The bullsh!t and the benefits of backlinking for small business owners

Of all the SEO strategies (keyword research, content marketing, on-page optimization, etc.), I talk about backlinking the least. 

‘Backlinking’ is when a website links to a page on another website (a backlink). It’s also known as an ‘inbound link’ because it sends traffic to your website.

My silence regarding backlinking isn’t because I think it’s worthless. It does work as an SEO strategy.

But there are 2 major backlinking truths I wish more small business owners knew.

Truth #1 – To be effective it needs to be done well 

Many small business owners already have a trillion-and-five jobs on their to-do list. And so their attempts at backlinking are often half-assed. Not surprisingly it doesn’t work, and so it ends up being either:

• a complete time-suck
• a drain on an already tight marketing budget.

Truth #2 – Google has dropped major hints that it’s no longer an important ranking factor

If there’s one thing SEO strategists have agreed on for a long time, it’s that backlinks are a ranking factor. But those-in-the-know at Google have hinted (heavily) that backlinks may not be all that important. 

And as Google continues to focus on rewarding businesses that create people-first content, backlinks will become less important as time goes on. 

In short, hours once spent on earning loads of backlinks are now much better spent working on other ranking factors, such as creating helpful content.  

With backlinking becoming a backseat ranking factor, I generally suggest small business owners try it only when the rest of their SEO roadmap is running smoothly. 

For a long time SEO strategists agreed that backlinks were a core ranking factor. But Google has hinted that backlinks are no longer that important.

And then there’s the counterproductive data

I love SEO. But you can nearly always find something that contradicts your thinking. And that’s annoying.  

If this is the second, third, or twentieth article you’ve read about the power of backlinks then me declaring they’re not all that important may seem confusing. Many leading SEO publications and voices of authority keep publishing articles saying ‘backlinks are a key ranking signal’, and that having more links tells Google ‘your page might be the better resource’. This is (by Google’s own suggestion) bullsh!t, and not how they rank websites or web pages. 

Google doesn’t release the particulars of their ranking factors. SEO strategists have to speculate based on what they test and the data they get back from that testing. So while it may be easy to take the SEO experts’ claims with a pinch of salt, it’s harder to dismiss data like this.

Semrush released a 13-month study that revealed nearly all (92%) of the top 100 ranking domains had at least one backlink. And most SEO professionals agree that to get into the top rankings for competitive keywords you need backlinks. 

This data might be accurate now. But SEO is an ever-changing landscape. One tweak to the algorithm, and that data becomes useless. 

A better approach to backlinking is to test and tinker so you find out what works best for your small business. 

The small business owner and her build-up of backlinks (a case study) 

The key to starting your backlinking strategy is to find a realistic, workable balance that returns results for your business without slowing you to a crawl. 

For one of my clients, this involved guest posting. (‘Guest posting’ is where you create content for publication on another site that includes a backlink to your own website.) Looking at her analytics, I could see the links were generating referral traffic and so I encouraged her to keep going. It’s improving her business and the way her ideal audience is finding her. 

The benefits of quality backlinks

Attracting referral traffic is just one benefit of quality backlinks. Here are some other benefits.  

• They’re a vote of confidence from other websites.
• They can increase your visibility in the search engine page rankings, which means more ideal clients will find your website, products, services, and content.
• They can help the bots that crawl websites better understand your site and services.
• Your ideal audience sees your name around the web more, which grows brand awareness. 

But guest posting is just one way to get backlinks.

Make backlinking work for your small business

Having quality, relevant sites approach you because they want to link to your services, products, and content is the dream. This can really reduce the time you need to spend working on backlinks. 

For business owners just starting their backlinking journey, there are ways to build towards that. 

Easy linking wins and free backlink opportunities

First, make sure you link to your site and content on other channels you control. In Google’s eyes, this adds to your credibility. Websites with social media accounts and mentions in other places are the first way to reassure the search engine. 

