As a blogger, I know how important backlinks are to increasing my online presence.
You might be wondering what are backlinks?
Simply put, a backlink is when a website shares a link to your blog post. This helps their readers access more information about a particular subject.
For example, my blog post on how to start a blog has been published on several niche sites.
Another way to get a backlink to your site is to write a guest post on another blog.
Over the years, several bloggers and business owners have guest-posted on my blog. This post on how to start a side job on Facebook is an example of a guest blog post.
Whether you’re a new blogger or have been writing for a while, I think you’ll really enjoy this guest post. This will help you increase your blog traffic for free or on a small budget.
In today’s guest post, my friend Chris will explain everything you need to know about building backlinks on a budget or for free.
Why do you need to create links?
Building backlinks is essential for any website seeking to rank high in search engines. A site’s link profile, or the number and type of sites that point to it, can have a significant impact on rankings.
A link to another site will send a “vote” to that site. This increases its popularity, which can lead to higher rankings and traffic.
When I started my personal finance blog, I had no knowledge of SEO, let alone link building.
And while there are those who will say that you only need to create great content to get the almighty Google traffic; statistics seem to say otherwise.
A study by Ahrefs found a strong correlation between the pages that more websites link to and the amount of search traffic they received.
While there are far more nuances to link building than even Google’s algorithm can comprehend, the data shows us that links matter.
What makes a good link
Backlinks can make or break a site. So what makes a good backlink?
What are the key areas to focus on when building links? In my experience, backlinks must meet the following criteria:
- The link must come from quality sites (authoritative sites).
- Anchor text should match the content of the page you are linking to.
- A backlink is not a backlink if it’s for the sake of it, or if the link doesn’t look natural.
There are several factors that make a good backlink. The three most important ones are quality, relevance, and trust.
A backlink from a trusted site helps your site rank higher than sites linked to low-quality sites.
What’s more, a backlink from a quality website will also boost your rankings. This is because Google takes into account the authority of the website.
A website that is linked to many quality sites is also considered a good website. At the end of the day, quality backlinks are those that can pass link juice to your site and increase its rankings.
When I build links using my budget outreach method (learned in the Ballistic Backlinks course; use the 100OFF coupon for $100 off your purchase), I use a comprehensive verification process to make sure any link I’m trying to build is legit.
But the essence of the process boils down to this: “If it’s a real website with ranking pages, traffic, and a link that looks natural when placed, then everything is fine.”
Why link building can be expensive (and why you need to build backlinks on a budget)
When it comes to getting backlinks to your site, there are actually three ways you can go financially.
Do It Yourself – You pay absolutely nothing for link building and do all the steps of building your lead list, reaching out, writing guest posts, building link bait assets, writing skyscraper posts – you do it all yourself. You make the overall decision to do all the work yourself, and you will never pay an administration fee for posting a link.
Buy Links – You simply pay an agency to get backlinks for your site. As with most things in life, the more you play, the better the results will be (links).
Redeem Time – You don’t pay for links directly, but pay to reduce the workload associated with link building. This could be creating a list of potential clients for an outreach campaign, or training VAs to answer HARO inquiries for you.
Link building can be expensive because good links cost a lot of money.
Whether you pay for them directly from an agency (which can also have its drawbacks), or if you pay for tools or training to build links in-house.
That’s why the ballistic backlinks course (you can get $100 off with this link and code 100OFF) is so great for people on a budget.
I’ve been able to keep the outreach process to a minimum – and by using free or very inexpensive tools, I’ve been able to achieve incredible results on a very limited budget.
In fact, less than what a link agency would charge you for 5 good links – I was able to create over 50 in less than 12 months.
And at the same time increases the authority of my domain ranks keywords and traffic.
What Google says about links
Traditionally, link building has been one of the most effective ways to get free traffic from search engines and social media.
But in recent years, Google has been manipulatively cracking down on webmasters for link building. Google wants to rank websites based on their experience and authenticity.
They want to rank websites that are really valuable. That’s why they penalize websites that try to manipulate their search rankings by buying or trading links.
As a result, building links in a manipulative way can be dangerous. Now, this may even result in your site being penalized. This is why you should always try to build links that look natural on real websites with real traffic.
This is why guest posting is ideal.
Guest posting is the practice of blogging for a blogger other than yourself. It has been used as a marketing strategy by individuals and businesses to gain attention.
Google says the value of guest posting is that it can be seen as a measure of trust. Google also says it can help improve traffic, subscribers, and SEO rankings.
And as long as you’re happy with the quality of the site you’re guest posting for, your web property will be protected from that dreadful Google penalty.
Although in recent months Google has actually stated that it no longer penalizes low-quality links. Rather, it just doesn’t take into account their page rank.
3 Best Ways to Build Backlinks on a Budget
In my experience, there are three main ways you should focus your efforts to create high-quality links that move the needle; and are friendly to your finances.
