Wondering why few attend your church’s Sunday service? Ever questioned why few people visit your church’s website to check schedules or activities?
You might have a poor SEO strategy. If you don’t know where to start checking, perform an audit on your link building methods.
Link building is an integral part of any SEO strategy, but it can be tricky to master. For one, Google is rather strict in monitoring backlinks.
Any wrong move and it can lower your PageRank score. Buying or selling links, for example, will earn the punishment of the search engine.
It’s not all too scary, though, as long as you know how to do it right.
Want to know how you can improve your ranking without resorting to black hat techniques? Follow the link building tips below and ensure that you stay on Google’s good side:
1. Broken Link Building Tips
Broken links, which lead to a 404 page, among your first concerns.
Visitors don’t like them, web owners don’t want to have them, and Google frowns upon them. That’s why you’re doing a web owner a favor if you point out a dead link on their website.
How to make this work in your favor?
First, find relevant websites in your niche and see if they have broken links you can replace. If so, shoot the web owner an email and point out the dead link. They’ll be grateful, which will increase the likelihood of them giving you backlink opportunities.
However, there are some things to note here.
Make sure the link you’re suggesting as a replacement covers the same topic as the dead link. You can ensure this by using the Wayback Machine. This tool shows you the content of the link before it died.
2. When Directory Backlinks are Good
Many will often abuse directory backlinks as a black hat link building strategy. That’s why Google is strict about these strategies now. Such link building techniques aren’t going to fly anymore.
Many web directories today only exist to generate backlinks. These are called link farms.
Such websites have low authority and any backlink from them won’t help your SEO efforts at all. In fact, it can even have a negative effect on your ranking.
Still, there are credible online directories, such as Google My Business and Yelp. As much as possible, you’d want your church listed here.
The best directories are those that are relevant to your niche. They provide useful information to visitors, and so their marketing strategy targets them. They should also have high standards, reviewing each submission before posting it.
3. Guest Posting the Right Way
Guest posting is another white hat link building technique but only if you do it right. Like directories, there are also websites that only serve as a low-effort link farm.
These sites have low editorial standards. Avoid these places and stick with credible website with strict requirements.
Furthermore, people tend to overcrowd the article with keywords and links. Google can see right through this practice, as well. It’s important to make sure the keywords aren’t forced and to limit the number of links included in the post.
It goes without saying that the guest post should be of high quality. Informative articles gain favor from Google but don’t forget you’re not writing to please Google – the real goal is pleasing real people. Your main goal is to provide the readers with a useful resource, one that answers their questions.
4. Sharing Your Link in Blog Comments
Blog commenting is another strategy that can have a negative impact on your rankings if you do it wrong. There’s nothing wrong with sharing links in a comment per se, even if they’re yours. However, if the comment doesn’t have anything valuable to add to the discussion, except to provide the said link, then that’s bad practice.
Many also think that commenting on any blog will help them build backlinks, but that’s far from the truth. You should be commenting on something relevant to your content or niche. Don’t comment on technology topics if you’re only going to post a link to your religious website.
A good comment starts with a discussion of the points made in the blog. Agree, disagree, or both, and then add your own thoughts. Long comments are welcome, so don’t hesitate to share all that you need to say.
At some point, encourage whoever is reading to follow your link to discover more. For example, you’re discussing church logos. Add some insight on what would be a good logo, and then add a link to your article with unique logo tips.
With that said, the link should also be relevant to the blog post or to your comment.
5. Content Creation
This is the foundation of link building. Before you share your link or before anyone agrees to share it, the content should be solid in terms of topic, grammar, structure, and originality.
Writing great original content is still the best tip we can give for link building, but there are some ways you can further improve your link building strategy. For example, adding images add to the readability and entertainment value of your piece. The bonus is that you can also optimize the image for SEO.
Another way is to create infographics. People like seeing information in visual form, which is easier to digest. They are more likely to share it, as well, but which information to include?
You can gather data from credible websites and put them all in one place or you can create your own data. Expounding on the latter point, you can do this by performing your own research, doing surveys, and such.
As we said above, your main goal should be to provide valuable information to the readers. As long as you keep this in mind, you’re sure to create a piece that will be helpful and shareable.
Discover More Link Building and SEO Tips
This is a deep subject; if you’re new to this, you’ll have to read up on more link building tips, like using the best link building tools. Churches often forget or ignore these strategies and this leads to a website with no traffic, affecting their church service, visibility, and events.
If you’d want to learn more about SEO, visit our blog now. Understand the ins and outs of a good SEO and digital marketing strategy, including optimizing your web design.