Links
Backlink growth for blogs
A link is another site deciding your URL is the source. You cannot automate that decision. You can make the page easy to cite and stop wasting the links you have.
Blogs are often bought as a backlink machine. Publish enough, and people will link. They will not. People link to a page that saved them time, a number they can quote, a definition that is careful, or a tool. A weekly opinion post rarely qualifies.
Start by reading the profile you already have. Which domains point at you, which pages earn those links, and which links disappeared after a redesign. Growth is the decision to earn more of the kind you already deserve, not a bag of placements.
Read the profile before you chase a new link
- Referring domains
- Ten links from one footer are not ten recommendations. Count sites, then look at whether a reader on that site would actually follow the link.
- The pages that earn them
- Usually a few URLs, not the whole archive. Those are the pages to keep healthy. Changing their slug is how you throw the links away.
- Lost links
- A drop is often a dead target, a redirect chain, or a page that no longer says the thing people cited. Fix the page before you pitch a new one.
- Domain context
- A link from a page about your topic is the point. A link from an unrelated list is noise, and some of that noise is a risk.
Write the kind of page someone can cite without calling you
A procedure with the real steps. A comparison that names the tradeoff. A definition that a journalist can lift one sentence from and still be accurate. Put the citable sentence near the top, and keep the URL stable.
Then do the unglamorous outreach: the person who already mentioned the problem and linked to a weaker page. One relevant link from an editor beats a hundred placements you bought and cannot show a client.
Growth that is not growth
- Paying for links on sites that exist to sell links.
- Swapping posts with partners so both sites gain a URL and neither gains a reader.
- Pointing new links at the homepage when the useful page is the guide.
