The holy grail for some webmasters – when it comes to their site’s reputation – can be obtaining a few key backlinks from big-name competitors or similarly-categorized sites. The strategy of obtaining quality backlinks can be one of the single most effective strategies in your ever-continuing quest to gain additional PR and notoriety for your website. Many webmasters start out wondering, “Where do I find quality sites for backlinks?” and perhaps even more important, “How do I get a link from them?”. We’ll discuss these issues so you can have a better idea of how to approach webmasters about obtaining backlinks.

Who to Consider – Worldwide

Your particular category of content may already have well-known authority subjects on the matter and most likely, they will rank quite high in major search engine results. You may have even gone to conferences, meetings or other events where these very same people are well-known to be authorities on a particular subject. Generally, you can inspect the top results in a given search query to determine who is best ranked and therefore the best target for backlinks. We recommend comparing a dozen or so similar keywords and phrases to see who, if anybody, appears multiple times. These sites – if existent – would be the best authority websites to target.

Who to Consider – Locally

Are you running a website that provides a service, product or information to a localized community? If so, then you may wish to boost your local results by networking with other local websites and entities. The Chamber of Commerce is a good place to begin looking; you’ll be able to see which businesses in your area have websites and from there, proceed to contact individual owners about link exchanges. While this may not be the best strategy for global web market penetration, you may be able to achieve higher local results when someone searches for a product or service similar to what you offer. You should be sure to link up only with relevant businesses and not just any business as you do not want to be perceived as a link spammer.

Exchange Content

Many large-scale webmasters and websites will expect something in exchange for providing you with a backlink. If you are a decent content creator, you may want to consider offering your writing services to the site in question. By being a guest writer and contributing content to their site, they will be much more likely to do a link exchange. This is one of the most common and effective ways to build your link authority. If you want to keep track on who is pointing to your website, then Pingler’s Backlink Checker is a great solution.

Summary

If you are willing to do local and global research, as well as contribute pro-bono content to authority websites, you will be able to gain quality backlinks in the future. You must also be sure that your site is valid, updated and informative; authority sites will not want to give you a backlink if your site does not pass muster and could possibly end up penalizing them for the backlink. Through hard work, networking and vigilance, you can obtain those precious backlinks and put your site on the path to success.