The top marketing challenge for 63% of companies are generating traffic and leads, which today really translates to high web ranking. Various marketing strategies exist to improve ranking, and one of the most effective from an ROI perspective is through more inbound links to blog content.

It makes sense, therefore, to invest in a consistent blogging strategy. In fact, companies that post multiple times a day acquired 92% of their customers through their blogs. Presuming, of course, their blog posts attracted the right kind of inbound links to help in better ranking, such as links from authoritative sites.

As you may imagine, it is not easy to get authority links to your blog. It helps if you have great content from professional writers, but that is not the end-all and be-all of an effective link building strategy. To attract the notice of the right sites and get a high-quality inbound link, you want to go the extra mile. Below are the best link building strategies for your blog to maximize your ROI.

1. Offer free resources

People like information, and free information is particularly desirable. E-books, charts, reports, and videos that provide valuable information for the benefit your readers can attract the right kind of attention from authority sites.

If your resources are useful, people will link to it. If enough people link to it, authority sites will sit up and take notice as well.

The kind of resources you should develop will depend on your niche market. As long as it is a source of help to your users, it is a good resource. For example, if you are a digital marketing company with an emphasis on granular analytics, a short white paper explaining the benefits of granular analytics will be extremely helpful for people with no background in it. You can also provide a series of articles on a certain category, such as Online Marketing Tips or Marketing Links Optimization.

You don’t even have to write anything new if the information is already out there. Most people appreciate it when you do the work for them. Compile resources and provide links to relevant articles, images, infographics, or videos on reputable sites, and you are in a sort of symbiotic relationship with them. It is a classic quid pro quo, and you give your users something of value at each turn.

It doesn’t stop at inbound links, either. Social media shares are just as valuable in improving your ranking, although not in the same way as links. At any rate, make sure you make it easy for users to share your resources on social networks.

Keep in mind that when you create your free resource, it has to be top quality. Just cobbling together the resource from other sites without your personal input is not good marketing. When you have compiled a bunch of interesting articles for your users, make sure you do your own research and add your two cents. You should also make an effort to write fantastic headlines that will catch attention in a search, preferably using data to make it more credible. Finally, let people know you are linking to their blog page and why. Most people love it when you reference them, and will likely earn you a mention or link as well.

2. Fill in the blanks

You might think that with so much blog content uploaded every day any topic would have been discussed at length. However, you may be surprised to know there is a content gap going on in almost anything your target audience may need. It may be certain keywords, or lack of visual content such as infographics, graphs, videos, images, and even memes.

Visuals are particularly an interesting thing you need to explore your niche market. If your research shows that the user intent for top keywords can be better satisfied with a video or information-laden graphics, then go visual and soar above your competitors.

You can also use visuals to give your brand authority. Incorporating trending and reliable data into an infographic or other graphical representation can garner you some serious links. It takes some practice, but you can create awesome infographics that will generate a lot of traffic.

3. Do a competitive link analysis

A good way to outperform your competitors in acquiring more backlinks is to duplicate what they are doing right and avoid what they are doing wrong, and you can do that by doing some competitive auditing. It makes perfect sense, really. Your competitors will be doing all the legwork, and you reap the benefits!

Competitive link analysis is basically crawling your top competitor’s site to find out from where their backlinks are coming and identify opportunities for your own link building strategy. The process is involved, but if you do it right, it will be worth the effort.

4. Leverage Online PR Strategies

Most companies, especially small and medium scale enterprises, think that running a PR campaign is very expensive and will make a huge dent in the budget. With the advent of online PR, this should not be the case. It is a matter of creating unique story angles that will resonate with the audience and know where to place them.

Sites like Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is a good avenue for business to touch base with journalists and get their stories out there. This site provides reporters, journalists, and bloggers with a wide database of sources. Share your expertise and your brand story and make the most out of media opportunities. LinkedIn is also a good place to network and find journalists where you can pitch stories that are relevant to them.

Bear in mind though that this is not just about networking. Your story needs to be newsworthy or has a great hook in order to for media to pick it up.

Conclusion

Inbound links are still important factors in page ranking, and thus for generating traffic and leads. One of the best ways to acquire them is through consistent blogging, so link-building strategies for your blog is a great way to move up the ranks in search engines. You can use the link building strategies above to improve your ranking whether you are a seasoned blogger or a new one. Having and following backlink building strategy is crucial for your link building campaign to be successful. Make sure to follow the steps and get over your competition in fast time.