If your contracting company has been researching ways to increase your website’s traffic and visibility, you’ve likely heard about link building or backlinking. A link building strategy is a critical aspect of search engine optimization (SEO) because it helps your web pages rank well in Google and other search engines. At the core of link building, SEO backlinks are an acknowledgment of the quality of your work.
Not all backlinks are created equal, though. Backlinks are among the most misunderstood and inappropriately applied strategies to rank higher on search engines. To build a powerful link-building strategy, you must first understand what a quality backlink is. Then you can distinguish why high-quality backlinks improve your search visibility, and finally, you can create a content strategy to earn quality backlinks.
What Is A Backlink?
A backlink forms when one website links to another site.
A backlink, also known as an inbound link or incoming link, is a hyperlink from one website to another. A backlink is a link on a website that, when clicked, takes the user to another website. Almost every website has inbound links and external links.
An inbound link is a backlink that points to your contractor site. Business directories, contractor listings, and trade association websites commonly provide inbound links. Websites with your name, address, and phone number will also link to your website. External links from your site often appear in articles and service descriptions when you recommend partners or resources.
Backlinks are an essential component of search engine optimization because when you earn backlinks, the authority of the third-party website is passed to your website. Incoming links build your credibility across search engines like Google, industry directories, and the rest of the internet. As your backlink profile grows, you distinguish your contractor brand from competitors. When a website receives many high-quality backlinks from other reputable websites, it signals to search engines that its content is valuable and trustworthy.
There are two types of backlinks: dofollow and nofollow. Dofollow backlinks are links that search engines can follow to crawl and index the linked website. These backlinks improve SEO performance because they pass on link equity and help improve your website’s ranking in search results. Nofollow backlinks, on the other hand, are links that contain a rel=”nofollow” attribute. Nofollow links tell search engines not to follow the link and not to pass on link equity. While nofollow links don’t directly contribute to SEO, they can still be valuable for driving referral traffic and building brand awareness.
The Problem with Backlinks
Think of backlinks as a referral from one website to another. Google uses backlinks to decipher which pieces of content are the most helpful and valuable to what a searcher is looking for. The more backlinks that a piece of content receives, the more valuable Google believes the content is.
However, this way of thinking can be flawed. Spammy backlinks have been used for decades to try to manipulate domain authority. These black hat backlink practices include buying links, bartering links, and private blog networks that farm external links to pass link juice to websites.
Webmaster Guidelines acknowledge that paid links and link schemes violate best practices. Google and other search engines distinguish low-quality links from high-authority backlinks. In short, the problem with backlinks is that linked pages need to be relevant to your contractor business.
Earn all the links to your website and disavow links from bad actors.
Why are Backlinks Important?
If search engines penalize backlink tactics, then is link building a reputable SEO tool? Backlinks are an important ranking factor for search engines because they stand out from internal links, keyword phrases, and all the many SEO tools that help website owners increase visibility. Backlinks pointing to your website represent a genuine acknowledgment of your work.
The reason so many black hat schemes exist is that a strong backlink profile is difficult to build. It takes time, effort, and quality work that others want to reference.
When site owners earn backlinks from authoritative websites—like local business associations, trade publications, and high-authority directories—their domain authority grows. This is one of the longest-lasting methods of building SEO success. While algorithm updates will affect your ranking factors in terms of other SEO strategies, a link profile to your own site from relevant sources is powerful and stable. When experts compare multiple relevant pages, in nearly all cases, the website with higher domain authority outperforms competitors. Search engines reward high authority backlinks across all organic searches.
How Do You Get More Backlinks?
These strategies consider how to earn high-authority backlinks for your contractor business. The goal is to earn as many relevant backlinks as possible—both to send referral traffic to your site and to improve your overall domain authority. Every inbound link to your service pages, case studies, how-to guides, and technical articles across your site improves your overall domain. As you consider each step to earning more inbound links, consider why backlinks are occurring. Or more precisely, why would other websites link to your contractor site?
Create High-Quality Content
Not all earned backlinks require additional work beyond the actual creation of the content. Sometimes, creating high-quality content is enough to receive high-quality backlinks. When this is the case, you’ll notice websites naturally backlinking to your content. Using a link monitoring tool, such as Moz, AHRefs, or Semrush can help you monitor your website and track any naturally occurring links.
High-quality content is the most important component of your SEO strategy. Authoritative websites, potential customers, and search engines search for meaningful and unique content. Thoughtfully considering every blog post, case study, before-and-after gallery, and other content is the only ranking factor you should focus on. Every web page should represent your authentic and unique contractor brand. If you create great content, quality backlinks will follow.
For contractors, a detailed guide on “How to Prepare Your Home for Winter HVAC Service” or “Signs Your Roof Needs Replacement Soon” can earn backlinks from homeowner blogs, local news sites, and home improvement publications.
