Ranking matters. Whether your website shows up on the 3rd or the 33rd Google search result page makes a huge difference for your organic traffic. Further, it influences the way people perceive you as a brand, business, or professional. This is why you have to work on creating a better strategy for improving your ranking and increasing organic traffic.

One of the best ways to show Google your website is reliable, important, and valuable, is to have backlinks to your website. Backlinks are like little arrows pointing out to you and saying “This is a good source of information”. If you’re wondering what you need to do to get backlinks to your website, we suggest using truly valuable content.

Let’s break it down together and take it one step at a time.

What Are Natural Backlinks?

efore we dig any deeper into developing a strategy for getting the desired natural backlinks, we first need to define them.

When the importance of SEO became clear, people started to use the technique of link building, to boost their SEO. However, using unnatural backlinks violates the rules set by Google.

Unnatural backlinks are:

• paid links
• links you exchange for something
• low-quality links
• links intended to manipulate the Google Algorithm
• manually created links
• deceptive links

Natural links stand directly opposed to unnatural links. Those are the links that link to your website, but aren’t manipulated, deceptive, or paid for.

On the contrary, people link to you because:

• They find your content valuable
• they find your content informative
• they find your content enriching to their audience

Now that we’ve covered the basics, it’s time to dig a little deeper. Here are the best ways for you to use truly valuable content and get natural backlinks for your website.

1. Cover Trending Topics

Regardless of your niche or industry, you’ve got some serious competition. If you want to stand shoulder to shoulder with them, or even try to surpass them, you have to stay updated.

There are trending topics that are currently happening within your niche and you need to know what they are. By covering these topics, you’ll draw more attention to your content and increase the chances of getting backlinks.

To be able to do this, you should:

• keep an eye on your competitors
• use social media to gather information
• read news portals, blogs, and other electronic media

You need to know exactly what’s trending and then cover the topics you feel most of your target audience will want to read about.

Trending topics will be suitable for linking to, and it’s a great place to start with natural link building.

2. Conduct a Research

People online appreciate valuable and credible data. Both the readers and other content writers need firm evidence that what they’re reading or saying is trustworthy.

This is why conducting research within your niche is a great idea for getting more natural backlinks.

Research will:

• Provide new data
• provide valuable data
• give evidence to back up facts

If the data you’re sharing is unique and new, it will be attractive to others covering similar topics. They’ll use you as a reference for their content. And that’s all you need.

An experiment or research that provides fresh data on any given topic is the masters of natural link building.

3. Conduct a Survey

Similar to research, surveys are another great way to get valuable, shareable information into your content.

To conduct a quality survey, you need to create a strategy. Ask and answer the following questions:

• What information or data would be valuable to my audience at this moment?
• What questions do I need to ask to get the right data?
• How will I process the information I gather?

If you manage to conduct a successful survey, you’ll once again have new, valuable information and data that is worth sharing.

Shape it into properly written content for your website and people will want to use it as reference.

4. How-To Guides

People online use Google to find entertainment, learn something new, or solve an issue they might have encountered. For those who are looking for specific information and guidance, it’s always best that you write in-depth how-to guides.

How-to guides are considered to be highly valuable and attractive content. This is the case because they:

• Provide solid information
• give guidance
• solve problems
• teach people how to deal with things

Other websites might find this content useful because it will spare them the trouble of explaining something that isn’t the main focus of their content.

Also, guides are extremely useful and will make any piece of content heavier and better.

5. Make Infographics

People are different and there are all types of readers looking into your or anyone else’s content. This means that you need to be diverse in what you’re publishing to try to reach as many people.

For those who are more visual in acquiring or processing information, it’s best that you create infographics to present the information or data you’re covering in a more visual manner.

But not every content marketer or writer has the time or skills to make their own visual content. If you do, your content will be interesting for sharing and linking to by other writers.

Think about creating unique infographics and the benefits that might come with it:

• The content will be appealing for many people
• your fellow writers and marketers will see it as a valuable piece of content
• they’ll want to share it with their readers
• they’ll use it in their content and link back to your website

Infographics will give you the additional natural backlinks you need. You can use a tool as simple as Canvas to create something attention-grabbing and informative.

If you have advanced graphic design skills, you can take it even further and use more professional programs for this task.

