The natural beauty of British Columbia is a captivating sight. From its vast coastline to its towering mountains, you have to marvel at this Canadian province. Don’t forget about its diverse forests, with trees taller than many buildings.
When you visit BC, you won’t want to miss its capital city, Victoria. Some people visit for the gardens, others go to learn about its rich history—us, we go for the food. Surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, seafood doesn’t get much fresher than that!
But running a business in Victoria isn’t always as serene as its scenic landscapes. You’ve got tough competition to beat out and limited time at your disposal. How do you do it?
Search engine optimization is a great place to start. The goal of SEO is to rank your website higher in search results. Part of any successful SEO strategy is building links—but what does that mean, and how do you do it?
How to build links for your business in Victoria:
For your website to rank well, you need more than great content (although that’s important too). You also need backlinks. This term describes when another website posts a link back to your own.
A link can be understood as a vote or a recommendation that your page is credible, relevant, and overall a good resource. It tells search engines that you deserve to rank—the more backlinks you get, the more persuasive it is. If you want to build links, here are a few ways to do so:
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Write guest posts.
Have you ever seen an article on a website that was written by a guest contributor? That’s what people in the SEO industry call a guest post. It’s when you write content for another site to get a backlink from them. Put your industry experience to the test and choose a topic that’s relevant to your business. If you own a tailoring shop in Victoria, pitch guest post topics about the best ways to wash different kinds of clothes.
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Make great content!
If you’ve got a real winner of a blog post on your hands, you might get backlinks to it with no effort on your part.
How? Other websites will find it online naturally, and use it as a reference for the material they’re writing. The chances of this increase if you conduct original research with useful statistics.
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Stay away from black hat links.
Not all links are created equally. Some can actually hurt your rankings. Would you believe that a penguin is responsible for these penalizations?
Well, not exactly. Let me explain:
In 2012, Google released a new update that added an index filter to its core algorithm. It’s referred to as Penguin. This filter helps Google find sites that get backlinks through spamming or link buying. Basically, it gave Google a way to reduce the rankings of sites that use shady (or black hat) link building tactics.
To come back to our first point, backlinks from sites with poor authority can hurt your rankings, while ones with high authority can improve them. Use metrics that analyze Domain and Page Authority to find the best websites for backlinks.
You need to be selective about where you get links from. Spamming blog comments with your website URL will not help your rankings. But creating quality content for an authoritative site will.
Once you’ve narrowed down a list of websites to contact, it’s time to brush up on your outreach skills.
How to conduct outreach:
You understand why your website needs links and how you can get them. The next step is: how do you reach out to other websites and get them to link to yours?
Writing content is one thing. But contacting other websites directly? That can be intimidating and downright nerve-racking. From rejection letters to ignored pitches, outreach isn’t always good for your ego. That doesn’t make it any less important.
When it comes to outreach, here’s one thing you can bank on: the same website that you’re emailing has a dozen other messages, all asking them the same thing that you are.
So, how do you make your request unique?
Start your email by offering them something, rather than just making a request. This could be a compliment or a helpful tip. You’ll need to do some digging on their site to find out what this could be.
To illustrate this point, let’s go through a few concrete examples.
- Let’s say you’re a florist in Victoria. You want to get a link from an authoritative flower identification website, and you’re trying to construct a perfect pitch. Start by sharing a helpful tip for identifying a specific type of flower, or how to take care of it. Then, pitch a blog post idea about flower care based on your business experience.
- Given that 15% of people in Victoria are 65 or older, a denture business in this city will have a vast customer base. But if you want to boost your site rankings, you’ll need to do some outreach. Find an authoritative dental care website and write an email that commends their commitment for posting accurate and high-quality healthcare information. Next, share how you’d love to contribute with a topic like, “What kind of dentures are right for me?”
Building links is no easy task. But with Victoria search engine optimization services, you can get help from us; we have years of experience doing this. What are you waiting for? Contact First Rank for SEO in Victoria, BC.
firstrank.ca
