12 Ways to Get Natural Backlinks to Your Website or Blog

In search engine optimization (SEO), getting quality backlinks or inbound links from authority sites is vital in improving the pagerank or importance of your website or blog. However, search engines like Google has already ruled out to penalize sites that are doing too much SEO and manipulation of their site’s ranking. Thus, we need to ensure that the link building activities we are performing will not eventually get our sites penalized by the search engines. But how do we get backlinks to improve our site’s authority and increase our traffic without harming our website or blog? The answer is simply to get natural backlinks.

Natural backlinks are earned without even thinking of them. They are safe because there is no manipulation of the search engine rankings involved. You get natural backlinks without even knowing or expecting them. But it is really possible to obtain them? My answer is a big yes! In fact, it’s what I’m enjoying on this blog. If you want to know the secret to getting natural backlinks to your website or blog, here are 12 ways you can do to earn them without even bothering yourself about them. Forget about backlinks and just do the following:


1. Write unique and engaging contents

Write articles, stories, and blog posts that only you can write. Make sure that they are high quality, useful, and can serve as reliable reference for any users. It would be achievable if you will write article covering topics about your expertise. Top sites, no matter how big they are, they still don’t have all the information in the world. That is why they will make a research and find supplemental information to add on their published stories. This is what happened to some of my blog posts. Because they are written extensively and they offer information that only I can write, a number of authority sites have used them as reference on their published stories. The results are natural quality backlinks to my blog which I have not even expected. Remember that unique contents are searched by users no matter how difficult they are to found.

Below are recent influential reactions or links to this blog from other blog posts which I never expected.

2. Read and learn from others interesting blog posts

Another thing to do is to read interesting and useful blog posts from other bloggers with the intention of learning and expanding your knowledge. If a certain blog post catches your attention, you will naturally make a very relevant and engaging comment, without even thinking of getting a do-follow link. You don’t need to read blog posts just to comment and get inbound links. If you do that, you will only end up making lousy comments that don’t add value to the blog you’re commenting. That is why I don’t participate in comment exchange activities just to get backlinks. Instead, I use my time on researching and reading useful blog posts which I can earn valuable lessons. If it’s worth commenting, then I make comments without even thinking of having incoming links in return. With that, I am making a valuable and sensible comment, not to mention I’m also building natural backlinks.


3. Join forums to share and exchange knowledge

Assuming your website or your blog is related to your passion. It’s a better idea to join online forums to share your knowledge and passion to online community. Forget about backlinks, just join and enjoy the conversation. Once a thread or discussion needs a link to prove some statements or arguments, share your related link. Also, don’t be shy to put your website or blog to your profile and signature field. A little bit of exposure, and you will gain natural backlinks. Joining forums will also give you opportunity to have more friends and learn from them. Don’t waste your time joining forum which you are not interested just to get inward links. That will only make you look like spammy, whom the forum admin or moderator will ban and turn his/her effort into ashes. Well, I own an online forum and that’s what I do to members who don’t add value to the community.


4. Give natural backlinks

It is more blessed to give than to receive. What I mean is don’t be selfish and tightfisted, but be generous. When you write article and make blog posts, don’t hesitate to link to trusted websites or blogs to supplement and prove your posts. This will make your articles richer and more reliable. If you link to blogs which approve pingbacks, you might as well get natural backlinks from them. Aside from that, bloggers, who will notice your pingback and the link juice you gave them, will likely thank you and also help you promote your articles. This is because they are part of your story. They might retweet it, share it in their Facebook status updates, share to their Google+ circles, or even make a post about it.

But to make it really natural, create posts without the intention of getting backlinks in return. Just create contents that you think will help and satisfy your audience. And to satisfy them more, add useful information and link them to the authority sites as your source. Remember that when you give, you shall receive.


5. Sell quality products or services

This may not be for everyone. But if you can produce a quality product or provide services that can spread a word-of-mouth or word-of-link, this is also a good way to build natural backlinks to your website or blog. If you are an expert or has an outstanding knowledge on something, you may try to create an eBook. You can sell this on your blog in a reasonable amount. If you can satisfy a lot of customers, it will result to positive reviews and testimonials around the online world. This will result to natural backinks, especially if your target market is composed of webmasters and bloggers. If you can’t write an eBook, try to sell your best services.


