4 Ways to earn links with content

Content marketing is the only kind of marketing we’ve left. Using content marketing alone, you can generate great links for your site, rank your site and get leads and conversions.

So here’s how to do that.

Guest blogging

Guest blogging is one of the oldest techniques in the book to earn backlinks by leveraging content marketing. Content marketing doesn’t always mean that the content has to be on your blog. It can also be guest posts you write on third-party high-traffic blogs as well.

Searching for sites that accept guest posts in your niche can be as simple as running a Google search string such as this niche + “write for us”. Here’s an example.

This gives you hundreds of sites that have a guest post submission page with instructions on what you can write for them. Some have an editorial calendar list of topics.

Some of the best blogs that accept tons of guest posts have clear cut guidelines set for them.

Follow those guidelines and send your pitch. Even with all this effort sometimes your pitches can get rejected. So to simplify this use a service like Link-able that already has lots of influential bloggers on board who can land you guest posts.

1. Build good relationships

Most people think of guest blogging as a means to an end. As soon as you can wring a link out of the host you’re done. That’s a myopic approach that doesn’t benefit you in the long-term.

More than landing a guest post, focus on building a great relationship with blog owners. Its people skills that matter most.

Collaborating with niche relevant bloggers results in benefits for both parties. You can create interesting and relevant content for them that benefits their readers and in return they’re happy giving links back to you.

So how to frame a pitch that gets you results?

Get in touch with bloggers and study their blog to understand what makes a great post for them. Put in the time to craft a great guest post. This will attract the right visitors to your site and increase the traffic to your blog. At the same time being published on a relevant channel boosts your reputation too.

If you contribute a great post by spending time to understand the pulse of the visitors there’s a great chance that the host blogger will be receptive and warm to publishing more posts from you.

There’s a chance for you to become a regular contributor as well. Also ensure that your emails don’t go straight to spam by using a good email service.

2. Come up with a great headline

Once you discover blogs and get a topic approved it’s time to write a post that will interest the audience. Remember that whenever someone is about to click through and read a blog post he’s doing so because something clicked with him. What’s that something that piqued his interest?

The odds are high that the headline interested them. The headline is what makes people stop right there on their tracks and get them to pay attention. Once you write the post, invest time in creating and testing headlines. If you can, ask someone to read out the headline and have them tell you how the headline sounds.

3. Keep it simple

Whenever you’re writing online use simple words. People are already in a hurry and the web isn’t really a place to dish out technical jargon.

It’s important to keep things simple. Lay out whatever you want to say in an easy to understand language.

The wording you use to craft posts heavily borrows from context and the setting of the content but keep things to a minimum at best.

4. Always proofread

Without proofreading there’s a good chance that errors have slipped through the cracks. These mistakes make your post unappealing to the reader. At the very least you can use Grammarly’s free chrome extension to proofread your pitch and posts.

A post full of tiny grammatical mistakes can get rejected even if the content is great. No wants a half baked piece. If you’re hopeful of publishing your piece, it should be written quite well. Otherwise there’s little chance of getting something out of it. It looks bad on their blog and it reflects poorly on you if you don’t take the time to proofread and edit your work before sending it to them.

Make sure there’s someone to proofread your guest posts and don’t really outsource the task. This gets you the coverage you want.

Create resources

It’s easier said than done. Creating a big resource that covers a said topic from head to tail is one of the best ways to gain links. Not only does the content satisfy curiosity it also helps people understand a particular topic in depth. Some resource guides like this one can go 8000 to 10000 words in length.

A resource is the culmination of several ideas and topics that you can use to talk in rich detail around a certain topic. You can reach out to bloggers who linked to similar resources and get a backlink for your site.

Outreach is often hit and miss and requires lots of effort. But if you can get a few links the post will start ranking and attract links on its own. For example this list of productivity apps  is a great example of a niche relevant resource. Being a resource the post has managed to attract lots of good links. Another way of creating a resource is by distilling data points inside a well-made infographic. The key is to be creative in your approach.

Create a data driven post

A data driven post is one of the best ideas to get links going for your site. What’s a data driven post? You could conduct research on a said topic and get people or influencers to share their opinion on the subject with you. Create a few links to it and if it starts ranking you will see a number of natural links for the post.

You could for instance create a stats article. Such posts can result in tons of backlinks to your site.

G2 for instance wrote a statistical article on customer reviews that has accrued over 452 referring domains in over a year.

G2 example.

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Create a free tool

A free calculator or any other tool can help you get leads, traffic, links and conversions for your business. Think of anything that has practical application for people visiting your blog or business. And then find out creative ways to come up with ideas that you can fashion into tools serve a purpose. With such tools, always set up analytics and do a Google Analytics audit to ensure the number of conversions you’re getting.

For instance Neil Patel bought UberSuggest and rebranded it as a keyword research, backlinks analysis and traffic measurement tool. Lots of bloggers talk about the tool and link to it and the tool additionally drives hundreds of thousands of visitors to Neilpatel.com some of who convert to high end consulting clients.

Concluding thoughts

So these are some of the best ways to get links with content marketing. What do you think?

George blogs at Kamayo.in a blog he created to share his journey online.