Glen Forsyth
29 January 2020
Let’s get one thing clear. If you’re looking to build backlinks in 2020 and beyond, forget about it.
I know that sounds crazy. I know this came out of left field. I don’t care. This is the absolute truth. If you want to make money through search engine traffic, you better listen up.
You see, when people say build links or they want to figure out how to build backlinks, they’re basically setting themselves up to fail. You have to remember that Google is no longer the same technology today as it was five or ten years ago. Not even close.
Google uses all sorts of artificial intelligence that makes black magic look simple. It’s as if you came up with a technology that can read your mind and get to the bottom of what your needs are. In fact, their technology is so powerful that they can make certain predictions as to what you will click and what you won’t click. That’s how legit Google’s technology is.
Unfortunately, a lot of people who think in terms of how to build backlinks are thinking in terms of the Stone Age. Believe me, on the internet, one year is worth a hundred years in the real world. So if you scale up the amount of years that pass, we’re basically living in the Stone Age if you believe that the name of the game is to figure out how to build backlinks.
Earn links instead of building them
So what is the secret? Well, let me get the cat out of the bag, okay. The secret is pretty straightforward. Instead of spending your time, effort, and energy trying to build links by filling out forms or sending out spam emails to get people to pay attention to your link and eventually link to you, I’ve got something that actually works.
Now, don’t get me wrong. You can do all those things that I mentioned. You can do guest posting. You can do link outreach by subscribing to a respected guest blogging database. You can blast out all sorts of engagement to try to get backlinks. But they’re not going to do you much good when it comes to return on effort. Because people are wising up.
Also, if you try to go the easy route and just fill out form after form that spits out a backlink or you create online profiles, you’re wasting your time. In fact, you may be harming your search engine rankings because automated forms of backlink no longer work. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true.
The sad reality is that a lot of these places produce toxic links. And Google is now so sophisticated, thanks to the Google Penguin update and it’s many revisions, that it can tell toxic links.
So you might think that you’re doing a good job building all these backlinks and using all sorts of sophisticated software, but all you’re doing is sinking your rankings. It’s as if you are sabotaging your own search engine rankings. Pretty pathetic. So instead of thinking about building links, focus on earning them instead.
How to earn links
So how exactly do you earn backlinks for your website? Well, one of the first ways that I advise beginner bloggers is to talk about stuff that the media is interested in.
For example, if you have a dating blog and you’re teaching guys how to pick up women and how to be more successful in their relationships, you have to get in the mind of reporters.
What kind of dating demographics are they interested in? What kind of dating trends do they normally write about? Now that you have a rough idea of the topics that they are interested in, come up with content that intersects with that traffic.
In other words, come up with content that talks about controversies that are sure to draw attention. So when you do this and you create a large chunk of your blog around controversial or trending topics, the next step is to publicize this information.
Now, here’s where things get a little dicey. You’re not supposed to just get the emails of all these reporters and just send them mass spam. That’s not going to work. In fact, that’s going to probably blow up in your face. I don’t recommend it. Instead, you should use tools like Help A Reporter Out.
These reporters would go to HARO and they would type in requests for citations or sources or interviews for a broad range of topics. In fact, HARO has a lot many different topics that regardless of how esoteric you think your blog is, there’s probably at least one reporter who is looking for a story related to your niche.
This is where you present your story. Now, here’s the good news. Reporters are notoriously lazy. In other words, they don’t want to do fresh research.
So, if somebody is looking for interracial dating trends and they know that one reporter already did a story on a website that has statistics on this information, what do you think they’ll do? That’s right. They will contact that same site, interview the people behind it, and publish essentially the same type of info.
They save a tremendous amount of time. So this has a snowball effect. The key is to get your foot in the door and that’s why you have to have initial content that establishes your credibility. You can’t just say, well, I know the things about this trend. I know everything that’s going on regarding this niche.
Nobody’s going to believe you. You have to prove it. You have to show the statistics. You have to have connections within your niche. You have to show something—some sort of objective proof so people would take you seriously. That’s how it works.
Once you get your foot in the door and a reporter cites you, it’s all uphill from there. Now granted, it’s not easy to get this whole process started. In the beginning, you’re basically taking shots in the dark because you don’t know what kind of topics to write about. This is where niche and trend research comes in.
If you do your research right, you would know that there are certain trends out there. So you basically try to cover all of them with one blog post. I know it’s a lot of work. But the good news is once one of them sticks, then you will enjoy the kind of chain reaction that leads to more and more reporters using your website as a source.
Since these reporters write for high authority third party websites, and I’m talking about online newspapers, online magazines, and other resources, the link value you get goes through the roof. This means that Google, with everything else being equal, is more likely to rank your articles because of the quality of the backlinks you are getting, and not just from your social media marketing either.
This is how you answer the question of how to build backlinks in 2020. Make no mistake. Figuring out how to build backlinks in this day and age is all about learning how to earn links the right way.