Add links to your site on your social media channels. While most social sites take a dim view of adding links in posts (they don’t want you taking visitors away from their platform) adding a link to your site on your profile makes sense. It’s an obvious place for followers to go if they want to access your site.

Forums take a slightly different view. If you’re a member of any industry or forums where your ideal clients hang out, add links to your signature. That way, each time you post a link to your site will appear. 

It’s widely accepted in the SEO community that links on forum sites don’t carry a huge amount of credible weight (because it’s too easy for people to take advantage and spam the forums). However, contributing useful, thoughtful responses will build your authority. Your peers and ideal audience will see your contributions, and have a link to find out more about you. 

Next, add relevant links to your email signature. Although these links won’t directly affect your ranking factor, they can increase page views. So it makes sense to point email recipients to content you want them to see. 

The final easy win is to get listed on directory and local directory sites such as Foursquare and EZLocal. And you should claim your Google Business Profile listing if you haven’t already done so. 

Getting into the thick of it

With the easy wins checked off, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get into some serious backlinking work. To avoid potential overwhelm, I suggest downloading this free link building tracking template and thinking of this work as building blocks. 

Block 1: Create link-worthy content on your own site

Regularly publishing well-written, attractive, useful, and relevant content on your website will really help your SEO. This content can be in the form of: 

• blogs
• videos
• galleries 
• podcasts.
  

Content marketing should already be part of your digital marketing strategy. Search engines reward sites that publish quality content. And owners of other sites will be more likely to link to your content if it looks good, and reads well or sounds great. 

Link-worthy content should:

• be aimed at a specific audience 
• have a clear message or argument, or provide useful information
• be well written so it makes sense and has minimal errors (no one’s perfect)
• look appealing with good design
• be easy to read 
• be original, which may mean taking photos yourself and sourcing quotes, statistics and carrying our original research. 

Once you’ve done this, it’s time to start distributing your content. 

Block 2: Backlink swapping

As you’re creating your content, look for natural opportunities to link to websites, products, services, and content of other businesses or colleagues. Any links you include should be relevant, and align with your subject matter, industry, business, or services.

Extra tip: Round-up articles are a great format for this tactic.

Once the link is live on your site, let the business owner or colleague know. Hopefully, they’ll feel inclined to return the favor. (You could even gently suggest where a backlink to your site could work well on one of their pages.)  

Block 3: Identify sites you can guest post on

Guest posting involves approaching other website owners, media outlets, or podcast shows, and asking to contribute content. This could mean writing an article, appearing as a guest, or contributing images. 

You’ll need to pitch your ideas to secure a guest post, which is an art in its own right. 

Lindy Alexander runs The Freelancer’s Year, which includes heaps of resources for writing the perfect pitch and how to avoid common pitching mistakes. And while Lindy’s advice is for professional and aspiring journalists and writers, it can help you avoid sending pitches that are bound to fail. 

Like this one, which a colleague once received. 

Take a look. It makes so many pitching faux pas that reading it is more painful than catching your finger in a drawer.

Here’s why this pitch doesn’t work.

1. It’s a blanket message (based on the lack of personalization to the person or business they’re pitching to).
2. The topic is irrelevant to the place it was pitched (a digital copywriting business) and very generic. There’s no mention of how it will differentiate itself from other articles on this topic or benefit the site’s readers. 
3. It includes a random tagline that adds no value to the pitch.
4. It only includes one idea, and if it doesn’t work they (cheekily) ask the site owner to come up with another idea. (As if business owners aren’t busy enough already.)

As well as knowing how to pitch, you need to know which sites to pitch to. 

As an example, a commercial landscaper that designs huge outdoor areas for golf courses or parklands would find little use in pitching to a house and home publication aimed at homeowners and private yards. That’s not the sort of work they do, and so they wouldn’t want to attract that kind of audience. 

Find the best sites to pitch to by understanding your target audience. Find out what topics interest them, what they like to read, and what outlets produce that kind of content. Then note down all of the obvious industry titles. 

Once you’ve collated a list of these titles, look at popular blogs. From an SEO perspective, pitching to blog sites that are well-maintained and align with your business will be most useful to you.       

