Having backlinks is a great starting point if you want to drive views (and potential customers) to your business blog or website. In a simplistic sense, a backlink is when another website places a link that directs its visitors to an article or page on your website.
If the first site is trusted and popular, you will notice an increase in your traffic right away. The quantity and mainly the quality of backlinks can help you rank higher in search engines. The problem is that many people try a shortcut and buy backlinks, something that goes against the guidelines of companies like Google. If you are caught doing this, you may face penalties. There are also certain types of backlinks you should avoid. Let’s take a look at five types of content that can help you gain backlinks – and the positive ones without having to pay a dime for it.
Original Research
If you’ve recently researched anything on the internet, you may have noticed that the same subjects dominate headlines, and they almost always cite the same sources. You can stand out from the crowd by providing original research. That is, quality material so new and thorough that it becomes a reference within its field of activity and starts to gain dozens of backlinks naturally. This is also the most time-consuming and labor-intensive way to create backlinks. Your articles must bring something new to become a reference. Or at least analyze a known topic from a completely different angle. When you write about a topic that you master or have a lot of experience with, the chances of becoming a reference and being cited by other websites are great. That way, you also build credibility and become an authority, which will attract more visitors to your pages.
Free Apps or Tools
There are a lot of apps and tools that you can find for free. They can help you for the most diverse purposes, including improving productivity. Some examples are project and task management tools like Asana or Airtable, budgeting tools like Mint and Quicken, etc. Suppose you have the knowledge and technology to develop a new digital solution as simple as these, and you can offer them for free. In that case, you’ll find that this is an excellent opportunity to skyrocket your number of visitors. The more users start using your app or tool and recommending it, the more backlinks your page will get.
Infographics
Many websites still present tons of information in writing rather than resorting to visual media such as infographics. A good infographic is made up of a standard image that visually summarizes many facts and quick statistics. They tend to generate more interaction because users catch a glimpse of them and immediately access the information they would otherwise need to fish out in a long article. Always synthesize your texts into shareable infographics that can generate backlinks to your page. It was necessary to have a good graphic designer to build creative images in the past. But these days, there are free tools to help you with this task, such as Canva.
Interview-based Posts
People may still not know you well enough to trust your material as good as you are in your field. You can work around this situation by adding interviews with subject-matter specialists to your articles and posts, naturally increasing your website’s authority. Everyone is quoting everyone else on today's internet because it’s quick and easy. It is necessary to separate reliable information from sources that can be verified, to stand out from the rest. When you provide readers with a good collection of well-founded articles from well-known sources, you create a much bigger impact and become a reference. You can help spread your quality content quickly by mentioning it in the comment sections of popular websites or as a trusted source in Wikipedia entries.
Free Interactive Content
Many users love interactive content where they can participate beyond just reading or researching something. The sky's the limit: you can complement your articles aend pages by offering checklists, quizzes, polls, how-to guides, and other interactive content for your visitors. Many users may come to your website especially attracted by these quizzes or polls they saw a friend or family member share. And only then do they become aware of your brand and business. Therefore free interactive content can ramp up your engagement a lot.
Backlinks Are an Engagement Magnet
Amazing content is like gold that needs to be mined by users on the internet. Among hundreds of sites publishing the same material and the same data all over again, your page full of authoritative and well-researched articles may find it difficult to stand out. This is where backlinks come in as an excellent alternative to building engagement. Good backlinks work like a citation or reference capable of attracting more and more visitors to your pages. The five types of content above can help you earn backlinks. Keep in mind that not everyone will produce the same results, and that will depend a lot on your niche. Try different options and keep track of your visitor traffic to get the best results.
