let’s continue with our research paper analogy. 

As I already have mentioned,  if you are writing a research paper, you need to cite or reference other research papers to prove that what you are stating is authentic or already proven by experts and scientists. 

When you cite a research paper, you check whether it is an authentic source from a reputed university or institute. 

Like you, it is cited by many other research papers. 

As it is cited by many other research papers, it is considered to be valuable, useful, and authoritative.

You might be wondering what’s the relation between link acquisition and citations in a research paper.

Well, Google does the same to find out the most relevant answer to your queries. 

It came up with the PageRank algorithm to evaluate the relevance and importance of a webpage based on the number and quality of other pages linking to it. 

Before PageRank, it was frustrating for users to see search engines providing irrelevant answers to their queries.

But after PageRank, this problem was solved thanks to the concept of backlinks (citations)

But the problem started when SEOs went bonkers after it and started buying and selling the links to rank higher. 

They started doing something called “PageRank sculpting” to manage how PageRank flows through a site by manipulating “nofollow” meta tags. 

Let me help you understand it with a simple example.

Imagine you have a website with 10 outgoing links but you want to you want all Page Rank juice to flow to only 5 of those links. To stop the flow to the other 5 links you put the nofollow attribute to the other 5. 

Why is Link Building or Link Acquisition Important?

As I have already mentioned, getting high-authority links is one of the most important ranking factor search engines use.  

Relevancy, authority, and location of the link matter a lot when we talk about backlinks. 

To be very specific, good links are like votes that tell the search engines how trustworthy your content is and they see a healthy link profile as a good sign. 

So while strategizing your link acquisition campaign you need to remember these three points. The links you acquire need to be 

• Relevant and useful for the users
• High-quality links from reputable sites
• Natural and organic (they don’t have to track parameters, they are not sponsored or paid, and they are not redirected through JavaScripts and Monetisation tools).

Over time, Google has improved its ability to detect unnatural and spammy link patterns and can gauge accurately which kinds of links will be useful for the users.

Now the most important question is what happens when you get backlinks?

Through backlinks, the authority passes from one website to another, and this authority is called link equity or link juice.

Many SEOs simply hate the term link juice. But I will use it to make the concept of how authority passes from one site to another much simpler. 

Let me help you understand link juice better.

Imagine your website as a water tank or, in this case, every website as a water tank, and when a particular website links out to you, it passes on its link juice to your tank. 

That is how the “liquid” of authority passes from other websites to your website. So the more tanks or websites connect to your website, the more link juice or authority your website will have.

When you have so much link juice from so many authoritative websites, Google will consider your site as an authoritative one. 

Sounds great, isn’t it?

But unfortunately, SEOs started to manipulate this golden opportunity by building links from other websites without their permission.

And to stop this manipulation Google came up with the concept of Do-follow and No-follow links. 

This works like a tap for the authoritative site who do NOT want to pass on their link juice to particular sites. They can open and close this tap whenever they want. 

Got confused?

Well, a do-follow link is a link that allows its link juice to flow. Interestingly, by default all links are do-follow.

On the other hand, a link that does not allow link juice to flow is called a no-follow link. 

To make a do-follow link nofollow, you just have to add a rel=”nofollow” HTML attribute value. Just by adding this small snippet of code, you can turn any link that you are giving to other websites into a no-follow link. 

The process is easy.

In your WordPress site, Go to your editing text box, click on the link icon,  and paste the destination link.  Then check below, you will find the option “set to nofollow”, just hit that and you are good to go. 

To diversify your backlink profile you can have both dofollow and nofollow links. Mostly because even if it is a nofollow link Google still considers it as a vote. 

The most interesting part of link acquisition is that if you are earning links naturally, you will automatically get a diversified bunch of links. 

That means, your backlink profile should have:

• Backlinks from unique root domains or websites., which means it won’t be a good backlink profile if you have 50 backlinks from the same website
• Back from a high authority website. 
• Backlinks from relevant websites. Obviously, why would you have backlinks from food blogs when you have a site on SEO and blogging? 
• A healthy balance between do-follow and no-follow links. Remember, you need to follow links but Google will still consider no follow links as votes. So don’t just concentrate on earning do-follow links that pass the authority.
• Anchor text diversity.

To check all these factors you can use Ahrefs Backlink Checker.

Now that you have understood why you need to acquire high-authority and diverse backlinks, you must be wondering how to build or acquire them.

Let’s have a look!

Link Acquisition Strategies and Tips

You can build or acquire links using these four ways:

1. Earn them
2. Create Them 
3. Buy Them
4. Make them

There is a reason why I have placed them in this particular order.

This list is based on the amount of risk you are willing to take.

Earning links is the least risky way to get backlinks. In fact, it is the only way Google expects you to acquire backlinks. That’s why it has topped the list. Creating links is riskier than earning them but not as much as buying and making them.

But having said that, all these ways actually work as ways to get diverse links and all of this boils down to how much risk you want to take to boost the SEO of a particular website.

Nevertheless, earning backlinks is a long and time-consuming process, so instead of sitting and waiting, you can use all of these methods to have a lot more control over your SEO game.

Now that you have understood the importance of link acquisition, let’s discuss eight of the most effective strategies for it.

1. Create linkable content 

Creating connections and partnerships is essential for link acquisition. 

And when you are creating content that people want to share and link to there is more chance that it will lead to more organic connections. Additionally,  it will give you the chance to show your authority over a topic. 

When you create amazing linkable content, the people who come to your site will keep coming back and you will attract new people to do the same. This will boost your site’s traffic and increase interest in your brand. 

