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Natural Backlinks: Are They Really Hard To Get?

by kayode10
24 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi warrior,
At the rate in which update is being rolled out by Google these days is high, and it seems that most of the link building strategies are becoming less effective. In my own opinion, i think natural backlink is the next on the radar, so i want to ask that what are the way of attracting natural backlinks and are they really hard to get?
#backlinks #hard #natural
  • Profile picture of the author Icematikx
    Have you ever linked to a website? Congratulations, you earned them a natural link. Now go and figure out why other people would link to you.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alex Brooks
      Originally Posted by Icematikx View Post

      Have you ever linked to a website? Congratulations, you earned them a natural link. Now go and figure out why other people would link to you.
      So true! The whole idea is to try and make Google think that you have natural backlinks when really your the one building all of them, it's pretty much rule #1 in the link building bible..
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  • Profile picture of the author dadamson
    ^ that was harsh! but yes he is very correct. Look at why you share other people websites around the internet and then replicate this for your own website. Create a buzz and get the best backlinks you can, 100% natural baby!
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    • Profile picture of the author Electrical
      Originally Posted by dadamson View Post

      ^ that was harsh! but yes he is very correct. Look at why you share other people websites around the internet and then replicate this for your own website. Create a buzz and get the best backlinks you can, 100% natural baby!
      I always see this said, but I am at a loss how to do it.

      If you are selling some type of product and you can develop some type of promotional hype for it and maybe drop some links in forums or social media to get people looking at it and then linking it to their friends, that makes sense.

      But not everything is a product like that.

      For example, can you give me an idea how I would get a buzz going for my local electrical company? It's not really something that people get excited about. It's not something that ordinary people spread links about (unless they see one of their friends specifically say "I need an electrician, do you know one?).

      I'm in NJ and after Sandy came thru I sold hundreds of portable generator connections. Customers loved them, they recommended this installation to their neighbors and friends. People were so amazed that they can power their entire house with a portable generator with only a low cost installation.

      That there is the biggest "buzz" I could ever expect relating to electrical work. Yet that buzz never made it to the internet, no matter how hard I tried. I had landing pages focused on generator connections and some blog type articles written on how it's done and the safety of it. New customers found me via these landing pages, but I could never get existing customers to link to my website. The same customer who would give me 3-4 real life referrals wouldn't sit down for 5 minutes and write a written review on Yelp or Google, nor link my site to anyone via social media.

      So if I can't get my own customers who are excited about the service to link to me, how do I get high PR website owners to do it? Especially when I am just one of 100,000 electrician all with a website and blogging about super interesting electrical work
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      • Profile picture of the author Icematikx
        Originally Posted by Electrical View Post

        I always see this said, but I am at a loss how to do it.

        If you are selling some type of product and you can develop some type of promotional hype for it and maybe drop some links in forums or social media to get people looking at it and then linking it to their friends, that makes sense.

        But not everything is a product like that.

        For example, can you give me an idea how I would get a buzz going for my local electrical company? It's not really something that people get excited about. It's not something that ordinary people spread links about (unless they see one of their friends specifically say "I need an electrician, do you know one?).

        I'm in NJ and after Sandy came thru I sold hundreds of portable generator connections. Customers loved them, they recommended this installation to their neighbors and friends. People were so amazed that they can power their entire house with a portable generator with only a low cost installation.

        That there is the biggest "buzz" I could ever expect relating to electrical work. Yet that buzz never made it to the internet, no matter how hard I tried. I had landing pages focused on generator connections and some blog type articles written on how it's done and the safety of it. New customers found me via these landing pages, but I could never get existing customers to link to my website. The same customer who would give me 3-4 real life referrals wouldn't sit down for 5 minutes and write a written review on Yelp or Google, nor link my site to anyone via social media.

        So if I can't get my own customers who are excited about the service to link to me, how do I get high PR website owners to do it? Especially when I am just one of 100,000 electrician all with a website and blogging about super interesting electrical work
        Donate portable generators to a poor family, try to get media coverage.

        Conduct a study into how bad the electricity supply is for your city and create an infographic? <-- Example. Publicise it, try to get media coverage.

        That's what marketing is. You look at your business, and what can you do that would appeal to the masses. Whether or not you get a link isn't relevant. I work full-time as a Digital Marketing Manager, and I can't build a single link. Well, sure, I can. But if my companies site gets penalised, I take the hit for it and get fired.

        You need to start thinking creatively. Perhaps do case studies on how you reduced a customers electricity bill? Create a cause, and get people behind that cause.
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        • Profile picture of the author mkgg
          Originally Posted by Icematikx View Post

          Donate portable generators to a poor family, try to get media coverage.

          Conduct a study into how bad the electricity supply is for your city and create an infographic? <-- Example. Publicise it, try to get media coverage.

