6 Link Building to Improve Your SEO Domain Authority

Did you know that there are link-building strategies that can actually lower your SEO domain authority?

When it comes to ranking high on search engine results pages (SERPs), one of the things you need to monitor is website authority. More commonly known as SEO domain authority, this metric indicates the strength of a given domain and, in consequence, how well it ranks on SERPs.

Although it’s not necessarily a Google ranking metric, it’s no secret that the search engine incentivizes certain domains that attract a large volume of high-quality backlinks. Throwing links around different low-authority web pages just isn't going to cut it.

In fact, that and some other link-building tactics can even sabotage your website authority. But we also recognize that sometimes, you can cover all the basics of best practices, but still see no improvement at the SEO domain authority checker. In these cases, you need to go beyond the basics and be creative. 

Having been in the industry for years as an SEO company in the Philippines, we were able to test out different link building methods.

In this article, we outline ethical link building best practices that yield the best results and align with search standards.

How to build links to increase SEO domain authority

Just a quick recap of our SEO guide: link building is the practice of getting backlinks from third-party websites to your own site. What is a backlink in SEO? It’s a hyperlink pointing to a page on your site.

Why exactly is link-building important? For Google, links serve as a “vote of confidence” from one site to another, indicating that the latter is a reliable source of information. Thus, the more backlinks you get, the more authoritative you become on the web. This is one way on how to boost SEO and increase the likelihood of ranking high in the SERPs for better online visibility.

From our off-page SEO checklist, these are the best ways you can build links to improve SEO domain authority:

1. Publish content that is uniquely yours.

These may include case studies, industry data, and customer insights, which provide value to readers. By tackling unique topics, your website can attract media organizations and third-party blogs. Or, at the very least, have an interesting piece of content to pitch to other websites.

A few real estate consultancy firms and proptech organizations practice this to boost domain authority in SEO and command thought leadership. They put up quarterly reports on their website, and media organizations pick them up, with journalists incorporating highlights of the analysis in their news and then adding a link to the full report.

See if you have unique information you can share on your website. Uncover topics that haven’t been explored yet, and then create content in a way that would compel media organizations to publish. If you’re keen on beefing up your content strategy, consult our content marketing team.

2. Guest post on a credible website.

Alternatively, you can directly publish content on a third-party website. Put simply, do guest posting. In theory, this is the simplest way to get backlinks: submitting content with links to your site. But in practice, it’s much more complicated. Starting from a competitive backlink analysis and filtering the most credible and reliable ones, to pitching content and even creating one— after all that, guest posting is extremely beneficial to improving domain authority in SEO. Nonetheless, guest posting is extremely beneficial to improving domain authority in SEO.

Aside from being able to build links (and prop up your SEO ranking), you can increase the chances of website visitors actually clicking through your website through the links within the guest post. The additional web traffic further helps in SEO efforts.

If you’re planning to include guest posting in your SEO link building strategy, take note of these reminders:

• Focus on high quality content. This is the main “product” you’ll be selling to website owners, so it must be of great, publishable quality.
• Pitch to relevant websites with engaged readers. When choosing among websites to pitch your content to, make sure they’re related to your industry. Check the level of engagement of readers as well. How many comments and shares do existing posts get?
• Align content with the guidelines on the site. This should inform every aspect of the content production: how you choose topics, how to format the article, how to position the content in a way that the readers would be interested in, and more.

Start implementing this SEO link building strategy by doing a quick Google search for blogging opportunities. Type in an industry keyword + “guest post” or “accepting guest posts”. You may also get the help of an SEO backlink services provider for this. Once you’re all set with a list of websites to pitch to, use these SEO email templates to get high-quality links.

3. Answer questions on forum pages and Q&A platforms.

Another smart way you can “guest post” is to answer questions on forums and question-and-answer websites, such as Quora, Reddit, Answers.com, and Stack Exchange. Provide useful links to your site, say, blog or product pages, to support or add substance to the information you offered.

When you execute this SEO link building campaign right, you can direct readers to your site and boost web traffic. You may even increase your chances of being cited at major publications when you provide excellent answers to relevant questions.