Perform Outreach
Once you publish content to your website, you can actively market your most important pages. There are a number of ways to perform outreach to increase the likelihood of earning high-authority backlinks.
Participate in networking including online forums and in-person networking within your trade. Building relationships within online communities and connecting with industry influencers help increase the visibility of your content. When you share a relevant page with people or even your domain name in your communications, you’re likely to earn backlinks.
Contacting relevant influencers in the home services space with shareable content can also earn backlinks. Other contractors, home improvement bloggers, and real estate agents are always looking for content to recommend. When you provide helpful content and insights their audiences can benefit from, they’ll gladly share it.
Similar to contacting influencers, guest posts, blogs, and podcasts are valuable for SEO backlinks. When you engage with contemporaries within your industry with ideas and pitches for a high-quality article, a link to your own website is a powerful reward for your participation. Unlike link schemes where low-quality and non-relevant websites offer backlinks for a fee, external links from author profiles help your performance across search engine results pages.
You should also share your best content. Shareable content is often helpful, informative, and highly relevant. A detailed case study of a complex roofing project, a before-and-after transformation gallery, or a how-to guide that genuinely solves homeowner problems are all shareable. Including social sharing buttons on your site makes it simple for users to link to your content. Taking time to create unique and valuable content helps it stand out from the crowd.
Use Social Media
Shining a light on your content improves how many backlinks you earn. Don’t expect others to crawl through your website and discover your most powerful content. Make sure to tell others about it through your social media platforms. For long-form content, sharing snippets across a number of posts will invite relevant audiences to engage with your content and potentially link to it.
Monitor For Broken Links
Over time, backlinks can send readers to a 404 page if the content has been deleted or if the URL has changed. Find websites that are already backlinking to content similar to the piece you just created. Sending them a quick email encouraging them to look at your content can be enough to get them to switch their backlink to your content.
Finding a piece of content that you’d like to link to your website that has a broken link is beneficial to you and the host. Broken links and errors on a website harm SEO. If you do the hard work of identifying the URL and the broken link, and include a link to your own website, it’s likely you’ll earn an inbound link. In the case of sites with high domain authority, there can be many opportunities to transfer the link equity from their site to your own.
Increase Directory Listings
There are many directories that offer backlinks to your website. Your local Chamber of Commerce likely has a business directory you can add your business to. Industry-specific directories for contractors, trade associations, and partner directories all provide valuable backlinks. The contractors you refer business to and the brands you represent are likely to provide links to your site. There are a number of monitoring tools that ensure your information is accurately represented across directories. Actively auditing all references to your site is key to SEO success, especially in terms of link building.
Maintain Your Content
Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and other SEO tools are vital to gaining insights into your performance across the web. When you actively monitor your most important content, you can plan strategies to optimize a web page and improve your backlink profile. High-quality contractor websites never stop monitoring pages for stronger content and technical SEO improvements.
Search engine algorithm updates and strategies from competing contractors will always change how your website performs. If you see changes in performance in Google Search Console or other platforms, you can intelligently act to improve search visibility. A quick refresh of content and outreach can earn new backlinks for your most important pages.
3 Ways SEO Backlinks Can Grow Your Business
If you’re still unsure why your web pages need backlinks for SEO, then consider why top-ranking pages have so many links pointing toward their domain.
- Great content gets noticed: Referring domains are tacit reviews of your contractor website. A website owner must add an outbound link. Web crawlers transfer link equity from that site to yours. This means creating great content and promoting it through social and email campaigns. Look for opportunities for guest blogging on home improvement publications and industry sites.
- Disavow spammy backlinks: Backlinks critical to your growth are high-quality and reputable web pages. Avoid any attempts to manipulate search engines. Focus on great content and ignore anyone promising dozens of links for cheap. Spammy links have high risk and almost no reward.
- Gain backlinks through outreach: When reading industry-specific websites and home improvement publications, check for broken links. If the anchor text is relevant to your service page or case study, send the site owner a quick contact noting the broken link and including a link to your resource. You can also share your best content in social media, forums, and relevant networks. SEO is often confused with the drive to rank higher. While more link equity helps your search visibility, organic traffic will be relevant when a trusted website links to your content. This off-page SEO strategy is effective and worthwhile.
Inbound links are essential for SEO because they’re stable and long-lasting. When a third-party link references your content, that connection will likely last for years. While incredibly valuable and essential for SEO strategy, backlinking is a time-consuming process that, despite your best efforts, may not always result in success quickly. Valve+Meter has specific strategies and tools to rank higher, including gaining more links from reputable websites in your industry. Let Valve+Meter take link-building off of your plate. Our experienced professionals have extensive knowledge of building backlink profiles for contractors.
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