Here are 14 ways to upgrade your content alongside your blog posts to increase lead generation

Content Upgrade #1: Use CTAs in Blog Posts

As mentioned in the introduction, if you’re not already putting CTAs in your blog posts, you really should be. CTAs compel readers to take action once they’ve read your blog to either find out more about the topic or to engage with your goods and services. Include links to other internal blog posts, or to a relevant service you can provide which is connected to the topic of the blog.

This is especially important when we consider that inbound links are one of the most important factors Google takes into account when ranking your website, and play a critical role in SEO.

Content Upgrade #2: Continued Content

Continued content is a type of exclusive content where you simply continue the blog post for email subscribers only. This increases lead generation by getting users to input their email addresses to read the full article. Sometimes, it’s a simple case of instead of writing a top 15 blog post, write a top 10 but include an extra 5 points in the email marketing campaign sent out to subscribers.

To do this effectively, you’ll need to include a CTA at the end of your blog post with an email subscription box informing readers they can have the rest of the blog sent directly to their email address.

Content Upgrade #3: Exclusive Discounts

If you have a landing page where your ultimate CTA is to sell a product, offering exclusive ‘members only’ discounts to email subscribers is a great way to increase lead generation.

The discounts don’t have to be huge – even 5-10% will be enough to get a portion of your readers to sign up with their email address. Nowadays, this is a common practice even in large companies to improve lead generation.

Content Upgrade #4: Cheat Sheets

Cheat sheets are an excellent form of content upgrade because it provides a huge amount of value to both you and your subscribers. These are especially useful for blogs surrounding practical topics such as coding. For example, you could create a cheat sheet of simple commands for a particular language such as Linux, meaning subscribers can use your simple cheat sheet in their day to day lives. Connecting this to a blog post about the topic it’s attached to is a great CTA and should drastically increase lead generation.

Content Upgrade #5: Checklists

Checklists, like cheat sheets, are a great way for your subscribers to practically engage with your content and to make their own lives easier. It also gives your audience an opportunity to keep themselves on track with whatever they’re working on with a list outlining every step they need to complete to achieve their goals.

Checklists are also a great way to show off your creativity and visual flair to customers by making an aesthetically pleasing piece of content which matches the style of your brand.

Content Upgrade #6: Taster Courses

If you’re offering some kind of course or service alongside your blog posts, why not curate a small, free course for your email subscribers to increase lead generation towards your paid courses?

The course could really take the form of anything – from e-books and video tutorials to an entire email series. You can also take this into account when thinking about what your course actually offers. For example, if your blog posts or company provides advice for start-ups you may want to offer a free email course on how to use social media marketing.

Content Upgrade #7: Printable PDF Guides

A great way to get your subscribers to practically engage with your brand is by sending printable planners, worksheets or goal trackers for them to fill in using pens and pencils. Although this may not be for everyone, if your business provides advice, goods or services for creatives it may just be the best option. 

The best place to start when creating a printable and downloadable PDF guide is to think about what people enjoy writing down or crossing off and how this could relate to your blog content. You can create even a basic Google Doc that they can print and use.

Content Upgrade #8: Audio Blogs

Multiple newspaper websites have already taken to providing audio options for readers who may be hard of sight or who need their eyes elsewhere while they listen. Giving your readers the option of listening to your blog posts rather than reading them is an excellent way to both boost inclusivity and capitalize on those who would rather listen than read.

Additionally, if your organization holds livestreams or webinars these can be re-uploaded and distributed to your customers via email. The easiest way to do this would be by uploading the content as an unlisted video to YouTube, meaning only those with the link from the email would have access to it.

Content Upgrade #9: Scripts Templates

Scripts are great for anyone looking to send out mass emails, or who email the same types of people very frequently. This could be super helpful for PR managers reaching out to journalists, or anyone who is struggling to find the right words for certain situations. 

A great way to implement this would be as a CTA on articles which are designed to target people who are new to a certain employment status, e.g. new PR managers or anyone else who needs to get to grips with the basics of their job.

Content Upgrade #10: Case Studies

Case studies are a great way to connect simultaneously with both customers and those on your email list. Showcasing your product or service’s success is a great way to increase lead generation, since it shows customers exactly how your product or service could be used in situations that may be similar to their own. 

Case studies are usually accessible on an organization’s website, but using them as a way to generate leads is also a really smart idea.

Content Upgrade #11: Challenges

Another interactive way to improve lead generation is through challenges. This could be through email or done via avenues such as Facebook groups so everyone can participate and interact with one-another. This works great as a CTA in a blog post dedicated towards a certain goal, such as increasing your email list to X amount of people or creating a certain amount of content within a certain time. 

This simultaneously allows your readers to connect with you as a creator whilst creating a fun and productive challenge to generate new leads and email signups. As a challenge reward, your readers can also get bonus content such as free templates or checklists.

