Building Backlinks for SEO Success – Supercharge Your Website
Backlinks for SEO have long been considered an essential component of a successful search engine optimization strategy. However, in my years of working with photographers both as a business mentor and as the editor of two wedding blogs, I’ve seen firsthand how many people completely overlook this vital part of their SEO strategy.
In this blog post, we will delve into the importance of building a robust backlink profile and explore various strategies to acquire quality backlinks that can significantly impact your rankings. Additionally, we will discuss why many professionals tend to overlook link-building opportunities in favor of content creation alone.
By the end of this article, you’ll be able to assess your backlink efforts and make data-driven decisions for improved SEO rankings. Stay tuned as we unravel the secrets behind earning powerful backlinks for SEO success.
Understanding the Basics of Backlinks for SEO
Backlinks are one of the most important elements of SEO. They play a crucial role in helping search engines understand which websites have authority and should be ranked higher on their results pages. Backlinks are essentially links from other websites that point back to your website, indicating to search engines that you’re an authoritative source for the content they’re looking for.
For successful SEO, backlinks must be from trustworthy sources like respected blogs or niche websites. Search engine algorithms take into account not only the number of backlinks a site has, but also the quality of the backlinks when determining how high a website should rank in its results pages. This means it’s important for photographers who want to improve their SEO rankings to focus on building quality backlinks.
Benefits of Building High Quality Backlinks
If you’ve ever been on platforms like Fiverr, you’ll probably have seen that you can simply buy backlinks to your website. So why would you spend time reaching out to publications and submitting to blogs when you could just do that?
Not all backlinks were made equal. And search engines recognize that these days. Paid backlinks are often from low-quality sites, often with little or no relevance to your business, whereas high quality backlinks are from sites that are seen as being of high authority, trustworthy sources, and often related to the industry that your business is in (although not always as we will cover later).
While many photographers assume that a backlink from a feature is about sending interested clients their way (spoiler alert – it rarely works that way), the biggest benefit from having your work featured, or your name mentioned, is the backlink, and it’s effect on your website’s Domain Authority.
The most important benefit of quality backlinks is that they help you rank higher in SERPs. Google’s algorithm takes into account the number of links pointing to your site as well as their relevance when deciding where to place your content on its SERP. Having more high-quality backlinks increases the chances that your content will be seen by potential customers or clients who are searching for related topics or services online.
Quality backlinks also increase the authority of your website within its niche or industry. When other websites link to yours it shows search engines like Google that you have valuable information which can help others make informed decisions about their purchases or services needed. This helps build trust with potential customers and strengthens brand recognition among peers in the same field or market sector.
Another advantage of having quality backlinks is increased referral traffic from other sites linking to yours; this means more people visiting your page organically without having clicked through an advertisement or sponsored post first. This type of organic growth is invaluable because it allows businesses to reach new audiences without spending money on advertising campaigns – something wedding photographers understand all too well given how expensive traditional marketing methods can be.
Creating high-caliber links can be a useful method for raising exposure and driving users to your webpage, which makes it an indispensable aspect of any SEO plan. However, many wedding photographers overlook the importance of building their backlink profile in favor of focusing on content creation.
What is Domain Authority & Why Is It Important?
Domain Authority (DA) is a metric developed by Moz to measure the strength of a website’s domain.
It is based on data from their Link Explorer index and takes into account numerous factors, including linking root domains and number of total links, to give sites a score between one and 100, with higher numbers having a higher probability of ranking in search results.
A high Domain Authority score indicates that your website has strong backlinks, which is often a sign for quality content, and will likely rank well for relevant keywords.
Other SEO tools also use a similar rating system, although may call it by another term, such as Ahrefs, who refer to it as Domain Rating (DR).
Why Is Building Your Domain Authority Important?
Having a high Domain Authority score can have many positive impacts on SEO efforts such as increased visibility in SERPs (search results) which leads to more organic traffic coming into your website; this also improves brand awareness as potential customers become familiar with what you offer them through seeing you appear frequently at the top spots on search result pages.
Additionally, having high DA scores makes it easier for other publishers looking for good sources when creating content – if they see that you have authoritative information then they may choose to include links pointing towards your site which further strengthens both your reputation online and overall ranking power!
Link building plays an important role in improving Domain Authority because it increases the number of quality backlinks pointing to your site.
Quality backlinks are those that come from reputable websites with content related to yours; these types of links help build trust with search engines like Google and Bing which can result in improved rankings for your site.
Why Backlink Strategy Is Often Overlooked Above Blogging
Backlinks are an integral part of any successful SEO strategy, yet many professional wedding photographers overlook the importance of backlink building. While blogging can be an essential strategy for many photographers for attracting and engaging potential clients, it’s often not enough by itself.