I’ve already briefly touched on guest posting as this is my favorite method and has given me the best results, but I’ll discuss this in more detail later.
HARO
HARO is a service that connects journalists and bloggers with sources, experts, and spokespersons who have expertise in areas that the journalist or blogger is interested in or working on.
Journalists around the world use HARO to source their stories. This is a free service for both journalists and sources.
Journalists fill out a form on the HARO website and describe what source/expert they need. Sources/Experts complete the form and describe the type of news they wish to be featured in.
An email is sent to journalists every day stating a source/expert that meets their report requirements. They choose the source they are interested in and contact it directly.
This is the best way to get authoritative links from sites like the New York Times, Forbes, and The Washington Post.
And while the success rate isn’t as good as guest posting, the results will have a significant impact on your site if you win a link.
The process can take a long time as they send 3 emails a day 5 days a week.
But if you set aside a little time every day to answer requests, you’ll be surprised how much you can get. Just look at some of the places I quoted:
And the best part is that HARO is completely free. I even have a bonus module in the Ballistic Backlinks course that teaches you how to send 5x more replies to queries and significantly increase your win rate.
Guest Post
This is by far one of the whitest ways to build natural links. And this is for a simple reason; you are offering something of value to another blogger in your niche, and in most cases, it makes sense to link to supporting material that is on your site.
Google says that guest posts are great as a way to increase visibility and build community.
As long as this process is not used for the sole purpose of link building (which, let’s be honest, though the reason we do this, the extra exposure to a new audience is definitely an advantage).
The additional benefits of the guest posting approach to link building actually go beyond the obvious, namely:
The ability to get links from closely related subject sites in your niche. This gives extra weight and weight to the links you get.
More control over the links you can insert to internal pages that you specifically target for rankings.
Nearly complete control (at the discretion of the host blog) over the anchor text used for the links you insert. This gives you the ability to provide rich keyword anchors to further boost your rankings.
And while many may be put off by the seemingly daunting task that a guest email campaign can entail, I have to admit that it’s a lot easier than you might think.
You can create huge lists of potential clients. This includes target blog domains, email addresses, and contact information. You can do it with cheap tools, budget hacks, and free software.
You will send dozens if not hundreds of emails per month securely, cheaply, and autonomously. This often results in over 10 guest posts per month.
You can even extend this process by hiring a virtual machine to run the campaign for you. Done right, this can bring the average cost of a DR 50+ do follow a link from $200+ (agency) to less than $50.
Net
Guest posting opens the door to successful bloggers in your market. This, in turn, can have a significant impact on your networking abilities.
I became a member of exclusive online communities (all for free) where the linking opportunities are amazing. In fact, I’ve even won an author bio page on sites like MSN and Credit as a result of this type of networking.
And the more you communicate, the more it snowballs into bigger and better opportunities.
A successful guest campaign will be the start of growing your network. If used successfully, this will mean that link opportunities will start to find you.
The key is to stay organized in your relationship.
Track and record (Google Sheets is your best friend) everything you do. And continually offer value and flexibility when interacting with your new online friends.
I even met my new business partner (for whom we opened a content marketing agency) through networking.
Magic will happen and the links will amaze you.
Why I Love Guest Post Reach
For every blogger, managing their expenses is a skill that needs to be mastered. Paying out four figures to tie up construction agencies is usually not a realistic option.
So to keep the competition going, we need to find ways to build quality links at scale and most importantly, on budget.
And while I’m a big proponent of HARO, the time commitment and likelihood of success often mean it should be viewed as a complementary strategy.
Guest posts, or more specifically, semi-personalized guest posts, can be both inexpensive and highly rewarding.
Not to mention the networking options that this process brings to you as well.
How You Can Start Guest Post Reaching and Building Backlinks on a Budget
The process of launching a guest post advertising campaign comes down to a few key steps:
Collect a list of potential customers – websites in the same or similar niche as yours.
Find contact information. You need to find the email address and ideally the name of the person you are contacting.
Send multiple emails per day – A way to send multiple semi-personalized emails per day using a killer template that gets replies.
Discuss the terms of the guest post. Make sure you get a do-follow backlink and write content to maximize the SEO value of the inserted link.
The most effective way to build links at scale and on a budget is to launch a community outreach campaign. This is where you send as many emails as possible. By casting a wide net, you can still regularly land opportunities with a relatively low success rate.
And while you may think that a targeted outreach campaign is more effective, the time spent on it can easily cost you much more than a well-designed fractional method.
But to make your ad campaign as cost-effective as possible, you need to approach each step of the process with a budget in mind.
Gathering potential customers
This can certainly be the most time-consuming step. But there are many tools that can view thousands of relevant data points.
This can lead to lists so large that you can run the same campaign for years.
The best way to do this is with the popular Ahrefs tool. You can use their current 7-day trial for $7, or just pay for a month and collect as much data as you might need.