Content Upgrade #12: Infographics

Creating infographics might sound a bit daunting, but infographics can be made relatively easily using certain graphic design tools such as Canva or Visme. Infographics are great for providing statistics and quotes in a visually appealing style, and the format is easy-to-understand and digestible. 

Infographics can also be used for data visualization using charts and graphs to share significant numbers and data points. These can be shared as a CTA at the end of a blog post, telling the reader that if they sign up to the email newsletter they can find all of the statistics behind your blog post in one place.

Content Upgrade #13: Ebooks

Free ebooks are an excellent way to provide further information on a relevant topic covered in a blog post. As a CTA, they can be useful in persuading people who want to learn more about the topic to subscribe to your email list. The great thing about these is they can be as long or as short as you want – there really is no standard length for an ebook (you can also write a mini ebook 🙂

Content Upgrade #14: Free Trial

Free trials are used ubiquitously across all industries, and for good reason. Giving customers a sneak peek into content they could have access to for a monetary fee makes them more likely to pay for the full experience. Even if your organization offers a free version of the paid product, giving email subscribers access to the full experience is a great way to increase your conversion rate and convert free users to paid users.

Increasing your Business’s Lead Generation with Content Upgrades

These 14 content upgrade ideas should be enough to give your business all it needs, get more lead magnets and improve lead generation efforts. Better CTAs in your blog posts combined with more people signing up to your mailing list should drastically improve your organization’s lead generation abilities.

About the Author: Romana Hoekstra is a Content Marketing Lead at Leadfeeder, a B2B visitor identification software that tracks and identifies companies that visit your website. Currently, she is leading the remote-first content marketing team and crafts high-performing content marketing strategies with a focus on organic growth, SEO, high-quality content production & distribution. You can connect with Romana on Linkedin.

The post 14 Content Upgrades That’ll Skyrocket Your Lead Generation appeared first on LinkGraph.

As of 2020 over 58% of site visits now come from mobile search traffic. If you aren’t taking mobile into account heavily enough, it’s likely hurting your business.

The use of mobile devices is rapidly changing the way customers are searching, engaging, and buying. Consumers have access to faster Internet while they’re on-the-go. That means Internet traffic is increasing through mobile devices. Beyond social engagement and consuming content, they’re also making buying decisions.

Mobile Search is Often the First Step for Purchases

According to Morgan Stanley, 91% of adults keep their smartphones within arm’s reach. That’s ninety-one percent of ALL adults, and it’s shifting both business culture and research practices. Rather than dedicating time to research a topic, users now perform micro-searches on the go, and then follow-up on those initially discovered options or solutions later on.

How big is this trend? An IDG Global Solutions survey found 92% of senior execs own a smartphone used for business, 77% of those research business purchases from their mobile device with 95% then finalizing related purchases via laptop/desktop. That’s a huge portion of the B2B purchase pool starting their journey from mobile. Missing a user during their initial mobile-based exploration may mean your business is losing out on a huge portion of the market.

Mobile Search is Often Location-Oriented

This trend is even more compounded for local businesses, as 58% of mobile users search for local businesses daily. What’s more? 89% of those users search for a local business at least once per month. We also learn from HubSpot that, when consumers do a local search, 72% of them visit a store within five miles. What does this mean for business with an Internet presence? It’s time to make it mobile-friendly.

What Does the Rise of Mobile Search Mean for Businesses?

Websites now need to be responsively designed so they can serve mobile users just as well as desktop users. Responsive design is a design that adapts to the size of the users viewport (i.e. screen), by changing font sizes, adjusting images, and even collapsing page elements to make navigation simpler. Responsive websites that follow modern design standards help users access and understand the information they need more quickly.

Because mobile users comprise an increasing number of searches and site visits, they now represent the largest source of traffic in a slew of markets (new industry segments falling into this bucket each month). Our clients regularly pick up market share with simple mobile-friendly design updates, especially within industries that are traditionally late-adopters.

Your Website is Now Your Storefront

Your site is now your storefront. If your site looks terrible or functions poorly, users will leave instead of working to get at your information – it costs a user nothing to click the next result in search.

Google Prioritizes Mobile-Optimized Sites

Google has switched over to mobile first indexing. Mobile-first indexing prioritizes mobile friendly sites over other sites in the organic search results. Even if your target consumers aren’t heavy mobile-users yet, your site still needs to be mobile-optimized if you want to show up higher in the search results (even for desktop-based searches).

Users Are Making Purchase Decisions from Search Alone

With mobile devices rapidly changing the way consumers access information your offsite optimizations are also becoming critical. For example most users performing local searches never go past the search results themselves (aka they don’t actually click into websites anymore). Local search users are typically able to surface the information they want directly within the search results through features like the local Map Pack.