          That's what marketing is. You look at your business, and what can you do that would appeal to the masses. Whether or not you get a link isn't relevant. I work full-time as a Digital Marketing Manager, and I can't build a single link. Well, sure, I can. But if my companies site gets penalised, I take the hit for it and get fired.

          You need to start thinking creatively. Perhaps do case studies on how you reduced a customers electricity bill? Create a cause, and get people behind that cause.
          I agree with you but this is a very interesting case and the example you provided is not going to do him anything but make him lose a good portable generator. Why would media be interested in him donating just a single generator, if it was on a large scale like he said after Sandy if he donated a lot of them then it would have gotten him in media and there is a slight chance some newspaper may have linked to his site.

          The sad truth is there is no way to get natural backlinks to some niches and some sites, it has to be blackhat. Unless you have a lot of money to spend but if you had money you can do anything basically, thats what the big brands have compared to small time guys. I liked your suggestions but i don't see them giving him any sorts of backlinks and the links that he does generate are going to be pretty much worthless, i can get backlinks from gizmodo/news sites for a lot cheaper these days and they aren't worth much because they are going to end up in inner pages with n/a PR.

          So imo, yes natural backlinks are hard to get or everyone would be getting them. How do i go about them ? i rank a churn and burn site using blackhat methods, get people to use the service i provide or redirect them sneakily to my main site, that way i get people to know about my brand. 0.0001% of the visitors end up linking to my site and i get a natural backlink, some of these links are actually worth nothing because they are either social shares or crappy sites so most of my effort is spent on building links myself.
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          • Profile picture of the author Electrical
            mkgg, I'm really glad you addressed that, I was thinking the same exact thing. I could pay for a lot of black hat SEO with the cost of a portable generator and I am sure it will do more than if I went around trying to spread the news to the media (which would look pretty lame and self serving). I haven't had any black hat SEO done yet, the person I was working with had me do a lot of work on my website to setup for it but then he stopped responding to me (I guess I have that effect on people ).

            For now I am working with someone else who I am buying high PR links from, I'll see where that gets me. Other than that, I don't know what to do. But I am just so sick of the people saying "quality content" as if they think the entire Internet is made up of blogs.
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  • Profile picture of the author inetguru_987
    They are hard to get because you need to give someone a reason to naturally link to you. If your content is not interesting then why would anyone link to you. The other alternative is to create your own network of websites that link back to you. It's much easier as you can control the power of each link.
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  • Profile picture of the author GTC1187
    Generally,
    You are going to have to speak on a personal level with a webmaster to get a link, I tend to do outreach then once we start conversing it gets personal. It can really make me feel like an ass to ask for the link after a certain point. Be careful that your outreach emails aren't manipulative...
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  • Profile picture of the author yasser
    Never heard of successful webmaster who relies on natural linking to market or rank his website.
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    • Profile picture of the author TrustedSEO
      Originally Posted by yasser View Post

      Never heard of successful webmaster who relies on natural linking to market or rank his website.
      Well -- you have now!

      Greg
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      • Profile picture of the author PBScott
        My visitors link to me faster than I could do it myself. You simply have to have link-able material.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
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      Originally Posted by yasser View Post

      Never heard of successful webmaster who relies on natural linking to market or rank his website.
      Do you think Warrior Forum is building their own links?
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  • Profile picture of the author Matagascar
    You need to think outside of the box. I run a website from a country currently heading backwards under the current government & wanted to express my opinion on their asylum seeker policy whilst obviously trying to get some sweet, sweet backlinks. This was a few months ago when Flappy Birds was all the rage. So what I did was purchase a Flappy Birds clone script from Fiverr ($5) & hired a pixel artist to recreate the current detention center we house "illegal arrivals" in ($50).

    Put it all together, added a bit of context & story to it, launched on Reddit & was able to get links from a lot of small blogs as well as big players such as Gizmodo & Kotaku all the while having it shared over social media for easy social signals. $55 & a few hours for a PR8 & PR7 link + a lot more.

    The thing with this strategy though is that it's not always a home run, I have struck out a few times. With that said, striking out only means that you created good quality content for your readers but didn't get the links you were hoping for - not a big deal really. Move on to the next idea & see what happens.
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    • Profile picture of the author Icematikx
      Originally Posted by Matagascar View Post

      You need to think outside of the box. I run a website from a country currently heading backwards under the current government & wanted to express my opinion on their asylum seeker policy whilst obviously trying to get some sweet, sweet backlinks. This was a few months ago when Flappy Birds was all the rage. So what I did was purchase a Flappy Birds clone script from Fiverr ($5) & hired a pixel artist to recreate the current detention center we house "illegal arrivals" in ($50).

      Put it all together, added a bit of context & story to it, launched on Reddit & was able to get links from a lot of small blogs as well as big players such as Gizmodo & Kotaku all the while having it shared over social media for easy social signals. $55 & a few hours for a PR8 & PR7 link + a lot more.

