In a recent conversation with a new website design client, we agreed that building a WordPress website that looks good, and has the basic functions isn’t that hard. In fact, this dynamic duo husband and wife entrepreneur team did just that, for the first iteration of their website. And then the predictable happened… the website sat there, and got zero traffic.
It looked fantastic! Great stock images and some decent copy that outlined the full scope of their consultancy services. Like many business owners, they had received a number of quotes from different website designers and they were looking to economize, by taking a DIY (do-it-yourself) approach for their first website.
The business owners didn’t do anything wrong. In fact, we lauded them for taking the initiative, because you can learn so much by building your own website. It is an excellent branding exercise that we recommend; thinking about your core deliverables and the messaging that you want your customers to benefit from.
What they learned is that the extra work that goes into a professional website design goes far beyond something that ‘looks pretty’. It’s about building utility and function, and most importantly, about tooling the website so that it acts like a funnel to help prospective B2C or B2B customers FIND YOU online. Without those pieces in place, your website ranking will not improve and in fact, you may have a No Ranking status; meaning major search engines like Google won’t even acknowledge that your business exists. Ouch.
Are there some exercises that business owners can engage in to improve the organic traffic to their website? You bet! And we’d like to share some of them with you, and help you determine if you have the time and expertise to do this work on a monthly basis, or whether you would like to outsource that help with our team at Social Me Multimedia.
Getting Backlinks to Build Organic SEO and Traffic to Your Website
What are backlinks? Why are they important and how do they help improve the traffic flow of potential customers to your website? Before we get started on some of the DIY hacks that business owners can accomplish independently to support web traffic growth, check out our new article: “Backlink Fundamentals That Build Web Traffic”.
Now that you know the basics about backlinks, and how to install the Alexa browser for a quick summary of your web traffic performance, let’s talk about FREE (absolutely free) ways you can build new backlinks into your website on a monthly basis.
Local Backlinks
If you have established your Google My Business, and you are adding content to it regularly (images, special offers etc.) and you have optimized your GMB profile (service and product listings, adding new blog articles) the next step is to research and add valuable local backlinks to your SEO ecosystem.
This should be an ongoing process. Set a target (if you currently have no backlinks) to add at least 20 new links in the first month to start. Then, consider adding 5-10 new backlinks (local or authority national or international) links to support increased traffic to your website.
What are some of your best organic DIY backlink opportunities?
1. NAP Citations
If your business is an office, or a retail store, medical practice or community service organization that sees regular public foot traffic, you want to build important NAP citations for your business. This is a fancy way of saying that you need to submit your business name, address and profile description to as many quality high-traffic local directories as possible.
NAP citations can include:
- Yelp
- Foursquare
- Alignable
- Superpages
- Local city business commerce directories
An important point; your address, business name and profile should be identical when you submit or register your business on these directories. Why? Because Google looks for a match between your website, the information on your Google My Business profile and other directories. If it matches, you win! If it doesn’t match exactly, you won’t get the full benefit of these links for your website.
2. Sponsor Local Events
When your business sponsors a local event, provides a prize for a charitable cause etc., and the benefit and organization have a website, ask for a reciprocal link in the directory or listing of business sponsors. Many charities will include a name of the business, or perhaps a logo, but ask for that information to be hyperlinked to the landing or home page of your website. They’ll be happy to do it, and you’ll gain a valuable high traffic local backlink for your philanthropy.
3. Go ‘007’ and Spy on Your Local Competitor’s Backlinks
Yes, it’s legal. It’s also ethical, so don’t agonize at doing a little research into some of your leading local or national competitors, to see what sites they are backlinking to. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery; if it’s working for some of the biggest brands in your competitive niche, you should absolutely explore the same opportunities for your business.
Software like ahrefs provide really great insights about backlinks to your own website, and that of your competitors. You will be able to see the sites that your competitors have placed content on (blog articles for reciprocal links) and contact those websites to try to secure the same kind of ‘deal’ for your business.
4. Free Backlink Opportunities (National and International)
Does your business sell products and services nationally, or internationally? If so, expand your reach to new markets by pursuing high DA (domain authority) backlinks to websites that fit your niche.
Relevancy is critical here. For instance, if your business provides marketing services, you don’t want to backlink to things like fishing equipment. They aren’t related. People looking for your services aren’t going to search ‘fishing equipment’ to find you. Instead (using this example) you would want to backlink to:
- Marketing strategies
- Advertising tips
- Guest blogging opportunities
- Content marketing advice
- Social media management best practice
When you write articles for your blog, use Alexa.com to determine if the source you would like to cite in your informative blog post, is a high DA website before you link it. Link only relevant information that helps your reader with a problem and resolution. To appease the search engine Gods, try to make every article about 1,200 words in length or more, of optimized copy. Use YOAST as a plug-in on your blog, to help you optimize your content to gain the most traffic from every article you publish on your website.
Here are some excellent resources that can help you find high domain authority websites that accept free content, in exchange for one reciprocal backlink to your website:
Food Blogs
Education Blogs
Health
It is fast and easy to search for websites that accept free content in exchange for backlinks. Simply use terms like “Guest Blogging for [enter niche]”. For example: ‘guest blogging for marketing’ or ‘guest blogging website for real estate’ and Google search will connect you to endless articles listing websites that will participate in this kind of link building exercise with you. Free content and adhering to the submission guidelines (which vary by website) and you will be on your way to adding a few new high-quality organic links to your website on a monthly basis.
The blog content that you submit has to be journalistic in theme. Guest sites won’t accept what they consider to be advertorial content, or a commercial for your business or brand. In fact, most sites will not allow you to mention your business in the content at all. You will be able to share that information in your author byline (if provided by the site) or the article will be a standalone content piece, with one backlink on a related keyword (I.e., marketing) to your website.
It’s a Lot of Work (We Can Help)
At Social Me Multimedia, we believe in empowering business owners by being transparent about the process of White Hat and organic SEO methods. We assist global businesses by searching valuable backlink opportunities, and ‘pitching’ original content on behalf of our clients to authority websites.
We write optimized content that has a high acceptance rate and which exceeds the submissions requirements, and we have long-term relationships with many websites that are happy to place quality content and participate in reciprocal backlink programs. Our enterprise monthly service bundle includes blogger and guest post outreach services, and content production for backlink growth.
Contact us today to schedule a free consultation and learn how you can start building more website traffic, using effective content marketing engagement and blogger outreach programs.
