When it comes to link building in SEO today, one rule prevails above all others; quality reigns supreme over quantity. When SEO was in its infancy, building a lot of links all over the web was assured to get you results. Nonetheless, those days are long gone since Google began putting more emphasis on the quality of links. The reason behind this is that search engines look to give their users the highest value possible. Value is a subset of quality and not quantity.
However, this is not to say that quantity does not matter; it does. Having a few relevant links are not enough to make you stay relevant. But ensuring that they are high quality should be your top priority.
Building links especially quality ones is not an easy endeavor. Typically, the higher the authority of the website that you decide to build links on, the more difficult it shall be to build the links.
When it comes to high authority sites, they do not get bigger than media outlets. The obscene amount of traffic that a news outlet such as CNN gets makes it a very tempting prospect to businesses. Just imagine how it would benefit your business if CNN or any other major media outlet published your link on their site. Endless opportunities and possibilities would follow. It is not only good for your public relations strategy, but also for your overall success.
While it is certainly a difficult endeavor to get your link published on such sites, it is not impossible. It will take discipline and consistency to follow through on the following link building tips to get your business featured on authoritative media outlets.
- Utilize Google News
In order to get to the point where your link is going to be featured on a major news outlet, it needs to be noticed in the first place. The truth is that this is not easy. These outlets earned their authority status through carefully sieving through content to find the most newsworthy, and these standards remain to date.
Google News is a medium that you can use to get yourself noticed by these big players. Google News is a platform that is quite easy to use. It is a type of aggregator that collects news stories from all over the globe and only displaying the most relevant results for queries using its sophisticated algorithm.
The good thing about Google News is that it does not have any barriers or bias. Its algorithm mainly relies on a quality checker that enables it to sieve out the bad or poor quality content, meaning you have an equal chance just as anyone else of your content getting featured by Google News. When it does, those media outlets will take your content into consideration.
Thus, work on getting your content featured on the platform so as to enhance your chances of your link getting chosen by a major media outlet. And even if it does not get picked up, just featured on Google News raises your domain authority meaning that Google’s search algorithm is likely going to improve your rank on the results pages. This will allow you to get a lot more traffic to your website than you are receiving at the moment.
- Distribute Press Releases Frequently
These releases need to be a core part of your SEO strategy already. They are great content pieces that usually receive a lot more attention than regular articles thus providing more opportunities for link building. And just like Google News, releases are more likely to get attention from major news outlets.
Nevertheless, for your release to do you any good, it needs to be newsworthy. Therefore, you cannot write a blog post then christen it a press release. Neither can you disguise your product sales pitch as a release. A good press release needs to cover real and relevant news with substantial quality content. Offer them something juicy to entice them to pick it up. Consider using services such as PRWeb if you are not sure about how to go about it.
- Help a Reporter Out
Commonly referred to by its acronym HARO, Help a Reporter Out is a platform that gives people opportunities to get their links on major news outlets. It is a service that is used by journalists and news writers to enlist the help of third parties such as yourself.
When you sign up, you will start receiving free email notifications any time a news writer or journalist is seeking the contribution of an outside party – it might be an opinion or quote, or information relating to your industry.
Therefore, if you see a request that is related to your line of business or industry, seize the opportunity to provide them with the information they are looking for. If you give them quality information, they are more than likely going to get your name, that of your business, and link back to you in their publication.
- Comment
Comments are an effective way of building links, and you can use them on major news platforms. Even though posting on the comments section of a major news outlet such as MSNBC is not going to build nearly as much authority as it would have if you were mentioned in the body of an MSNBC article, it will still be valuable to your link building strategy.
You need to be careful, however, and ensure that the link you leave in the comment section is both relevant and valuable, as you do not want to run the risk of being flagged as spam.
Getting a link back from a major news outlet is obviously going to do wonders for your SEO and public relations. Nonetheless, it does take a lot of effort since millions of people are aiming for the same spot. You, therefore, need to be consistent when utilizing the above strategies while ensuring that quality remains your top priority.
