In part 4, we’ll look at Off Page SEO for beginners and how to get some quality backlinks to your website.
The next part and, most would say, the most important factor for ranking high on Google is off page SEO.
Off page SEO often refers to link building, and link building is simply the process of getting other websites to link to your web pages.
You see, links act like votes or other people vouching for your website saying: “hey, these guys are really good at what they do and I trust them enough that I would send my visitors to their website.”
It works in the same way that you would tell your friend to buy some food from a certain takeaway because you’ve tried it, ate it, and loved it.
In general, the more quality backlinks you can get from relevant pages, the higher you’ll rank in Google.
I’m putting the emphasis here on the word “quality” here, because there’s a lot of different types of links you can get from forums, directories, and blog links to name just a few.
But if you think about it, a place like a forum where anyone can place a spammy link will hold less value than a link from the home page of an authority website or blog.
Other types of links still hold some kind of value, but probably not as much as links like these would.
So if you’re focusing on quality ( and you really should), then you’ll want to prioritise these kinds of links.
And the main way to get links from other people’s blogs is through something that SEOs refer to as “outreach.”
And outreach is exactly the way it sounds. You’re contacting people and asking them for a link from their website or blog.
But you can’t just email someone and be like, “Yo dude, gimme a link bro. Hook me up.”
It doesn’t work that way.
There are three things that you need in order to make your outreach campaigns more successful.
1. You need people who are actually interested in the stuff that you do.
2. You need a good reason to contact them.
3. You need a pitch that benefits them.
In the next section, we’ll go through a few examples.
First we need to identify people who are interested in what you’re doing. The obvious ones in the context of link building are websites that have already linked to your competitors.
You can find these pages by using an SEO tool like Ahrefs’ Site Explorer and entering in a domain or URL.
So I’ll enter bobsphotography.co.uk (my arch nemesis) who also does wedding photography in Plymouth.
I’ll also narrow our search down to pages that are linking just to his home page.
From here, I can check out the backlinks option and narrow it down to only links within content, as I want to get editorial links from websites and blogs.
You’ll find the websites that linked to the target URL or domain and you’ll see which page they linked to and the context of the backlink.
If you click through to one of these sites linking to Bob, I see one that is an article called “Jaw-Dropping Gorgeous Wedding Flower Ideas.”
In the post, there are a bunch of pictures of flowers. Hey, I actually have a great one that’s way better than all of these. So check that off on our list for successful outreach.
We now have a prospect to contact.
So I can contact the author directly, and let them know about one of my pictures that were published in Devon Wedding Magazine because it’s that awesome.
So this now fulfils checkbox #2.
We have a good reason to contact her because we have something relevant to her article.
And of course, I’d be giving her rights to publish my photo, which also checks off #3.
Now, this doesn’t mean that she’s guaranteed to publish my photo or give me a link.
As a general rule of thumb, the better the ‘reason’ you can come up with to contact the author, the better your chance will be to get the link.
Another good reason to contact someone is to offer a guest post.
Blog owners are always on the hunt for new content and since your site is new, you’ll be getting in front of someone else’s audience in exchange for some of your time and content, where you could easily use some watermarked photos that you’ve taken.
With guest posts, your reason to contact them is pretty valid and you’ll be providing great value, which is free content that benefits them and their website.
The next outreach prospect you can find are businesses in a lateral non-competing niche.
So as a wedding photographer, you might want to contact local flower shops, reception halls and wedding planners.
When I look through the “jaw dropping flowers” article from earlier, I find there are several businesses mentioned. There’s Bob’s Photography, which is the site that I’m analysing, and an event planning company.
You can contact these people to form meaningful relationships.
Just think about it for a second.
Your businesses go hand-in-hand and you can pass on referrals to each other, you can link back to each other as a ‘preferred vendor’ or link to others’ content in guest posts where it’s relevant.
And this isn’t limited to just local businesses. This applies to everyone.
So get out there and find some solid partners who are on that same journey as you in a similar niche (but not direct competition) and help each other out.
Now with link building, there are numerous tactics and strategies, so if you want to expand your knowledge, then check out our series on link building where you’ll learn how to do this effectively.
In the final part of our SEO For Beginners series, I’ll reveal one last crucial How To Do SEO tip that I see a lot of beginners’s NOT doing.
And that’s a BIG mistake that will cost you money!
See you over there 🙂
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