How Can I Improve My Mobile SEO?

The first step toward reaching mobile users is having a mobile-friendly website. Currently, in 2021, responsive web design is the best design approach for mobile-friendliness. Responsive design is the best approach for mobile design because:

• You will serve the same content to both mobile and desktop users
• The content will adapt responsively to all screen sizes and mobile device types
• Search equity is centralized to a single URL for all pages
• It’s a better user experience
• Google prefers responsive design

What exactly is responsive design?

Responsive design in an approach for creating web pages where layouts and content dynamically adapt to the size and orientation of the screen or viewport being used.

In the example below you can see that the desktop version of this responsive site the text and video are displayed side-by side, and in the mobile version of the site those elements have been stacked.

Desktop	Mobile

This responsive theme adjusts to the width of different devices from smartphones to tablets, even large wide-screen viewports, by rearranging and resizing the design elements.

There have been a few ways to handle mobile sites since the invention of smartphones, the first two mobile design waves were plagued with usability issues, and hard to maintain. Let’s take a look at what didn’t work, and why you should consider migrating to a responsive design if you’re still employing one of these outdated mobile design tactics.

Outdated Approach #1: Mobile Subdomain, Separate Mobile Website

This approach required setting up canonical tags for every page, as each mobile web page contained content duplicative to the desktop page. This approach also split the search equity for each page as desktop users interacted with the desktop site, and mobile users interacted with the mobile website.

When users shared pages from the site, creating backlinks they were split between the mobile subdomain and the regular site domain as separate URLs were being served to each user group. It also meant that every time an edit was made to content on the desktop site, a second round of edits had to be made on the separate mobile site. Mobile pages under this paradigm often provided a worse user experience as they typically served less content than the full desktop site did for desktop users.

Outdated Approach #2: Dynamic Serving of Mobile Sites

The next wave of design consolidated pages under a single URL, but dynamically served cached pages based on the user’s device type using a vary http response header.

This iteration of mobile design allowed sites to consolidate search equity between their desktop site and mobile site. It also did away with the need for canonical tags on virtually every site page.

However, it meant that every time a device came out with new dimensions, a new instance of the site had to be spun up, formatted, and tested to be served to users. This system became increasingly impossible to maintain as the market diversified and the dimensions for mobile screens became rapidly non-standard. Dynamically serving a mobile version of your site was plagued with issues including a repeated issues with serving the desktop version to mobile users.

Current Best Practice: Responsive Design

Responsive design consolidates the mobile version of a webpage and the desktop version of a webpage under a single URL. It also serves the same instance of code, regardless of the size of the mobile screen or desktop viewport.

Instead all elements fluidly rearrange to suite mobile visitors and desktop visitors as needed. If a user switches from full screen to half-screen with their browser, the design elements will shift accordingly so the user experience is largely unchanged.

How to Check If Your Mobile Site is Google-Friendly

In July 2019, there were over 1.69 billion more mobile searches than desktop searches performed in the US alone (source, source). Search itself has become mobile-first. The first place you’ll start when checking your site for mobile optimization is checking out how Google views your site.

Mobile SEO Strategy is All About Google

Google holds over 90% of the market share for mobile search traffic in the U.S., because Google has spent years optimizing search specifically for mobile users. Many of Google’s search results are so well optimized, that mobile users don’t even need to click into an actual result to find the information they need.

Rich snippets and rich results now display enough information for users to take action based off of the search results alone, from finding movie times to the addresses of local businesses, to how to troubleshoot tech problems.

How did Google get so far ahead of the competition with mobile search? They started testing and prioritizing mobile features years ago, and as mobile search volume overcame desktop search volume, Google shifted to prioritizing mobile users over desktop users.

A Brief History of Google’s Mobile Search Results

In 2015 Google rolled out mobile-friendly search results, serving a separate set of search results to mobile devices. This update, often called Mobilegeddon, prioritized mobile-friendly websites in the search results.

Source: Google/SOASTA Research, 2017.

In 2016 Google began to experiment with mobile-first indexing, cataloguing the mobile version of page content, rather than the desktop version.

In March of 2018 Google formally began rolling out mobile-first indexing, and migrating over to the mobile-version of pages for sites that it had already indexed as desktop versions. To quote Google themselves, “Mobile-first indexing means that we’ll use the mobile version of the page for indexing and ranking, to better help our – primarily mobile – users find what they’re looking for.” Essentially the entire index is going mobile-first. This process of migrating over to indexing the mobile version of websites is still underway. Website’s are being notified in Search Console when they’ve been migrated under Google’s mobile-first index.

In July of 2018 Google rolled out page speed as a mobile ranking factor, ranking sites with slow load times lower in the search results.