Search for contact information
This can be the most expensive step, especially when the number of leads starts to run into the thousands.
But again, you can easily reduce the cost of expensive tools by outsourcing the work to sites like Fiverr or Upwork, both of which I have had success with.
You can also use Hunter.io. You can pay for 1 month on the Pro plan, which allows you to do 10,000 searches; which is more than enough for a large-scale campaign.
Sending letters
You don’t want to use your run-of-the-mill Gmail account for this. First, it is not designed to run campaigns properly. In addition, it may compromise the security of your account.
There are tools like Mailshake that can handle this step easier, but it comes at a hefty monthly fee.
Instead, you can pay for GMass. It’s much more accessible. Although the user interface is a little dated, the performance and results are second to none.
Getting links
Once you successfully start reaching hundreds of blogs every month, you will start to get real guest posting opportunities.
Negotiations about the terms of the guest post and the actual content will then be required. You can write it yourself (for the most budget-conscious bloggers) or outsource it.
Build backlinks for your blog on a budget
Building backlinks can seem like an expensive task, especially for relatively new bloggers. Unfortunately, this is a necessary evil. If you want to rank high on Google, you need to bite the bullet and create them.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. I have outlined a number of strategies that you can start immediately and see how you start to be successful.
You can sign up with HARO and win some of those attractive high authority sites that really move the needle.
And then you can start creating your first semi-personalized shotgun ad campaign. This requires a cost. But it can really be minimized, and the results can be fruitful for years to come.
By now, you may have known about SEO, short for Search Engine Optimization. So, there will be many specialists ready to provide you with SEO services. But why spend so much money on these experts when you can learn and do the same for your website. So, SEO ranks are not like you posted content and images and did it. It’s not like your bank’s fixed deposit. Google updates its search algorithms only for its users. So, if the user spends more time on your SEO page, you will have a good SEO ranking. But if you don’t have the best page for SEO, the search engine algorithm will never choose your blog for its user.
Blog posting for SEO
So, in order to guarantee the SEO ranking of your site, publishing a blog is essential for SEO purposes. Submitting a blog is the best way for your SEO because here you will be targeting relevant keywords for your user. So, a user clicks on a keyword in a search engine, lands on your SEO page, and becomes interested in your content. This is how you get traffic for your blog. So, you are drawing the attention of visitors to your blog with a blog post, which will ultimately increase your website traffic.
Submitting a blog helps you build a backlink for your SEO page. This is the best way to increase the authority of your site in the search engine. Thus, it will automatically increase your website traffic. If you are looking for high-ranking SEO, you must have a regular and good amount of content on your site.
Content is the king of your website and will help you increase your site’s revenue by keeping users interested in your content. Blogs also lack content and keywords inserted into them. It also has images, video, and audio that keep users engaged and improve SEO performance as they spend more time on your site.
A blog is considered off-page SEO, so if you have a blog for your website, you must have a better SEO page to increase your website traffic.
Now you know the SEO benefits of publishing your blog and now you should also know how important it is to have a blog. A blog is essential to get lots of backlinks to your website and increase your website traffic. The Google search engine algorithm is beautifully designed and they can easily track if the content is a copy of the content available on the web. So never copy and paste content from somewhere else and write a fresh piece of content with relevant keywords naturally inserted into the article.
You have to be good at branding if you want to attract a loyal audience for your site. So, start targeting social media as social media is very effective when it comes to getting more visitors to your site. Now, to ensure that the traffic generated on your website is still interested in the content you post, embed audio and video clips so readers can enjoy their content. Audio and video clips make it interesting for users.
Increase traffic to guest blogs
Another way to get more traffic is guest blogging, so you will have to guest blog on popular websites and then people will come to your blog to read about your content. This trick also helps drive more traffic to your blog. Add tags to content that is easily selected by the search engine algorithm. So, in short, you describe your data. Also, don’t forget to add relevant images to your content.
Now it doesn’t make sense to keep a blog and not update it on a regular basis. So, in this competitive world, you should always post content regularly. This will attract the attention of your regular visitors and then you will have a constant influx of traffic to your site. Publishing blogs are important factors to increase SEO and traffic to your page as you are going to put your blog on different websites which will get a backlink and help drive traffic to your site.
Conclusion
Now you know that just by posting content, you won’t get visitors to your site. You should also make efforts in other areas to increase the number of visitors to your website. The road to popularity is not easy, but once you get there, there is no looking back. But to achieve this, you need to put in a lot of effort, and posting a blog is one of them.
So what are you waiting for, go ahead and submit your blog to the above-mentioned sites and then increase the number of visitors to your site?
So what are you waiting for, go ahead and enjoy the success and feel free to share more information with us so we can keep others and ourselves updated?
So I hope you enjoy this wonderful list and submit your blog to these directories. So don’t wait, just go there and submit your blog and get more traffic to your blog. If you have more sites to share, please leave links in the comments below!!! I would love to know more, keep sharing!!
