By hey@kiarataylor.com (Kiara Taylor)

You’ve launched your business and, with it, your website. Now you want to start driving more traffic to your site and build your brand salience.

You’ve likely heard of that popular and mystical tool — search engine optimization (SEO). And I’m willing to bet you’ve discovered that having good links to your site is one of the top three factors that will increase your page rank on search results.

So now you just need to get a bunch of backlinks out there, right? Easy enough.

Depending on your industry, scaling your linking efforts sufficiently to meet or beat the competition can be challenging, especially if you work for a small or medium-sized business (SMB).

Perhaps your competitors are industry giants with far more financial resources and personnel than you. Perhaps their size isn’t the issue, but they have found ways to generate a prodigious amount of links every month. So you may be tempted to generate as many links as you can, no matter where or how.

But wait. It turns out that not all links are created equal. And focusing on link quantity rather than link quality can hurt you more than it helps. So you need to learn how to create high-quality backlinks at scale.

Here are a few tips for building a portfolio of high-quality links to your site that will improve your business’s visibility.

How to Create High-Quality Content Worthy of Backlinks

There’s an old saying that “Content is king”, and it remains as true today as when it was first uttered by none other than Bill Gates.

But, just as with your backlinks, content must be high-quality to make a difference. And that means that your website must have relevant, authoritative and engaging content to make it worthy of backlinks.

The better your content, the more likely you will generate organic links rather than having to create your own backlinks.

For SMBs that have neither the time nor the personnel to build useful content internally, there is a cost-effective solution: freelance content writers. Of course, freelance writers do come with costs. Indeed, you can expect to pay as much as $45 an hour or more for highly experienced, quality content creators. However, experienced freelancers are a good investment, as they are extremely efficient, and you can often get useful content quickly.

1. Create Relevant Content

When creating content, think about its probable lifespan. Content about an issue that will fade from your audience’s consciousness quickly will have limited effect on your backlinking strategy. So, you should take into account how long your content will remain relevant to your prospective audience.

Can you easily update content to reflect changes rather than simply letting the content expire? Updating content reinforces your expertise and is a simple way to create new content with little added effort.

As a general rule, you should review your content frequently to make sure that it remains relevant or …read more

Source:: HubSpot Blog

Author: Aaron