Figuring Out Which Trends Will Last

Over the past decade Google has also continually rolled out additional data-rich mobile-first search features from movie times, to reviews, to product images. Google often pivots when rolling out new features, as it continually tests and then prioritizes what works best for serving users the most valuable information.

For example, Google originally published a guide helping webmasters create separate mobile sites under the m.domain.com URL – a tacit approval of the process, only to pivot within a year to formally recommending responsive design under a single unified URL.

Sites using AMP pages are often managing two sets of page content, with one set slimmed down to meet the AMP standard. There are also challenges with AMP pages being served from a Google URL rather than the site’s own domain. While Google recently addressed some of these concerns with signed exchanges, but it’s still causing questions around whether link equity is being split between the AMP viewer URL, the original AMP source, and the AMP cache URL.

Trends that are here to stay? Responsive design, quality content that gets right to the point, making sites as fast as humanly possible.

Check if Google is Flagging Mobile Issues

So what should you pay the most attention to in terms of Mobile optimization? If you already have a website, start with Google’s Mobile Friendly Test. This tool will give you an aggregate rating for whether or not Google thinks your site is mobile-friendly. The tool will also prompt you to view a full usability report in Google Search Console.

If you want to access this report on your own directly from Search Console, login to your account for the domain, and use the left-hand navigation to click into “mobile usability” under Enhancements.

Check if Google Is Indexing Your Webpages

Google can’t serve pages in the search results that it can’t see. Make sure that Google is indexing your pages for search.

Enable Crawl by Googlebot

To check if your robots.txt file is blocking Googlebot, you can either use a free robots.txt tester, or use the link inspection feature in search console.

NoIndex

A few years ago you could check blocked resources straight from google console in a consolidated view, but as these issues became less prevalent google has dropped the aggregate view. Secondary tools like screaming frog can still give you a full list of NOINDEX and NOFOLLOW pages from your site. Alternatively you can check the status of individual links straight from Search console using the URL inspection tool.

Checking if Your Mobile Site is User-Friendly

Now that you’ve resolved a majority of the technical usability issues, it’s a good idea to check for issues mobile users face that may not have caught by Google.

How Does Your Site Appear on Mobile?

Start by taking a look at how your site appears on different devices, this free tool will let you select from a variety of mobile devices and desktops to give you a full sense of how your site looks on different devices.

You should quickly be able to see any major issues with formatting that could be hindering the mobile user experience, or making your site look unprofessional. Examples include poorly formatted text, grainy or stretched images, or overlapping page elements.

Work with your webmaster or web development team to clean up any design elements that aren’t displaying well on mobile. Once your site layout is mobile optimized, you’ll want to check that your site is compelling to mobile searchers on the Google search results page.

Are the Visible Portions of Page Titles and Metas Compelling?

Users only click into a site from search if the rich snippet, page title, and/or meta description are compelling. Your title tag for your page needs to front-load your target keyword(s), and your meta description should include the most pertinent information about your page first.

Page titles can be very similar between pages, so meta descriptions can often make the difference for which result or results site visitors click.

If you’re seeing a good amount of organic traffic from your target keywords, the next step is to make sure that traffic is actually seeing your mobile optimized content.

Are You Losing Visitors to Page Speed?

Over half of mobile searchers will abandon a page that takes longer than three seconds to load. Separately, for every additional second it takes a page to load, conversions fall by 12% (Google, 2018).

To check your mobile page speed use Google’s PageSpeed Insights Tool, and see how quickly your site loads on a 4G connection. This tool will give you a granular breakdown of all speed issues you can address to improve your site speed.

Do Any Pages Have Super High Mobile Bounce Rates?

Bounce rates are a great indicator that a page is not providing value to users. If you see bounce rates are much higher on specific pages for mobile users than for desktop users this is a sign that the page may have some issues with either mobile formatting, mobile load times, or that the relevant content may take too long to scroll to on mobile.

To check bounce rates, simply login to your Google Analytics dashboard. You’ll be able to view aggregate bounce rates for your site, bounce rates by page, and track how bounce rates change as you make adjustments to webpage content.

Avoid Intrusive Popups

Intrusive pop ups, and poorly designed pop ups can increase your bounce rates on mobile and tablet devices. Intrusive popups can also hurt your organic search rankings, especially with Google. An update Google rolled out in 2016 devalues mobile pages that have intrusive pop ups, lowering the page’s rankings in the search results.

There are two major popup issues that can cause bounce rates and devaluing of a page in SERP. Pop ups that have not been optimized for mobile traffic can be impossible to close on small screens, and may cause mobile searchers to bounce from your site. Pop ups that prevent a user from accessing content on-load will hurt your mobile SEO especially with Google. Google considers pop ups that block site visitors from content to be “intrusive.”