4. Share your opinions on popular issues.

The online world is teeming with trending topics, regardless of the industry you’re in. Social media marketing experts would advise joining these conversations to stay visible and relevant. From an SEO link building perspective, this is also an excellent strategy.

For most brands that already established their credibility, their expert view on things is a welcome insight for media organizations and bloggers. Still, if you’re just starting out in your field, your opinions on matters can be picked up by others, as long as it’s substantial and relevant.

Although there’s an option to post your hot takes on matters on Facebook or X, a long-form article featuring different links to your site will be much more valuable for SEO link-building efforts. Take time to write a comprehensive blog about a trending topic that catches your attention.

5. Produce visual content.

Visual content is a type of content that webmasters love featuring on their site precisely because it’s eye-catching and instantly grabs the attention of readers. What’s more, it’s a lot easier to digest. Thus, publishing visual content can increase your chances of capturing quality links.

Here are specific examples of visual content you can explore:

• Infographics. Gather insights from your case studies and white papers and create easily-digestible infographics. Use the principle of visual hierarchy in arranging data points.
• Videos. Create how-to videos appealing to your target market. If possible, partner with influencers for these types of content.
• Webinars. Got a topic that needs to be explored in depth? Craft a webinar. Invite thought leaders in your industry to make it more insightful and meaningful.

Whatever you choose among these types of visual content, promote them on your social media pages to increase visibility. With high-quality infographics, videos, and webinars, you can increase the chances of having other websites link to your page, and by extension boost SEO domain authority.

6. Clean up your link profile.

As mentioned, the quality of links you get from other websites matters in SEO domain authority. Spammy links from sketchy websites can erode your SEO efforts. For this reason, part of your tactics should be cleaning up your link network. There are plenty of SEO link building tools that can help you with this.

One of them is Ahrefs, which provide a good overview of your backlink profile. You can analyze each domain pointing to your site, see how much traffic each link brings, and check the domain rating. From here, you can already single out the bad links you should get rid of.

While you can reach out to the webmaster to remove the links pointing to your site, the simpler and more efficient way of removing bad links is to submit a disavow file to Google. This involves creating a list of all the links you want the search engine to ignore. Follow these steps in disavowing links to your site. 

How not to build links

As mentioned, there are good and bad practices in SEO link building. Spamming online pages is just one. Here are some more you should avoid:

• Buying links. Google explicitly states that buying links can negatively affect a site’s ranking in search results. This includes paid guest posts, link insertions, private blog networks, among others. Instead of buying links, focus on creating high-quality content that naturally attracts other websites for your SEO link building strategy.
• Exchanging links with other website owners. “Link to me and I will link to you” is also a practice frowned upon by Google. The same is true with the three-way link exchange, which “conceals” the reciprocal link exchange Google discourages. The trick involves Site A linking to Site B, Site B linking to Site C, and then Site C linking to Site A. Instead of exchanging links within a set network, build genuine relationships with media organizations and third-party websites to sustain your SEO link-building efforts.
• Linking from low-quality web directories. Web directory link building is one of the most effective SEO tactics, but there are a lot of sketchy sites out there that can pull down your ranking. Instead of spamming links on these kinds of websites, use these instead.

Key takeaways

Link building is at the heart of every effective strategy for improving SEO domain authority. But not all SEO link building techniques are equally effective: it’s important not to cut corners and instead do the hard work of creating high-quality content and building relationships with thought leaders in your field.

As you craft an SEO link building strategy, here are some actionable steps to remember, summarizing the points outlined above:

• Improve your brand reputation. When you establish yourself as a credible source of information in the industry you’re in, people will naturally link to you. A huge part of this initiative is being intentional and creative about the content you put out there.
• Promote your content strategically. When distributing content, choose wisely among third-party websites. Go for those that tackle topics relevant to your brand and those that have extensive audience reach.
• Keep track of your backlinks. This is important in removing bad backlinks and maintaining a clean link profile. Monitoring can also help you see the links that have been removed over time. Ultimately, keeping track will enable you to evaluate efforts and recalibrate them for a more effective campaign moving forward.

How do you plan to improve your SEO domain authority? What are your best practices for link building? Share it with the Propelrr team via Facebook, X, or LinkedIn.