In one of our previous blogs about Guest Blogging, we touched upon how building backlinks is great for your website and how it is seen in Google search pages.

Backlinks are basically links outside of your website that point towards your website, and building backlinks for your website is one of the top factors to determining how you rank in Google search results.

The reason for this is that when you have a lot of websites pointing towards yours, Google sees that you are knowledgeable and trustworthy, so therefore your website would be a better web result for those searching certain keywords. However, while building backlinks can be easy, you need to make sure you are getting backlinks in the right places otherwise you could actually be doing more hard than good!

In this week’s blog we will provide you with some handy tips on how to build backlinks the right way.

1. Listings: A lot of business directory websites are free for companies to upload info, such as Google My Business, LinkedIn and Bing Places, and it is extremely easy to create a listing. You can also get really niche directories that cater to your industry. By having more listings you are increasing your brand and website’s visibility to a wider audience, and also building more backlinks to your website which can help with your ranking.
2. Create a Blog: we’ve mentioned the benefits of blogging in one of our previous blogs, and helping SEO is another great benefit! One of the ways to build backlinks is by being a knowledgeable source in your industry, this way other websites will link back to you and share your information. People tend to search for information (the top search term is "How to..."), so if you are posting helpful blogs with tons of information then people will be more likely to share what you have written. To optimise your blog for backlinking make sure all the content is relevant to the keyword and to your business. 
3. Build Relationships: getting backlinks on trusted websites can be tough, but if you have a good relationship with the website’s owner, then it could be easier. Networking and building relationships is something that every industry goes through to help build business and create contacts, and it is the same for the internet. You don’t necessarily have to meet in person, but simply making contact via social media or commenting on their blogs is a good start. By building relationships with top influencers in your industry, you will have the chance of them sharing your content or even have the opportunity to guest blog for them, which we will discuss in the next point.
4. Guest Blogging: As mentioned at the beginning of this post, guest blogging is a great marketing tool. By guest blogging on reputable websites you can reach a wider audience and also establish yourself as trustworthy and knowledgeable. Guest blogging can also help you build more relationships with other influencers, which in turn can help you with more guest blogging in the future. 
5. Keep Track of your Mentions: keeping tabs on where you have been mentioned is a good way to see if you have been linked to or if a broken link was used. You can set up Google Alerts or do searches every now and again, and if no link is added with the content, or the link is broken, then you can easily contact that website owner and see if they can add/change it.

In addition to the above tips, there are also a few things you should avoid as well, such as building links on websites that have nothing to do with your website, brand or industry, using hidden links, and also link farming. All these are bad ways of building backlinks and can actually get you penalised or lower your ranks - so be sure to avoid these!