6. Analyze and rank your blog or website

Don’t you know that monitoring and tracking your site can also build your backlinks? Get your website or blog measured, analyzed and quantified by Alexa.com, Quantcast.com, Compete.com, Technorati.com, Woorank.com, and other website analyzer. With that, you can know the ranking and statistics of your site, as well as get backlinks from them.


7. Share unique and interesting images

If you love photography and taking amazing photos, you can post original and relevant images on your site for your audience’s eyes. If you’re good in graphic design, you can also create and share free logos, icons, buttons, and other graphics on your site. You may release these pictures and graphic materials in the creative commons and require everyone, who will use them, to give you a link credit for using them.


8. Share unique and interesting videos

Sharing your awesome videos can also naturally build backlinks to your site. To earn incoming links from your videos, put your website link in your video description as the reference source of that video. You don’t need to ask backlinks. Your backlinks will naturally come when your videos are used by other publishers on their websites or blogs. Thus, you can forget about backlinks and just focus on making your video as awesome as you can. If it becomes viral, then backlinks will rush to your site beyond your expectation. You may share your videos to top video sharing sites, like Youtube, Vimeo, Dailymotion and Metacafe.


9. Educate people online

Just keep sharing your knowledge and wisdom. Educate people online. You can do this by making educational documents and slideshow presentations that are relevant to your site. You can share your documents on Scribd.com and your presentations on Slideshare.net. You may include your website or blog as the original source of those materials. If they will be found as useful materials, there will be a greater chance that linkbacks to your site will naturally build up. It will happen when publishers or bloggers use your document or presentation on their sites. So don’t just be a webmaster, blogger or an Internet marketer, but also be a teacher.


10. Be a resource speaker on various events

Continue teaching even in the offline world. So don’t just be a good writer, but also be a good speaker. Speaking in various events that are relative to the topic and niche of your site can also give you natural backlinks. How will it happen? Events and seminars, together with the speakers and links to their websites, are usually published on the Internet, particularly in the official website of the event’s host. If you’re in the blogging niche, it is wise to accept speakership on blogging events. If you do that you will certainly get backlinks. Bloggers usually blog about the coming blogging events.


11. Go social

As I mentioned earlier, you don’t need to think about getting backlinks to get natural backlinks. Thus, if you love social media, just enjoy creating your profiles on different social sites that you like, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Flickr, Youtube, StumbleUpon and Pinterest. Just interact and socialize with the people you meet on these sites and be happy. And to make your profile become more attractive, don’t be shy to put your website. Also don’t forget to create a Facebook and Google+ page for your website’s or blog’s brand. They may not give you dofollow backlinks, but still they are backlicks that can increase the popularity of your site.


12. Get human links

Friendship and genuine human relationship, these are where you can really get natural backlinks to your site. The more friends (who are webmasters and bloggers) you have, the more you can get natural incoming links to your site. And how you can get more friends? The answer is to selflessly help people who need your help. If you can do it secretly, the better and the more natural it can be. Therefore, make the word “helping” the main purpose of building your site. Help you social media friends, help your audience, help even those people who don’t have the capability to give you backlinks. When people are deeply touched and inspired by your kindness, they will become your loyal friends. Among these people might be bloggers and publishers who will unexpectedly give you natural backlinks.


Final thoughts

There are still many other ways to get natural backlinks aside from the list above. For example, nominating your blog to blogging awards can give you backlinks if your blog becomes a winner. Another way, which is actually a popular technique, is guest posting. Most SEO and Internet marketers are doing guest posting to build their backlinks. However, it will only be considered as a natural way if your intention is not to get a backlink, but actually to share your knowledge, add value to the host site, and provide quality contents to its readers. Honestly, I have not yet done any guest posting in any other blogs. I prefer to devote my time to my blog’s audience who are constantly expecting fresh contents from me. Another thing is that I want to reserve the other SEO weapons for future use. Well, in this constant marketing competition, you don’t want to suffer from running out of ammunition.