Blogging IS a really important part of any SEO strategy. In fact, for many photographers, after basic back-end optimization, it forms the main part of their strategy. And that’s understandable. I’ve seen in my own business the power of blogging and opimizing content for SEO. It’s how I booked many of my bucket list destination elopements back in the day.
BUT you can have some of the best, well-researched and relevant content on your website, that’s perfectly optimised for SEO, however, if your Domain Authority is low, you might well find that you’re still not ranking against your competition. And this can be super frustrating when you see people with inferior content ranking higher than you in SERPs.
When it comes down to it, investing time into researching and executing an effective link-building campaign can have significant returns on investment. It’s important for wedding photographers who want their websites found by potential clients online to understand that without proper backlinking tactics in place, their content will have a much harder time of reaching its intended audience—no matter how well written or informative it might be.
Best Link Building Strategies for Photographers
When it comes to SEO, backlinks are one of the most important factors for boosting rankings. Quality backlinks from authoritative websites can help drive more traffic and increase visibility for your website. Link building isn’t a difficult or complicated task. But it does often require an investment time and effort. Here are some of the best strategies for building up high quality backlinks to your site:
Submit Your Work To Blogs
When I first started in wedding photography, getting featured on a blog used to be the gold star of approval that you were doing well as a photographer.
Over the years, I’ve heard many photographers grumble about how being featured on blogs never led to any bookings. Many photographers were assuming that blog features = clients knocking down your door.
Sadly, that’s rarely the case, although it’s always possible. It also adds to your professional credibility and that old “Know, Like & Trust” factor if potential clients see your name popping up in multiple places.
But the main reason to submit your work to be featured on blogs is for the BACKLINK! What websites (in a search engine’s eyes) are more of an authority on weddings than wedding blogs?
Even wedding blogs that are fairly new or niche, that maybe don’t have super high DA ratings are likely to grow their DA a lot faster than most photographers sites. So if you see a blog that’s related to your niche, even if the DA is low, submit to it. It’s likely that it will grow and search engines will see it as related content.
Related Reading: How To Submit To Blogs
Guest Posting
One way to acquire quality backlinks is through guest blogging or blog outreach. This involves writing content for other blogs or websites, in exchange for a link pointing back to your website.
Guest posting not only benefits you by enabling you to build a backlink to your site, but it also enables you to establish yourself as an expert in your field, and on a platform that isn’t your own. That gives you access to audiences that you might not have otherwise been able to reach, as well as boosting your credibility on your own website too.
To increase your chances of success when using this method, make sure that the content you write is relevant and valuable to the target audience of the blog you’re pitching your article too as well as being original and unique so it stands out amongst others on their site. Additionally, try reaching out directly to editors via email instead of relying solely on online forms which often go unnoticed or take longer than necessary before receiving a response.
>> Based in Europe? Write a guest post for the European Elopement Guide
Directory Listings
In a similar fashion to blog features, directory listings in many cases, do not lead to bookings. At least, not directly.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay for directory listings though. In fact, I myself have paid for many over the years, and it was for one thing (which I’m sure you can guess what it is by now). The value of the backlink!
You might find that there are some websites with a high DA that, no matter how hard you try, your work simply isn’t a fit to be featured on their. Or perhaps they only feature work from their paid members. Joining a directory, if it’s one that is relevant to your business and your target audience, can be worth the membership if it means you get a high quality, DOFOLLOW backlink from a high DA site.
Entering Contests
Winning photography contents is great. It’s lovely to have a shiny badge to put on your website, and to get bragging rights to tell the world you won something for your photography.
As you may have guessed it by now, one of the biggest benefits to entering photography contests isn’t the winning (because most clients don’t know the difference between which awards are actually highly regarded and which are “you pay, you win”). It’s actually all of the PR that you get from being a finalist/winner.
Most of the larger photography contests don’t just feature the winners on their own websites, but they also have PR strategies that announce the winners to the global media. That means backlinks from some of the biggest media outlets in the world, such as Huffpost.
Podcasting
Us photographers seem to absolutely love podcasts. There are podcasts for almost any topic you can think of too. And guess what – most podcasts include links in their show notes to their guests. So why not consider putting yourself forward to speak on one? It could be a podcast your clients might listen to, or one where you speak as an industry or local expert.
News & Lifestyle Features
Sometimes it can also help to think outside of the box. If you work in a really unusual niche, or you have a story that would inspire others, you could consider speaking with news websites or other publications in a related (but non-wedding) lifestyle sector. Knowing where to start on this one can be a bit overwhelming, which is why you might want to work with a PR specialist who can do some outreach on your behalf.
