Homepage backlinks have serious benefits. They can improve your website's rankings, increase visibility and traffic, help build brand awareness, and even boost conversions.
But how do you go about creating these valuable links?
Let's take a look at some of the best practices for building homepage backlinks.
📝 Guest Blogging (or Guest Posting)
Guest blogging is an effective strategy to increase your website's online presence and create high-value backlinks. By writing blog posts on other websites and linking back to your homepage, you can drive more traffic to your site and improve your search engine ranking.
🔵 How to do guest posting?
The standard way of doing guest blogging is to contact webmasters or blog owners and ask if they’re interested in publishing your content as a guest article.
However, this strategy has become outdated now, and other websites usually are not interested in guest posts if there is nothing in it for them.
The better approach is to offer something of value.
⬇️Here are some examples (listed from the most effective to the least effective):
Value | Explanation |
Writing level | Showcase your writing skills: Share samples of your previous work to demonstrate your writing skills and subject matter expertise. High-quality writing can be a key factor in getting your guest post proposal accepted.
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Backlinks | Promise to link to your guest post from future content: Offer to link to your guest post from your future content, including future guest posts on other websites. This can help drive traffic, improve the host website's SEO, and demonstrate a long-term commitment to the relationship.
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SEO | Offer SEO-optimized article instead of a standard piece: This type of article has more value than a standard piece because it can bring in search traffic for the website you are writing for.
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Trending content | Trending topics or industry news: Write about current trends or news in your niche to keep your guest post relevant and timely. This can help the host website stay up-to-date with industry developments and attract more readers.
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Case study | Case study or success story: Share your personal experience, success story, or a case study related to your niche. A well-structured case study can offer valuable insights and real-world examples that resonate with the host website's audience.
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Unique visuals | Original visuals: Offer to create custom images, infographics, or even short videos to accompany your article. High-quality visuals can improve user engagement and make your guest post more attractive to the host website.
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Promotion | Leverage your network or audience: Highlight the size and engagement of your own audience or network and explain how you plan to promote the guest post to them.
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⚙️ Resource Page Link Building
Resource page link building is a method of link building where you search for resource pages related to your industry or niche and then reach out to the website owners to get featured on the resource page.
This type of link-building is usually effective because:
- it's targeted.
- many resource pages are interested in link suggestions.
- many resource pages are willing to link out to sites that their visitors will find useful.
🔵 How to do resource page link building?
Here are some steps to follow when doing resource page link building:
- Look for websites that have resources or links page related to your niche or industry.
- Make sure that the resource page you've identified is of high quality and is relevant to your website. Verify resource page quality: check the website's page and domain authority, content, and outbound links.
- Create a list of potential resource pages.
- Craft a personalized outreach email. When reaching out to partners, introduce yourself and your website, explain why it would be a valuable addition to their resource page, and include a link.
🔁 Reverse Engineer Competitors
Another method for building homepage links is about reverse engineering your competitor's homepage link-building strategy.
This can help to identify the sources of your competitors' homepage backlinks.
Once you have identified the sources, you can leverage them for creating your own links.
🔵 How to build homepage backlinks with reverse engineering?
To build homepage links by reverse engineering your competitor's link-building strategy, follow these simple steps:
- Identify your top competitors that rank well for your target keywords.
- Use tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to analyze their backlink profiles, focusing on domains, anchor text, and link quality.
- Determine their link-building tactics and look for patterns or common themes.
- Based on your analysis, create a list of websites or blogs where your competitors have built links and explore similar opportunities for your own site.
- Reach out to potential link partners, explaining the value your content can offer to their audience.
⬇️ Here’s an example of how to build links with reverse engineering:
🔘 Alex owns an office supply business and wants to improve his website's search engine rankings. He notices that his competitor has secured homepage links from several .edu websites, specifically on their employee benefits pages. Curious about how they did it, Alex decides to investigate.
🔎 He uses a tool like Ahrefs to identify which .edu websites have linked to his competitor's homepage.
Alex notices that his competitor created an exclusive discount offer for the staff of educational institutions, which he used for building those links. Alex sees this as an opportunity to build home page links for himself too.
Alex creates a similar discount offer for employees of educational institutions, ensuring it's competitive and attractive. He then compiles a list of .edu websites that have linked to his competitor's discount offer, as well as other educational institutions that may be interested in his discount program.
📤 Alex reaches out to the administrators or appropriate contacts at these institutions, introducing his special discount offer for their employees, and kindly asks if they would consider featuring his offer on their employee benefits pages.
👍 As a result, several .edu websites link to Alex's homepage, boosting his search engine rankings and online visibility.
By using this targeted approach, Alex was able to replicate his competitor's success in securing valuable homepage links from .edu websites while promoting his discount program.
💬 Testimonials and Reviews
Another effective way to build homepage links is through testimonials and reviews.
Reach out to businesses or websites that you have worked with or used in the past and offer to write a testimonial or review in exchange for a backlink to your homepage.
Focus on providing an honest review and make sure the website or business is relevant to your industry.
✳️ Local and Industry Directories
Submitting your website to local and industry directories is a great way to build homepage links.
These directories allow you to list your business and website information, including your homepage URL, which can help improve your website's online visibility, search engine rankings, and drive traffic to your site.
Be sure to research and choose reputable directories that are relevant to your industry and location.
Some popular directories include Yelp and Google Business, but you should also look for local directories that are specific to your city or town.
Please be careful with this strategy, as there are a lot of low-quality directories out there. It's important to vet the sites before submitting your website and make sure the directory is up-to-date, high quality, and relevant to your industry.
Adding your website to too many low-quality directories can actually hurt your rankings in search engines.
🔗 Broken Link Building
Broken link building usually doesn't work well for homepage links, but you can still give it a try because in case it works for your website, it can help you build very good links.
The main reason why broken link-building doesn’t work for homepages is that there are limited broken link-building opportunities for homepages.
A broken link-building opportunity is created when there is a broken page (404 error is the most common) which:
- has a considerable number of high-quality links pointing to it
- and for which your resource can be an alternative
So, both conditions here must be met to create a valid broken link-building opportunity. If any of these two is not met, then it usually doesn’t work out.
So, to make broken link-building work for the homepage you need to find a broken page that has quality links pointing to it (that you would be interested in getting for your homepage) and for which your homepage can serve as an alternative.
In this case, you can contact the webmasters of the pages linking to the broken page and suggest that they link to your homepage instead.
However, as mentioned earlier this kind of opportunity is rare. But you can still try, maybe it will work for you.
🗞️Press Releases
Press releases can also be a useful tool for building homepage links.
By distributing a press release about your company or a newsworthy event, you can attract the attention of journalists and bloggers who may include links back to your website in their coverage.
Be sure to include a link to your homepage in the press release itself as well. However, it's important to note that the effectiveness of this strategy can vary depending on the newsworthiness of your event and the quality of your press release distribution.
💁HARO
Help A Reporter Out (HARO) is a platform that connects journalists and bloggers with sources. You can use HARO to find people who are looking for specific types of information, and then provide them with the data they need.
As long as you're providing good content and sourcing your answers properly, some reporters will feature your answers often with a link back to your homepage.
💡Conclusion
By following the steps outlined in this article, you can create high-quality homepage links that are relevant to your website's niche and that will help you achieve your SEO goals.
Remember to focus on creating valuable content that will attract links naturally, and avoid using spammy or unethical link-building tactics.