Examples of intrusive pop-ups and interstitials:

• A pop up that displays immediately, or while the user is trying to read through content
• An interstitial that has to be exited before the user can access the main content
• A full-screen interstitial that has to be scrolled past to access the main content

That doesn’t mean you should abandon popups entirely. Used correctly, and designed with mobile UX in mind, pop ups can help improve your conversion rate. These pop ups are ones that help the mobile user along their journey, are contextually relevant to the content, or are a legal requirement. Pop ups that appear as a user is looking to complete the next step in their journey are generally fine as well.

Examples of pop-ups and interstitials that are okay:

• Pop ups that notify mobile searchers that a site uses cookies.
• Pop ups that confirm a user’s age for restricted content or services.
• Pop ups that take up a reasonable amount of room and are easy to dismiss.

Optimize Your Site for Voice Search

A report issued by PwC states that, compared to conducting a traditional search, 71 percent of respondents prefer voice searching. Now that we know users prefer voice search, let’s look at how we can optimize our websites to reach them.

1. BE CONCISE. The average voice response ANSWER is less than 30 words long. Avoid filler or unnecessary terms like “however” or “thus” and be as direct and straight to the point as possible while completely answering a question. Google actually has an entire guide outlining the type of responses selected for voice searches, and the biggest takeaway is that answers should be brief and direct.

2. Voice searches pull in part from “featured snippets.” That means, when someone asks a question using a voice search, Google pulls answers from approximately 30 percent of these snippets.

3. Consider the user’s intent. When crafting your content, ask yourself what users are searching for before landing on your site. Doing this will help enhance the content’s relevance. Therefore, if you’re optimizing your page for a specific featured snippet, your goal should be understanding your visitor’s intent and providing them with an answer immediately.

4. Use long tail keywords and questions in headers. Often, voice searches occur as though the user is speaking to a human. Short, choppy keywords are rarely in use. Long-tail keywords and phrases are how people talk. So, when optimizing your site, consider using these phrases in conjunction with questions. That way, your website will pop up more often when users are trying to solve a problem, find a product, or use a service.

5. Optimize for local searches. Users are going to search using local SEO. According to Small Business Trends, 58 percent of mobile users find local businesses using voice searches. Adding phrases to your content like, “near me” or your geographic area will help boost your rankings.

Are You Addressing the Customer’s Journey?

Mobile-friendly websites must think through the customer’s journey. Ask yourself these three questions:

• What types of users hit my site?(Who are they, how old are they, what are their roles)
• What would those users be want from my site?(ex: to establish pricing, to find my business location, to complete an online purchase, to share a story)
• Can each user easily complete their journey using only the main nav?

Your main navigation should help users quickly and easily get what they want from your site, without a user needing to use site search or “click around.” Once you have a handle on your audience segmentation and goals, you should confirm that your users are not facing any major barriers along each journey.

There are a few ways to do that, here are two:

• If you have a program like Hotjar or Lucky Orange installed that allows you to view your own users’ onsite journeys – you can watch user recordings to see if users are struggling to complete tasks.
  • Ex: Users abandon scrolling because information is too far down a page
  • Ex: Users have a lot of “U-Turns” – pressing back almost immediately because what they wanted wasn’t on the page they clicked into.
  • Ex: Users rage-click an element that’s not opening or functioning correctly.
  • Ex: You see error messages displayed to the user from your site.
  • Ex: You see users begin conversion, but abandon forms or carts.
• You can conduct direct user research:
  • Recruit users that you’re able to interact with directly
  • Request they complete specific tasks on the site
  • Have them explain their thinking and reactions as they interact with your site

Your marketing shouldn’t be only about what devices your potential customer is using, it should be about the journey they’re taking. What are their lifestyles, habits, and device preferences? Conduct research, surveys, and interviews with your current audience. This marketing tactic is an excellent opportunity to develop a relationship with your existing customer base. Offer incentives and prizes to those who choose to participate.

Create Journey-Driven Designs

Designing websites focusing on mobile users means we have drastically less real estate, so minimalism is critical. The last a user wants to do is scroll through or resize your pages. According to a scrolling and attention study the

Nielsen Norman Group conducted, 74 percent of users indicated their viewing time is spent on the first two screens of content. Therefore, responsive design is the solution. You can accomplish this in a variety of ways, including:

• Hiding content under sliders
• Using sticky live chat or feedback widgets
• Implementing mobile pop-ups
• Redirecting to social media
• Creating a bare-bones presentation
• Eliminating sidebars
• Taking advantage of banner space
• Replacing graphics with a search bar

Pro-Tip: For mobile-users, one often overlooked difference is that tap-areas need to be large enough for users to click on interactive elements (links, buttons, drop-downs) with precision.

