Halt!
Before you climb any further in search engine results page (SERP) rankings, we need to check your authority level.
Hmm. Looks like you don’t have sufficient authority to pass. I guess your competitors will have to continue dominating you in the rankings! Come back when you have a few more high authority backlinks to show! [evil laughter]
Yes, it’s a silly analogy.
But this is surprisingly close to how the authority game works in Google and other search engines.
Your authority is a measure of how trustworthy and authoritative your site is – and the higher it is, the higher you’re likely to rank.
There are a lot of ways you can boost the authority of your website, some of which are more accessible and more effective than others. But arguably the best way to boost your authority is by building more high authority backlinks.
So how do you get them?
Don’t worry. We’re about to spill all the secrets.
Contents
- What Is a High Authority Backlink?
- Why Are High Authority Backlinks Important?
- The Trouble With High Authority Backlinks
- How to Get High Authority Backlinks: The Big Picture
- Building a Foundation for High Authority Backlinks
- Finding Good Opportunities
- Manually Building High Authority Backlinks
- Naturally Earning Links From High Authority Sources
What Is a High Authority Backlink?
Alright, so what the hell are we talking about?
We’re talking about high authority backlinks. These aren’t some pipsqueak, garbage backlinks that just anybody could get. These are elite, juicy backlinks that confer far more authority to your website.
The authority level of a backlink is almost exclusively dependent on the authority of the referring domain from whence it came. If a website has a very high domain authority, the backlinks you earn from it will be similarly high in authority. This makes the link much more valuable, since it will be seen as a more valuable indicator of your website’s trustworthiness and authoritativeness.
Obviously, domain authority isn’t the only considering factor we need to bear in mind when building backlinks, but it is one of the most important. That’s why focusing on high authority sites is essential for earning high quality backlinks that truly move the needle in search engine rankings.
While domain rating is critical, tactics like broken link building can also help you turn a valuable resource into an opportunity to gain powerful links that boost your position in the search engine results pages—because let’s face it, not all backlinks are created equal.
Why Are High Authority Backlinks Important?
Google Search is now a highly sophisticated interrelated set of algorithms working together to produce search results, but its core is arguably built around PageRank, which has been in play since day one.
Google wants to highly rank and prioritize websites that are perceived as more authoritative and trustworthy. PageRank is the system through which it figures this out. Essentially, this algorithm makes a determination of the authority level of a website based on the nature and volume of links pointing to it. If a website has many high authority backlinks pointing to it, it will become more authoritative in its own right. As it becomes more authoritative, it’s going to rank higher and become more visible in search engine results.
Basically, that means earning more high authority backlinks will help you rank higher in search engines, therefore allowing you to generate more organic traffic and get closer to achieving your long-term goals. The more high authority backlinks you earn, the better.
Now obviously, this doesn’t mean that high authority backlinks are the only backlinks worth getting, especially at the start of your campaign. Lower authority backlinks are less expensive to acquire and are often easier to acquire, and they can help you build a solid foundation on which you can expand your future efforts.
However, if you neglect high authority backlinks, you’re going to have a very hard time outcompeting rivals who make them a critical part of their overall strategy.
To earn quality backlinks from relevant and authoritative websites, consider strategies like creating content for guest posts or identifying opportunities for broken link replacements on resource pages.
While some nofollow links from a high authority site may not directly impact your site’s authority, they can still boost visibility for your web pages and support your overall search engine optimization efforts by aligning with search engine ranking algorithms.
The Trouble With High Authority Backlinks
Very cool, so we just acquire a ton of high authority backlinks and we’re good, right?
We suppose there’s some truth to this, but the reality is, earning high authority backlinks is much harder than it initially seems. High authority websites became high authority because of their trustworthiness, good judgment, discernment, and selective exclusivity. They intentionally gatekeep via very high internal standards, and they won’t work with just anybody.
Accordingly, it’s typically very hard, very expensive, or both to work with high authority referring domains. If you want to be featured as a guest author on a high authority website, you need to have a strong reputation in your field and something highly relevant to bring to the table. Even then, there’s no guarantee they’re going to want to work with you.
Similarly, if you choose to work with a link building agency, you can expect to pay more for high authority backlinks because of how hard they are to acquire.
Even so, high authority backlinks are so powerful that they’re often worth the extra costs and time investments.
How to Get High Authority Backlinks: The Big Picture
How exactly are you supposed to get high authority backlinks?
Here’s the big picture:
- The foundation. Before you even attempt to start acquiring high authority backlinks, you need a solid foundation in place. You need a reputable website with lots of content and some kind of specific expertise. Otherwise, you won’t have the linkable assets or profile necessary to get featured in authoritative sources.
- Finding good opportunities. Not every high authority source is going to be a valuable opportunity for high authority link acquisition. You’ll need to consider the relevance, strategic position, and accessibility of each potential source.
- Manual efforts. In a perfect world, you would be able to acquire all of your high authority backlinks without making any effort; they would naturally come to you. Unfortunately, it really works this way. Instead, you’ll need to undertake manual efforts to build the links you want.
- Natural earning. Of course, you can also pursue natural high authority link earning efforts as a peripheral strategy.