6. Do Interviews

Quotes are very specific and can play a huge role for anyone who wants to get credibility for their content. However, it’s not easy to find quotes from actual experts, influencers, or professionals in your niche.

In addition, most websites usually share the same quotes as their competitors. This leaves room for you to use this gap and turn it into an advantage.

By conducting an interview with someone renowned in our industry, you’re creating highly valuable and shareable content. Here’s why:

• You have unique content that no one else has published before
• it’s the source of new quotes worth sharing

Other content writers will want to use these new pieces of information in their content, and they’ll refer back to your website.

An interview is, therefore, a great way to get natural backlinks and increase your organic traffic.

7. Write Guest Posts

If you don’t feel like sitting around and waiting for someone to find your content interesting and worth sharing, you could take it up a notch and take things into your own hands.

You could offer to write guest posts for other blogs.

Guest posts will give you the opportunity to expand your reach to a wider audience and get more people to hear about your website.

Here’s how it works:

• You find a blog looking for submissions on guest blogs
• you read the submission guidelines thoroughly
• you write an informative, high-quality blog post, following the guidelines
• you submit your work and wait for an answer

The best-case scenario is that your article will be approved and you’ll appear as a guest writer for a target blog. But, now you have to find a way to insert a link to your original website into the guest post.

There are two ways for you to do this:

• author’s bio

If you want to insert a link to your website into the guest post, you’ll most likely get approved to this in the author’s bio. However, it will get you fewer clicks and less organic traffic, but it’s still something.

If you write something truly unique, valuable, and informative, people might want to see what else you have to say and they follow this link to your website.

• Inside the text with a catchy anchor

The second option is definitely much more effective. You could insert the link to a blog post on your original website and use a catchy anchor to get the readers to click it.

If you get approval for this type of link insertion, you should use it.

Although it takes some serious effort and hard work to get a guest post approved, it’s effective and worth it.

8. Write a Challenge Post

Challenge posts are extremely popular and interesting for so many people. Creating a challenge post will provide a fun, shareable content, that others will want to link to.

You can write a blog post inviting your readers to join you in a challenge. Make this challenge niche-specific and closely related to the purpose of your website.

You can challenge people to do anything:

• Join you for a 10-day cleansing experience
• follow an exercise program
• learn a new skill every day for two weeks
• read a new book each week

Other writers and marketers might find this useful and interesting and include it in their content by linking to your website.

9. Create a Statistics Post

As a content writer, you know how important it is to find relevant statistics for a post that you’re writing. You also know how hard it is to hind those statistics.

Creating a statistics post is, therefore, a brilliant idea to get more people to share your content and use it as a reference in their posts.

To create a statistics post, you need to:

• Decide on a segment of your industry that needs such a post
• gather all the important statistics
• organize them into smaller sections to make it easier to find what you’re looking for

Other writers will find this post to be a lifesaver when they need something to back up their words, and you’ll get natural backlinks for this post for sure.

10. Write Like a True Professional

Finally, there’s one last segment of your content’s value that you have to pay special attention to.

You need to ensure your content is of high quality in terms of the way it’s written. That means that you need to upgrade your writing skills and use additional resources and tools to polish every word that you plan on publishing.

Here’s what you have to pay attention to:

• Grammar and spelling errors

Eliminate any mistakes by proofreading.

• Content structure

Write for the web and think about your target readers. Don’t use huge chunks of text. Instead, use short paragraphs, short sentences, bold and italics, subheadings, etc.

• Vocabulary

Adjust your vocabulary to the purpose of the content. Make sure you know when to use technical terminology and when to keep it conversational.

• Overall impression

There has to be a consistent vibe that your content will resonate with the readers.

In case you need help in this domain, you’ll easily find it online. For example, there are professional writers who can give you a hand and help you perfect your work.

Nobody wants to link to a website that publishes content with errors, improperly written, or content that hasn’t got a clear message.

By making yourself a better writer, you’re making your content linkable and valuable.

Final Words

Backlinks are just one piece of the puzzle that you have to put together to get your content where you want it to be. Still, it’s a strategy used by so many content marketers for a reason. With strong natural backlinks, your content will be SEO friendly and your organic traffic will increase. This will get you the audience, impact, and online presence you’ve always wanted.

Use the advice, ideas, and tips we’ve provided above to get more natural backlinks for your website. Analyze your current content, and see what steps you need to take to get more people linking to your content.