It seems that backlinking is a popular subject at the moment… we recently wrote about how you can find sites in your niche to build backlinks. Now we have some extra tips when it comes to getting valuable backlinks for your website.

Melanie Nathan over at Search Engine Journal has a great post on getting back to the basics on backlinks – 5 Tips for Getting More from Your Backlinks.

Here is a quick overview on the five tips from the article:

1. Control What You Can
Use your preferred headline or text for outgoing links within your page title or headline of your blog post- this is what most sites will use to link to.

2. Optimize Your Existing Backlinks
Make sure all of your backlinks are being used to their full potential. For example, a certain site may link to you via an image of your company logo (with no alt text or image title). Find these links and ask to have them changed.

3. Lend a Helping Hand
Try not to look at every site as simply “the next link prospect”. Instead, try to look for opportunities to genuinely help people and recognize that the best rewards often come when you’re not even trying.

4. Strengthen your site’s inner linking structure
You should use popular pages on your site to link to and give a boost to the newer pages you’re promoting – it’s almost the same as getting a “real” backlink.

5. Be link worthy

Be an authority in your area and write about your industry often. This will make you more likely to be get backlinks from credible sites like edu’s, gov’s and news outlets.

As I mentioned this is just a quick overview of the backlinking tips, if you would like to read more then check out the blog article here.

Backlinking is a common and easy way you can build your site’s profile in the search engines, so why not give it a go. Feel free to share any of your experiences with us below.