Building a Foundation for High Authority Backlinks
Everything starts with building a foundation. This foundation will make it much easier for you to acquire the high authority backlinks you need.
- Your website. The first thing a high authority source is going to look at when considering whether to link to you is your website. Your website should be highly polished, free of technical flaws, quick loading, and impressive. It should make an excellent first impression on anyone who visits it.
- Your core content. Similarly, you need strong content. Not only will this help establish you as an expert in your niche, but these pieces of content will also serve as linkable assets that make the high authority links you build even stronger. Additionally, good pieces of content can serve as a kind of portfolio for high authority websites considering you as a guest writer. The better your work is, the more likely you’ll be to be approved to write.
- Your author profile(s). Getting featured as a guest writer on a high authority publisher is much easier if you already have an existing author profile on several respectable websites. Consider starting your initiative by getting your work featured on lower tier sources, then gradually climbing your way to the top. Similarly, you should make sure you have credible expertise and credentials to bring to the table; high authority sources will be much more likely to approve your work if you have objective credentials that make you an authority in your field.
Finding Good Opportunities
Not every high authority source is worth building a link on.
So how do you find the best opportunities?
These should be your highest priorities:
- Domain authority (DA) score. Domain authority (DA) attempts to measure the authority of a website on an objective scale of 1 to 100. Any domain authority checker tool should be able to give you this information for any website. The higher the authority of the referring source, the higher authority the link will be.
- Topical relevance. You also need to consider the topical relevance of the website in question. Earning a high authority link from a source in your niche is much better than earning a similarly high authority link from a totally irrelevant source.
- Accessibility. Of course, you should also consider accessibility. Some high authority websites have easier paths to publishing and backlinking than others.
You can start the search by studying the backlink profiles of your competitors. They’ve likely worked with high authority sources in the past, and you can use those as inspiration to guide your search. You can also simply search for authorities in your niche or use social media to discover better publishers.
Manually Building High Authority Backlinks
Most companies will pursue manual link building as their primary link acquisition strategy. This is much harder for high authority links, but there is a process that can make it much more straightforward.
If you’re interested in guest posting on a high authority website, this is the primary process you should follow:
- Get a feel for the website. Before you do anything else, take a moment to get a feel for the website in question. What types of articles do they post? Who is their target audience? What value can you bring to this publisher? When it’s time to make a pitch, you’ll need to be highly specific; a general template you spam to all high authority websites simply isn’t going to work.
- Find the editor (or a similar authority). See if you can track down the editor for the high authority website and reach out to them personally. If you can’t find an editor, consider reaching out to another contributor individually. Failing that, you can issue a general query and hope to open a dialogue about guest publishing.
- Make your pitch. Once that line of dialogue is open, you can make a pitch. If the high authority website has publishing guidelines or tips for guest contributors, review them very carefully. Make a pitch you feel is going to be a valuable contribution to the high authority website; websites of this caliber aren’t going to waste their time with irrelevant or redundant materials, so offer something original and truly valuable for their target audience.
- Develop your content. Assuming your pitch is approved, work on developing your content according to the standards provided to you. This should be some of your best work, and your link within it should be valuable and natural.
- Comply with edits. High authority referring domains typically have high editorial standards; in fact, it’s part of the reason they rose to the top. Accordingly, you should be prepared to receive feedback and requested edits. Comply with these requests to the extent you can.
- Maintain your relationships. After publishing, don’t simply move on to the next high authority target. It’s important to maintain your relationships in this industry, and for more than one reason. For starters, there may be future publishing opportunities for you in the future; even if you don’t earn much authority from a subsequent backlink on the same referring domain, you can at least benefit from visibility and referral traffic. On top of that, your editor could be a valuable networking connection who leads you to new opportunities in the future.
However, there are some alternative strategies you can use to build backlinks on high authority websites, including:
- Volunteer sources. If you have a competent piece of original research, consider volunteering it as a potential source to cite. This is especially valuable if you’ve done some research on a topic of interest to the high authority referring domain.
- Offer to replace broken links. See if you can track down any broken links on the high authority website and offer to replace them with working, relevant links on your own website. It’s a mutually beneficial exchange.
- Help reporters. Connectively, the new home of Help a Reporter Out (HARO), gives you an opportunity to serve as an expert or volunteer information to journalists looking to write new stories. It’s a relatively easy way to get your name featured in major publishers.
- Donate or volunteer. Finally, consider donating or volunteering. This is especially relevant if you’re considering a high authority referring domain in the nonprofit space. Simply making a contribution could get your website featured on a contributors page or something similar.
Naturally Earning Links From High Authority Sources
It’s also possible to tailor your strategy to earn links from high authority sources more naturally. This is much harder and less consistent, but the good news is you’ve already done much of the work necessary to pursue this angle. If you have a strong foundation in place and you consistently produce good content, there’s a good chance that authorities in your field will discover and link to your work. The best thing you can do in support of this is to promote your work as intensely and frequently as possible to increase its visibility.
Are you interested in earning more of the high authority backlinks your website needs to thrive in the digital marketing space?
Do you just need some help with execution in your SEO campaign?
You’re in the right place. Contact us for a free consultation today!
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