Supplying Other Vendors With Images
If you work with other vendors, it’s easy to build up backlinks from them. Once you’ve sent out a gallery to a couple, you could send it out to other vendors too – just make sure you stipulate your usage terms, with instructions on how and where images are allowed to be used, and how to correctly credit.
I do always supply other vendors with images. I have a policy that images may be used for their own marketing for free, but that a credit and backlink must be provided at all times. And I’ve never had any big problems with this.
Measuring the Impact of Backlinks on SEO Rankings
You now know that backlinks are an essential part of SEO for improving your website rankings. SEO and link building is the same as lots of the work you do on your business – it’s important to track your progress over time. Especially since most SEO work is part of a long-term, slow-moving strategy, where results can take time to show.
There are a few places where you can start to explore the existing backlinks to your site. Tools like Google Analytics or Moz Pro’s Open Site Explorer allow you to see where each individual link comes from and how much traffic it brings in. This data will help you identify which links are most beneficial for boosting rankings and should be kept active while those with little effect should be removed or replaced with more effective ones.
A free tool I like to use is the Ahrefs Site Audit. This analyses your site, and can help you track your ranking for keywords, as well as tracking backlinks.
Another great tool you can use for auditing your site, and analysing your competitors is Semrush.
FAQs in Relation to Backlinks for SEO
Do backlinks really help SEO?
Yes, backlinks can help improve a website’s SEO. Backlinks are links from other websites that direct visitors to your site. Search engines use the presence of backlinks from other sites to assess how important and dependable your content is. Having more quality backlinks pointing to your site will result in higher rankings for targeted keywords on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Submitting to blogs is time consuming. Is there another way to get my work featured?
Maybe. I’m a photographer, and I’ve been the founder and editor of two wedding blogs. I know the process of submitting can be time consuming, and I understand the frustration of submitting to a publication only to hear that is wasn’t a fit.
If you really hate submitting, but you do want to get featured, you can try platforms such as Two Bright Lights and Matchology, which let you upload everything into one place and submit to multiple publications from their platform.
Otherwise, I’m afraid you do just kinda need to suck it up and follow the submission process of the blog you want to be featured on.
If you want to increase your chances of your feature being accepted, make sure you read this post.
What Should I Focus On – Content or Link Building?
Quality content is important. I’m not going to deny that. But the chances of that content being displayed in SERPs, especially if it’s targeting high competition keywords, is much less likely if you don’t have a higher DA than your competition. And that’s only going to happen through link building. So once you’ve got a handful of quality content on your website, switch your focus to link building.
Conclusion
Backlinks for SEO are a powerful tool that can help wedding photographers reach their desired audience. Link building and backlinking are oft-neglected components of SEO, but they can be extremely powerful when aiming to enhance a website’s search engine rankings. With the right approach, quality backlinks can have an immense impact on improving organic traffic and ultimately increasing conversions from potential customers.
Glossary of Terms
Link Building
The process of creating links from other websites to your own website.
This can be done in a variety of ways, including guest blogging, directory submissions, and social media sharing.
It’s important to note that link building should be done with quality sources; otherwise it could hurt your SEO rankings instead of helping them.
Backlinks
Incoming links from one website to another.
They are an important part of SEO because they indicate how popular a website is and can help search engines determine which pages on a site are most relevant for certain keywords or topics.
The more backlinks a page has, the higher its ranking will be in search engine results pages (SERPs).
SERP
Abbreviation for “Search Engine Results Page”
While Google remains one of the leading search engines, there are a number of other alternatives that are used. Many use similar algorithms to calculate which results to show in which order.
Results may be influenced by the users previous search history or geographic location. This can be avoided in some instances by using private browsing or a VPN.
Anchor Text
The clickable text within a hyperlink that takes you to another web page when clicked on.
It’s important for SEO purposes because it tells search engines what the linked-to page is about and helps them understand how relevant it is for certain queries.
When optimizing anchor text, make sure you use keywords related to the topic at hand so that users know exactly where they’ll end up if they click on it.
NoFollow Links
Nofollow links are HTML attributes used by webmasters to tell search engines not to follow specific links from their sites or pass any PageRank through those links.
This attribute was introduced as an effort by Google and other major search engines to combat spammy link practices such as buying backlinks or participating in link schemes designed solely for manipulating SERP rankings rather than providing value for users searching online content..
DoFollow Links are HTML attributes utilized by webmasters that enable search engine crawlers to access all URLs connected within these tags without any limitations; this allows crawlers unrestricted entry into all parts of your website, regardless if there are nofollow tags present in other areas or not – thus leading to higher indexing rates and improved organic visibility overall.
Discover the secrets of SEO success for wedding photographers with Adventure Wedding Academy. Learn how to boost your website’s visibility and increase backlinks today!
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