Basics of Link Building in SEO for SMEs to Kick-Start in 2021

Here are 9 steps to building high-quality links for small businesses

1. Create unique content

Content is king and definitely well worth the effort. Having unique and compelling content will make your website worth linking to. When you create high-quality content, people will naturally be attracted to it and want to reference and link to.

It is important that your content is well-supported with key facts and data to ensure it is a valuable source of information the users can link to. For instance, having reference materials, resource guides and infographics can give your website more credibility. Content that appeal to your target customers’ emotions will also have a higher chance of generating engagement, natural links, and social votes.

2. Make content shareable

Shareability of your content is important as will increase the potential visibility and reach of your site. The more people your piece of content reaches, the higher the chance of more people linking to it. Ensure it is featured prominently on your website homepage and interlink it with other internal pages. It is also worth checking on your web development fundamentals to make sure your content can be loaded quickly and easily on all web browsers and mobile devices.

3. Publish a blog

Blogs are one of the most valuable and popular link building strategies as they have the unique ability of contributing fresh and novel content consistently, drive online conversations, and earn links and listings from other blogs.

4. Get involved in your local community

For small local businesses, community outreach can lead to some of the most influential and valuable links. Some authentic ways to find good local links include:

• Taking part in scholarships and sponsorships
• Offering jobs and internships
• Organizing a local competition
• Hosting or engaging in community events, workshops and seminars
• Making donations to worthy local causes

5. Find partner and customer links

If there are partners you collaborate with on a regular basis or loyal customers that adore your brand, get in touch with these people in your network and ask them to link to your website. You can offer to craft product testimonials for them or send out partnership badges.

Relevance plays a huge part, so links from websites in the same niche or general industry as yours will have more value than the links from unrelated or random websites.

6. Refurbish top content

You will most likely know which content in your site earns the highest traffic, has the top conversion rate, or retains users for the longest duration. Take that piece of content and refurbish it for other platforms such as Instagram or YouTube to expand your acquisition funnel.

7. Be newsworthy

A time-honoured and effective way to earn links is to gain the attention of bloggers, news media, and the press. This could be something as simple as releasing an amazing new product or publishing a controversial statement.

8. Leverage social media

Social media advertising is one of the fastest ways to gain more exposure with your target audience. Get active by sharing new updates and posts. You can also connect with other bloggers and brands to gain more social media backlinks by constantly engaging with them, whether it is liking their content or leaving a comment on their posts.  

The best part is, social media advertising does not need to be costly. The Aspire Corporate Card offers a 1% cashback on all your online marketing and SaaS spend, whether it is Facebook ads or Google ads. Enjoy easy, fast, and transparent business transactions with the smartest corporate card in Singapore.

9. Have a personal touch and be genuine

One common mistake made by businesses in the early stages of their SEO strategy is not putting enough effort and thought to craft a personalized initial outreach email. Spammy emails can be pretty annoying, so make sure yours does not fall under that category.

The goal of an initial outreach email is essentially to get a response. Here are some simple tips:

• Keep it short and to the point
• Offer value your target audience is looking for
• Make it personal and sincere

Recommended SEO Link building Tools

To measure your link building efforts, the most straightforward way is to track the growth of total links to your page or site with SEO software. Here are some of the best SEO link building tools.

1. SEMrush

SEMrush is a SEO tool with one of the most powerful link-building capabilities. It is able to help you search for link-building opportunities, analyse them, and conduct the outreach. In general, it is an effective end-to-end link building solution for small businesses.

2. Ahrefs

Ahrefs offers a wide variety of marketing and SEO tools and goes beyond just link building. It provides great end-to-end building capabilities such as vet links and bulk analysis. One of the most useful features of this tool is the ability to sort and categorise your sites and pages by link growth. This allows you to identify easily the pages getting the most number of backlinks so you are able to replicate the strategy for other pages.