Extra tip: Set up a media contact page on your site. This should be a call-out to journalists and media outlets looking for someone like you to contribute to their articles and content. On this page you should:

• Let them know you’re available for comment on topics within your industry
• include a short bio and photo 
• give your contact details (email, phone number, contact form)
• state you have images for download on request.

Block 4: Be a contributing expert

To add weight to their articles and ensure they’re original, journalists and content creators often ask experts for comment. In exchange for a quote or an interview, the media outlet will offer a link. 

Keep an eye on the #journorequest hashtag on X (formerly Twitter), as well as sites such as SourceBottle and Cision that connect journalists and bloggers with experts. 

Block 5: Offer your site as a replacement for broken links

Websites and URLs aren’t static. They can be changed, removed, or deleted. Websites with backlinks to sites or pages that no longer work are said to have ‘broken links.’ Too many of these can damage a site’s ranking factor, so it’s in the website owners’ interest to remove or fix them. 

When you come across a broken link on a site, see if you can capitalize on it. Contact the site owner and offer a link to your site or content as a replacement for the broken link. You’ll get a backlink, and the site owner will have fixed one of their broken links. 

To find broken link opportunities you can either:

1. click on the links that appear in articles you’re reading or come across to make sure they work
2. use the Check My Links Chrome extension (although some countries may not have access to this)
3. use a link-crawling tool such as Screaming Frog to identify all broken links on a website. 

Once you’ve identified relevant opportunities, approach the site owner. But tread carefully. No one likes hearing that something’s broken. (It’s just another thing to fix, right?)

Block 6: Encourage reviews of your services or products

I’ve left this until last because it involves giving things away for free. And for some small businesses that’s not always realistic or possible. But if you’re in a position to do some blogger outreach—let them experience your services or sample your products in exchange for a review that includes backlinks—then this could be an option. 

Approach bloggers relevant to your industry that you know your ideal client engages with (i.e. consumes their content and reads their emails.)

One link building strategy to avoid at all costs 

Buying links is a really bad idea. 

The practice comes from the days when SEO marketing was just emerging (around 1993-94) and search engines used the number of backlinks as a strong ranking factor. But it soon became clear the system could be manipulated simply by buying loads of backlinks. 

Deciding this wouldn’t do, the search engines (namely Google) fought back by putting conditions on backlinks to reduce their power. And so to build their authority and increase their ranking, websites now needed to earn quality backlinks, and the number of backlinks became (mostly) irrelevant. 

A ‘quality backlink’ is a link from a site considered trustworthy and an authority. For example, a backlink from Oprah will look more credible to Google than a backlink from a random blogger.

That change was made in 2021 as part of the Google Link Spam update, and still applies today. 

Some SEO agencies and business owners still try to take shortcuts by purchasing links. But it’s considered a ‘black hat SEO strategy’ and should be avoided. Here’s why.

1. If Google finds out it will penalize you heavily (i.e. your site traffic and ranking position will plummet). And recovery can take years. 
2. You have no control over the quality of the websites or content linking to your site. It could end up doing your business’ reputation more harm than good. 
3. There’s no guarantee the link you bought will stay live long enough to affect your ranking factor. You could potentially burn through your budget with little (if any) return. 

Feeling the benefits of backlinks 

Backlinking can boost your business by generating referral traffic. It can also help you build your brand, and gain the trust of your peers and ideal clients. 

And the good news is that working on backlinks gets easier the more you do it. The more your name or brand crops up, the easier it becomes to secure spots for contributor comments and guest posts, which reduces the amount of time you need to invest. 

Want some support to get the ball rolling on your backlink work?

When you’ve got so many plates to spin it’s easy to push marketing tasks to the bottom of your to-do list  – even when you know how long things will take. Find out where to spend your time with my SEO Power-Up Plan. It’s a free service designed to show you where you can focus your efforts for better SEO results. Fill out the form below to get your free SEO Power-Up Plan.