Mobile User Experience Optimization Recap

For local business:

• Make sure to include NAP (name, address or service area, phone number) on your website.
• Claim and complete your Google My Business (GMB) listing and your Bing Places account.
• Optimize pages to include names of local cities and landmarks
• Focus on location-based rich snippets like the Map Pack

For all businesses:

• Make use of structured data to leverage google search’s rich snippet features.
• Confirm your responsive design is acting as-expected.
  • You can use a tool like this Responsive Design Checker to confirm how your site looks at the most common breakpoints
  • You can check out alerts and mobile feedback directly from Google through your site’s Google Search Console
  • Install a user-session recording software
  • Hotjar, for example, will let you see if your users are struggling in any areas (ex: pages are too long and users abandon before hitting content critical to conversion).
• Focus on SPEED:
  • • Optimize images for mobile (reduce file size)

  Pro-tip start out with a responsive design or theme and it should handle this for you.

• Minify CSS
• Leverage caching
• Enable Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)
• Switch anything you have on flash over to HTML5 instead

Final Thoughts

Mobile searching remains the leader because everyone loves the convenience of using their devices. Your audience is busy, on-the-go, and living in a digitally-driven world. As a result, their mobile queries will continue to be on an upward rise. Even though mobile searches are similar to those on a desktop, your site must be optimized for your audience’s visits. Your brand should be easy to use and support your customer’s journey. A mobile-friendly design that responds to the level of mobile searches you receive should be your goals.

The post Mobile SEO – The Complete Guide 2022 appeared first on LinkGraph.

Quality link-building services are important for any online business. Without high-quality links, your website may not rank as high as you would like in the search engine results pages (SERPs). And, when you don’t rank well, you’re not able to attract as much traffic. And whether you have an e-commerce site or a brick-and-mortar, a lack of traffic could spell disaster for your business.

Fortunately, there are quality link-building services available to help build your brand’s online presence and domain authority. These services can help you to increase your website’s visibility and attract more traffic. They can also help you to improve your website’s search engine ranking, which can lead to more sales and conversions.

However, with so many choices, it can be difficult to choose the best value for your business. This article will walk you through how to compare high-quality link building services

How Does a Link Building Strategy Work?

Finding the best link building service requires that you have a foundational understanding of how link building campaigns work. This knowledge will empower you to better recognize a reputable company in addition to understanding exactly what you’re paying for.

What is a Backlink?

Unsure of what a backlink is? You’re not alone. We find that many site owners have heard of backlink building, but they don’t fully understand how the strategy works. Starting with the foundational knowledge of backlinks is a great place to start.

A backlink is a hyperlink that points from one website to another website. Backlinks are incredibly important for SEO because they are one of the main factors that Google uses to determine a website’s authority and relevance.

What Determines the Quality of a Backlink?

There are many factors included in determining a quality backlink from a spammy backlink. Some of the most important factors are the authority of the website that is linking to you, the relevance of the content on the website that is linking to you, and the trustworthiness of the website that is linking to you.

What is Domain Authority?

Domain Authority (DA) is a metric, created by Moz, that measures the strength of a website’s backlink profile and determines how likely it is to rank in the SERPs. This metric is often the determining factor of the price you will pay for high-quality backlinks.

How Do Backlinks Affect a Site’s Domain Authority?

Backlinks are one of the key factors that affect a website’s Domain Authority (DA). The more high-quality backlinks a website has, the higher its DA will be. 

This is because high-quality backlinks are seen as a sign of trust and authority by Google. As a result, websites with more high-quality backlinks will rank higher in search engine results pages than those with fewer or no backlinks.

What are some link-building tactics sites use to build DA?

There are many link-building tactics that you can use to improve your website’s link popularity. 

Some of the most effective techniques include:

• Creating valuable content that people will want to link to
• Participating in link exchanges with other websites
• Submitting your website to directories and search engines
• Creating click bait – content that is so interesting or useful that people will want to link to it
• Sponsoring events or donating products to charity auctions
• Creating press releases and submitting them to online news outlets
• Posting comments on other websites and including a link to your website
• Creating blog posts and including links to other related blog posts
• Using social media sites to promote your website and links to your content

Which Link Building Strategy Will Work Best for You?

There is no one definitive answer to the question of how to build backlinks. However, there are a number of common methods that can be effective.

Creating Valuable Content

One approach is to create valuable content that can naturally attract links from other websites. This might include blog posts, infographics, or video content. One way to determine if your content is linkable is to consider if it’s something influencers would post or share.

Creating Press Releases

Another approach is to use tools like HARO (Help a Reporter Out) to connect with reporters looking for sources, and provide them with information that they can use in their articles.

Participating in Link Exchanges

You can also reach out to other websites and ask them to link to your content. This can be a useful way to get links from high-quality websites.

Social Media Promotion

You can also attract links naturally by promoting your content on social media and other websites, and by engaging with other bloggers and website owners.