      The thing with this strategy though is that it's not always a home run, I have struck out a few times. With that said, striking out only means that you created good quality content for your readers but didn't get the links you were hoping for - not a big deal really. Move on to the next idea & see what happens.
      Exactly. That is Digital Marketing. It's the same thing I do in my full-time job. I can't go out and build links for an international corporate company. If their site tanked, I'd get sacked.

      Far too many people think SEO revolves around building a link on Ezinearticles and ranking. That is not SEO by any far stretch of the imagination, and that's why I would take a bet that 90% of SEO's are unsuccessful.

      Do I use my own private blog network? Yes, for my own chuckaway affiliate sites. Do I use it on my companies website? No. That's where you have to get creative and it becomes more of a PR approach.

      How can I create something that is news worthy? You know when you do something and get coverage in your local newspaper? That's what you need to do in the digital world.

      For example, my boss recently donated £90,000 to a charity. That in itself is a HUGE FEAT. It was my responsibility to market that digitally. If we acquired backlinks from it - all the better.
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  • Profile picture of the author ShoppingSignals
    It should also be noted that you don't have to create buzz worthy content to get good backlinks. Content that is highly useful to a particular blog audience is very likely to earn links. Let's say you create an in depth how to article on some topic. You can then do your outreach to other blogs whose audience may find this interesting. Simply let them know about it. You may get a link back.

    You can also create useful lists of the say, the top bloggers in X niche. Then send a note to each of the bloggers listed in your article. The ego is a strong motivator... this kind of outreach often results in some backlinks.
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    • Profile picture of the author Matagascar
      Originally Posted by ShoppingSignals View Post

      You can also create useful lists of the say, the top bloggers in X niche. Then send a note to each of the bloggers listed in your article. The ego is a strong motivator... this kind of outreach often results in some backlinks.
      Absolutely agree with this point, it's one of the very first things I opt to do when starting a new site: interview the leaders in the niche. Even if you don't get a link back, 9 times out of 10 you'll at least get a tweet.
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      • Profile picture of the author kid3378
        Originally Posted by Matagascar View Post

        Absolutely agree with this point, it's one of the very first things I opt to do when starting a new site: interview the leaders in the niche. Even if you don't get a link back, 9 times out of 10 you'll at least get a tweet.
        This is pretty much doable and by far this strategy has stretched my readership/engagement and traffic. It didn't only help me acquire links or tweets but also improved the following of my Twitter account and Facebook likes.

        How it happened: I had a chance to interview some prominent people in the SEO industry (Neil Patel, Brian Dean, Mike King, etc.) and then compiled it on a one blog post.

        At first week of launch, I was able to acquire huge social shares for that page, few weeks days I noticed some blogs and bookmarks linking to the post. It was natural backlinks coz I didn't made them myself. The post itself attracted those links.

        If you wanted to check the interviews, here's a link to the actual post
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  • Profile picture of the author Imfactsandsecrets
    Banned
    Originally Posted by kayode10 View Post

    Hi warrior,
    At the rate in which update is being rolled out by Google these days is high, and it seems that most of the link building strategies are becoming less effective. In my own opinion, i think natural backlink is the next on the radar, so i want to ask that what are the way of attracting natural backlinks and are they really hard to get?
    The big G has always stressed that its more interested in organic links achieved on the merit of content...now, its unleashed its army of animals (read pandas, penguins and hummingbirds etc) to kick out sites that have "inorganic links"...so the game is definitely going to get tougher now.

    For me sharing content on social media and getting others to share and talk about it has worked fine. Its going to take some time to get used to this, but I guess social media is the only option now. Publish great content and share it on social platforms.
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  • Profile picture of the author Xelaetaks
    Does Google count facebook and twitter shares as backlinks? Thinking about it, it makes sense, tho at the same time it's easy to see how that can be rigged like other backlinking methods. Interesting anyway.
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  • Profile picture of the author vedremo
    Banned
    I believe that natural backlinks can be achieved with quality content. Make sure that the quality of the contents you post are focused particularly on your target market. For starters, you might want to try out press releases which could attract a lot of consumers in a short period of time..
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  • Profile picture of the author vishwa
    Natural backlinks is directly proportional to your Content. The more rich and quality content you have, the more natural backlink you will get.
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    • Profile picture of the author Electrical
      Originally Posted by vishwa View Post

      Natural backlinks is directly proportional to your Content. The more rich and quality content you have, the more natural backlink you will get.
      OMG really?
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  • Profile picture of the author Jason Stewart
    Any Marketer and Webmaster who's in it for the long term shouldn't have to worry about un-natural links. Googles updates are targeted at short term "churn and burn" sites that are getting massive amount of links from unrelated sources.

    If you have good content and a strategy to get people to notice you, you'll get links. Monetization just takes a lot longer now.
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