Link Building 101: How to Get Started

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the most efficient way to drive traffic to your website. Link building is a form of off-site SEO where other sites link back to your site if they feel you offer something of value to their audience.
Link building is a direct result of your quality content, and it has a significant influence on your search engine rankings. There are many strategies for you to generate links naturally (meaning without paying for them or spamming, this is a big no-no), and get organic traffic to your website.
Below is a list of the simplest ways to generate links which are very useful if you’re a beginner at linking.

1. Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing is another way to use social media as a tool for link building. Influencers are people that have a large following on social media, and you can contact them to share your product with their fans. Be careful that you choose someone that is relevant to your brand, aligns with your business views, and has the same target audience.
A simple search on the platform of your choice and the name of the industry will yield plenty of results if you want to find some influencers. Otherwise, there’s always tools like Buzzsumo and Upfluence.
 

2. Guest Posts
Guest blogging or guest posting is an excellent way to generate links to your website. In essence, you’re going to create content for another site that maybe has a bigger audience, or is an authority in your industry. The way this usually works is that once they accept your article or post, they will include a small bio about you, where you can link back to your site.
This is great news for you because if any of their readers likes what you’ve done, they can click on your link to see what else you have to offer them.
 

3. Social Media
Social media platforms provide a wealth of opportunities for link building. You can add links to about sections and profile pages in every one of your accounts so that whenever a person wants to know more about you or your company, they can click on the link provided.
There’s also the choice of sharing your content through social media. Using snippets or soundbites of the content you’ve created, you can urge readers to click on to your site to read more about the piece you’ve posted.
 

4. Visual Content
Infographics as one of the most common types of visual content have proven to be a powerful tool in obtaining quality backlinks and definitely should not be ignored. Infographics is a visual representation of complex information in a clear and shorter manner. Taking into account that in today’s society we have a sort of attention deficit disorder, it is important to be accurate and to use catchy elements in your design. 
After publishing infographics on your website, use an embed code so that it could be added on different blogs and shared with more readers. This is as well the only way to get backlinks.
Next, think about media channels and submit your infographics on websites like Reddit, Infographicsite, Slideshare, and Pinterest.
The result will completely depend on your efforts, that’s why continue pitching the top media both through private messages on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and email until you get a feedback.   
 
Another fresh tactic that can earn backlinks and social media shares is turning your infographics into the video. Such networks as Youtube and Vimeo will allow you to include the link in the description of the video and drive more traffic to your website. 

How to measure results
Effective link building will mostly result in three things: more traffic to your site, better ranking, and a higher website authority. These three things can be easily measured by use of tools such as Google’s PageRank and Google Analytics, among others. 
Don’t expect to see results immediately, though. While some might disagree, link building usually takes some time to be reflected in your numbers, so be patient and concentrate on creating amazing content.