Whatever approach you choose, be sure to focus on creating quality content that will interest your target audience. That way, you can attract links from other websites that will help improve your SEO.

What Is White Hat Link Building

There are many different ways to build links, but the most effective and White Hat way is to create valuable content and attract links naturally. White Hat practices are considered ethical and aligned with Google’s linking guidelines.

In other words, when you create content that is truly useful and interesting to your target audience, they will want to use it and share it. This signals to Google that your site produces far-reaching value. If you focus on creating great content and building relationships with other bloggers and website owners, you will be able to build high-quality links naturally and ethically.

What Is Black Hat Link Building?

Black hat backlink is the opposite of white hat link building strategies. If white-hat link building follows Google’s guidelines, black hat tactics are all about optimizing a website by skirting around these guidelines. These manipulative tactics are highly frowned upon in the search engine optimization industry.

When it comes to a black hat link-building campaign, the result is an artificially inflated DA. And while this can work in the short term, in the long-term unethical linking practices can threaten a website’s ability to sustain ranking search results.

Additionally, if a site or SEO service has a long track record of black hat practices, Google can block them from search results.

White Hat Strategies for High-Quality Backlinks

There is no one process to gaining links that will work for every website. However, there are some key principles that you should always keep in mind when pursuing links from a link building service.

1) Quality over quantity: Don’t pursue links just for the sake of having more links. Make sure that each and every link you acquire is high quality and will be beneficial to your website.

2) Research your target audience: Know who your target audience is and what they are interested in. This will help you determine where to pursue links from. A good digital market service will provide this research for you as part of the link building process.

3) Variety is key: Don’t rely on only one or two sources for links. Spread your net wide and pursue links from a variety of sources using a variety of tactics.

4) Don’t be afraid to ask: Don’t be afraid to reach out to websites that you think would be a good source of links for you. Many website owners are happy to share links with others who are interested in their content.

5) Stay up to date with changes: Keep up to date with the latest changes in the world of SEO and link building. This will help you stay ahead of the curve and ensure that your link-building efforts are effective.

6) Use keywords naturally: When crafting your anchor text, never force a keyword into the outbound link if it doesn’t make sense. It’s better to have the right anchor text rather than a lot of links that mislead site visitors. Furthermore, webmasters will flag your site as producing poor-quality content. This will result in rejections from editorial publications and can create a red flag in Google’s indexing.

Why Choose White Hat Link Building Services

When you follow Google’s guidelines, you can rest assured that your investment will last the test of time. On the other hand, black hat link building tactics can get your site penalized by Google with a manual action and result in being expelled from the SERPs.

Furthermore, Google’s 2021 LinkSpam update essentially devalued the link equity of any spammy links. Google’s algorithm, PageRank, now assesses types of links differently when calculating site authority. Sites without the quality of backlinks Google would expect from white hat link building strategies saw a major drop in their search engine rankings.

How to Choose A High-Quality Link Building Services

When choosing a quality link building service, be sure to consider the following factors:

• The service’s experience and expertise
• The quality of its links
• The service’s pricing
• The service’s customer service and support
• The quality of its website auditing and analysis tools

By considering these factors, you can be sure that you are choosing a quality link-building service that will help your business to succeed online.

Know Your Options

While searching for the best link building service, you will find a wide array of service types. Some are more effective than others, however, the price can vary wildly depending on the SEO link building service you choose and the number of links you’re looking for.

1. Custom Link Building Services

If you’re looking for high-quality, effective custom link building services, custom link building (or curated link building) is the way to go. 

Unlike automated link-building services, custom link builders will ensure your site receives backlinks with strategically integrated keywords and a balanced number of links per domain.

A Higher Price Tag for Better ROI

A custom link building agency costs a bit more than an automated service, but often the quality of links is much better. This is because their experienced link builders will work with you to create a custom link building strategy tailored to your specific needs and goals. 

Most custom link building services include keyword research and guaranteed white hat links. Not only is this provide a vote of confidence, but custom links improve your search ranking and help you attract more traffic from inbound links. 

Another bonus of high-quality links is general brand-building through industry-relevant backlink placements.

2. Blogger Outreach Services

Effective blogger outreach is an important part of any successful link building campaign. This approach can also be quite time-consuming, which is where an experienced digital marketing agency can save you time and money by engaging with influential bloggers. This approach works by asking bloggers to link to your site within their content.

A quality link-building company has the connections and the ability to ensure your linkable assets wind up on the most powerful marketing channels. When a blog has a high domain authority, you can reach a wider audience.

A More Affordable Link Building Technique

If you’re on a tighter budget, you can find a link building agency that assists with outreach site identification rather than a full-service guest post service. These companies will help you identify and connect with the right bloggers to reach your target audience.

