The hardest – and most time-consuming – part of SEO is, hands down, link building. 41% of SEO experts consider that to be the hardest part. This is not the black or gray hat link building done even 10 years ago. This is white hat SEO link building.
If you’re unfamiliar with white-hat link-building, don’t worry. Most people are. White-hat link-building refers to increasing quality links to a website from outside, trusted sources. Think of authoritative websites with serious cred.
Put simply, white-hat link-building begins with creating valuable content. This is content others would want to link to and should be useful, informative, or entertaining. These could be blog posts, videos, infographics, tutorials, or guides. Once that content is ready, reach out to bloggers or other websites who might be interested in that content. They might link to it from their website if they find it useful. White-hat links could also include guest blogging for other websites in your industry. Then, you include a link back to your website. This is not a fast process, it’s not easy and might require more energy and time than available.
So why bother? Why go through the trouble of whipping up a review of a new phone or put yourself through the pain of intense research? Aside from helping customers? SEO is vital for ranking naturally in search engines. Run a quick search on Google for anything. That first page is where sites want to live. To be honest, have you ever gone to page 2 or 3? Those results have an average of 3.8 times more backlinks than any rankings on pages 2 through 10. Only 5% of all websites online have backlinks pointing at them. That’s the power of white-hat link-building.
How can you use white-hat link-building in your mobile technology business? Here are 5 steps you can do right now.
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Create quality content. As mentioned before, the content should have value. It shouldn’t be a sales pitch. Bring value, information, or entertainment that others will want to share. For example, about fifteen years ago, my partner started a website where he made “how-to” guides on replacing Nokia phone screens. Nokia phone owners found him and shared his site with others because that was a known issue for those phones at the time. His guides had value.
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Guest posts on reputable websites. If you follow your niche, you probably have a list of bloggers or sites in mind. Reach out and offer to write a guest post or article about your specialty. Share your website and your expertise. Write a post that gives something to readers, be it knowledge, new skills, or entertainment. You can add a link back to your site within the post.
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Build affiliate relationships through link exchanges. Be careful here. Research these sites to ensure they’re in your niche and not spammy if you review mobile phones partner with accessories sites.
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Publish press releases and news about your company. Include a link to your site in the press release. Press releases are frequently picked up by news outlets.
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Participate in industry forums and discussions. This is a favorite. Join groups on Reddit, comment on posts on LinkedIn, and take Stack Overflow seriously. Share your knowledge with others in your field. Learn from others. Be an active participant.
This will take time. If you’re willing to grind, you can use white-hat link-building to grow your business naturally. If you don’t have as much time as you’d like, there are services available. PRNEWS.IO is a great service that matches you with quality websites that are ready for your content. They make it easy to implement white hat link building.
SEO continues to be valuable for website rankings. In March 2024, Google released a core update and several spam updates. This was dubbed the “March 2024 spam update,” and it hit hard. Google is cracking down on low-quality content and links, which is great for searches – less irrelevant results – but rough on SEO marketers. This is just the first core update of the year, meaning at least three more are expected. Since white-hat link-building takes time, you best get started.