 By creating great linkable content you are not just generating value for your users, you are also creating valuable content for other content creators.

The more your content appeals to other writers and content creators in your niche and industry, the more they are going to link to it. 

2. Using low-competition keywords

Low-competition keywords can be beneficial for link building because they are typically easier to rank for in search engine results pages (SERPs). 

So when you create high-quality content optimised for a low-competition keyword, you are more likely to rank higher in search results, attract more organic traffic, and potentially earn more backlinks.

Since the keyword you are targeting is not highly competitive, there may be fewer websites vying for the same target keyword, making it more likely that other websites will be interested in linking to your content.

3.  Guest Posting

Guest posting is another effective link acquisition strategy. It involves writing high-quality blog posts for other websites in your niche. In return, you can request a backlink to your website. 

The key here is to identify websites that accept guest posts and have high domain authority (DA).  

For that go to the search bar and type “Keyword” + “Guest post”, “Keyword” + “Guest article”, “Keyword” + “write for us” or “Keyword” + “contributing writer” and you will find websites which will give you guest posting opportunity. 

Now, don’t just choose any and every website for guest posting. Try to find out the domain authority (DA) of these sites first.

For that, you can use domain authority checkers alike Link Explorer, MozBar, and the SERP analysis section Keyword Explorer. Always remember, the higher the DA of the site from where you are getting the link, the better the quality of the backlink.

4.  Broken Link Building

Broken link building is a technique that involves finding broken links on other websites and offering to replace them with working links from your website. 

This strategy is effective because it provides value to the website owner. Those 404 Page Not Found, 404 Bad Request, timeout, and Empty are all broken links. 

There are many causes of broken links. They are:

• The content on the page has been removed
• The website is shut down
• The URL is misspelled
• The name of the page has been changed
• The website has server issues
• The webmaster has restricted access to the page

Whatever may be the cause broken links are good opportunities for link building.

How?

You can use broken link checkers to find broken links on relevant websites in your niche and then reach out to the website owner for the replacement of the link with a link to your own content. 

Ahrefs Broken Link Checker is one of the best tools to check broken links on a website.

By providing a valuable resource and making the website owner’s job easier, you can increase the likelihood of their suggested replacement link being accepted. 

To know more about broken links check my blog on it. 

5.  Reach out to industry influencers

Another great way to get links is to collaborate with industry influencers. 

You need to find influencers within your niche and industry and send them your product or provide your service for free in exchange for a review.

If your budget is high, you can reach out to macro-level influencers and pay them to give an honest review of your product or services.

Send these influencers or blogs your affiliate links. If anyone gets interested after coming across these reviews, they will click on the affiliate link to avail your services and products.  

6.  Monitor your backlink profile

Finally, it’s important to monitor your backlink profile regularly. Use a tool like Ahrefs or Moz to keep track of your backlinks and make sure that they are high quality and relevant to your niche. Disavow any low-quality links that could hurt your SEO.

7.  Syndicate your content in Medium & Quora

Content syndication means republishing or repurposing your content 

Repurposing and sharing your content on platforms like Medium and Quora is another way to get backlinks. 

Whenever you do so there’s usually are referral links that point to your website. You can see it at the top or bottom of the post after the phrase “This post originally appeared on…”

While syndicating your post your focus should be on solving problems and answering questions from people who are interested in your niche. 

Once you win their trust, they will click on the link available on these platforms. 

8. Commenting on the posts of other bloggers from the same niche

Commenting on posts of other bloggers from your niche gives you the opportunity to get backlinks from that sites. 

To find such sites from your niche, you need to go to the search bar and type “Keyword” + “Leave a reply”. 

Follow this footprint to find the website and then check their DA to make sure they are high authority websites and then leave a relevant and thoughtful comment that can initiate further discussion on the topic.

Many of these sites give you the opportunity to share your site’s URL and get a backlink like the way it is in the above image.  

The best part is along with your comment it will reflect your website URL and if people find your reply intriguing and want to know more about the topic, they just have to click on the URL and check your content.

So, don’t forget to leave a thoughtful reply. 

Using these tips you can earn and create backlinks.

You can make and buy backlinks too.

To make backlinks, you can get an expired domain instead of buying a new domain with no authority.

Then, you can give yourself a backlink from your new website. 

You can buy backlinks from SEO butler, Linksthatrank, and Digpu.  

But making and buying links involves many risks. So, I would advise you to stick to earning and creating links instead. 

9. Participating in forums and online communities

Joining forms and online communities where your target audience is hanging out is another great way to build backlinks.

You just have to stay active in such online places. But instead of spamming your link there, you have to add value to the conversations.

Simply spamming your link there may quickly get you banned from such platforms.

10. Using business directories

It is always better to list your website or business in three to five business directories. 

After all, people search for local businesses just as much as finding answers to their queries. 

In fact, a survey indicates that 99% of consumers used the Internet to search for local businesses in 2021.

That’s the reason why you should have your contact details and website link in an online directory. 

But at the same time avoid spammy directories as Google is not a fan of low-quality directories or bookmark site links. 

Start your link acquisition campaign today

I am sure I have made it very clear that link acquisition is a crucial element of SEO that can help a website rank higher on SERPs. 

It involves acquiring high-quality inbound links from reputable websites in order to signal to search engines that a website’s content is valuable and relevant.

The tips and tricks I have shared are all tried and tested. The only thing you need to do is apply them practically. 

It does not matter whether you are a website owner or an SEO professional, just implement these 10 tips and see the increase in visibility and authority of your websites, leading to higher rankings on SERPs and more traffic to your sites.

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