3. Guest Blogging Submissions

Unlike blogger outreach, guest blogging requires that you provide blogs with written content or linkable assets. While this kind of link building campaign is a bit more involved, it allows you to have more control over your hyperlinks and backlink-associated keywords.

Guest post services are a way for bloggers to get content for their blogs and a link building technique that pays off. When comparing digital market services, you may want to ask if they provide link building packages with a guest blogging option.

If so, you will want to ask if they can either provide a writer for a guest post or provide a placement guest posts that your company can provide.

4. Editorial Backlinks

Similar to guest blogging submissions, editorial backlinks provide high-quality backlinks from beneficial link building activities. These backlinks appear on news outlets and are a form of HARO that provides reputable news sites with high quality content in exchange for contextual links.

How do editorial back links differ from guest blogging? These pieces often require a high quality content creation with a sophisticated level of thought leadership. Often this level of knowledge takes years of experience in a niche.

5. What Is Manual Link Building?

Manual link building is a process of building links to a website by manually contacting other websites and requesting that they link to the website. This can be done by emailing the website owner, submitting a request on the website’s contact form, or finding the website owner’s contact information and emailing them directly.

6. White Label Link Building

There are a number of different ways to go about link building, but one of the most effective is through white label link building. In this approach, you work with a third party that provides links from their own network of websites. This can be a great way to get quality links quickly and easily.

If you’re looking for a reliable and effective way to build links, then white label link building is a great option.

Backlink Services to Avoid

As a site owner, you must use your own due diligence in selecting backlink services that are ethical. This becomes tricky when you take into account that low-quality and high-quality backlinks often look about the same on paper–especially when you’re contracting for a lot of links.

To avoid over-paying, participating in tactics that will harm your backlink profile in the long run, and black hate tactics, be on the lookout for:

Private Blog Networks

There is a lot of discussion these days around private blog networks (PBNs). Put simply, a PBN is a group of websites that are privately owned and used for the purpose of ranking higher in SERPs. Typically, these websites are related in some way – for example, they may all be owned by the same person or company, or they may all be related to a specific topic or industry.

How Do PBNs Work?

The idea behind using a PBN is that you can improve your website’s ranking in SERPs by linking to it from these other websites.

So, is using a PBN effective? The answer to that question is a little complicated. On the one hand, using a PBN can definitely help you improve your website’s ranking. On the other hand, if you are caught using a PBN, your website could be penalized by Google.

Ultimately, whether or not using a PBN is effective depends on a number of factors, including how well you execute it and how careful you are in hiding your PBN from Google.

But to play it safe, you will want to avoid any link building service company that uses PBNs. Furthermore, a reputable link building company would never jeopardize their client’s site’s rankings.

Reciprocal Linking

Reciprocal linking is the process of agreeing to link to someone’s website in exchange for their site linking to yours. While it may seem like an easy option for building backlinks, trading links is against Google’s linking guidelines. 

How does Google know if a site is trying to manipulate their SERP rankings through link exchanges? Their webcrawlers note when two sites have new backlinks to one another as they index the sites.

Premium Link Building Services Worthy of Your Budget

There are a variety of ways to build links, but one of the most effective is to use a premium link building service. These services have access to link building experts, high-quality link directories, and other resources that can help your website rank higher.

If you’re looking for a premium link building service, here are a few to consider:

LinkGraph

LinkGraph is a link building service company that is growing quickly. Not only does LinkGraph have a proprietary keyword research tool and provide high authority links, but their SEO link building experts also act as an extension of your team.

LinkGraph services include:

• White-hat link building
• White label link building service
• Access to white-hat link building
• Unparalleled ​​quality of service
• Backlink packages for clients of all sizes

Moz

Moz or SEOmoz is a well-known and respected SEO company that offers a variety of premium link building services. Their services include:

• Link building
• Content marketing
• SEO consulting
• Outreach link building

What to Ask a Potential Link Building Company

When discussing your backlink strategy with a custom link building campaign, always ask for a list that shows each site’s authority where your links will be placed. This is an extremely important ranking factor and can help you avoid a manual penalty from Google.

If you’re paying a premium for custom white hat backlinks, be sure to verify:

• The number of backlinks you will receive
• How the service defines “a good backlink”
• If you will have a dedicated account manager
• That you will receive contextual link placements
• If your package includes a technical SEO audit, including an in-depth backlink audit
• Do their link building specialists use a variety of techniques, such as HARO and a social media strategy
• How they approach their each their client’s niches

Quality Backlinks = Higher Search Engine Ranking

When you invest in quality backlinks, your site will be rewarded with link building that works. No matter which link building company you choose, be sure they follow white-hat link building practices and have an experienced link building team.

LinkGraph offers award-winning integrated agency experience, including link building that works. 

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