The importance of link magnets for search engine ranking
Doesn’t that sound too good to be true? Just put a link magnet on the website, attract backlinks and then automatically move up the search engine rankings? As an SEO agency, we can hardly imagine anything more beautiful. But it’s not that simple. Still, it works.
Importance of backlinks for the search engine ranking
In the past, search engine optimization was easy. Some onpage optimization. Some backlinks. And it went. But already the thing with the onpage optimization has become much more complex. Not to mention offpage.
One thing is clear: without backlinks, nothing works in the search engine ranking. If you want to see your website rank high, you have to make an effort to get a good number of good backlinks. Google’s long-standing logic that websites must be good when others link to them has lost none of its meaning in its basic statement.
For years you could collect backlinks, from whoever and wherever. Google thought it was good. Backlinks are the basis for Google's Pagerank assessment, which for a long time was crucial for ranking in the search engine. This changed fundamentally with the Penguin update in 2012. Google noticed that the quality of the pages displayed had suffered due to the artificial collection of backlinks. From now on, the search engine tried to differentiate between good and bad backlinks.
For the website operator or the SEO agency many questions follow from this:
Which links are actually good? Or useless? Or even toxic? Should we buy links (the answer is no)? Is it worth registering in directories and posting news in press portals? What do our competitors do? And how do we get to really valuable, sustainable backlinks (the Gretchen question)?
Which websites have high authority?
The answer is given by the following list: The Moz Top 500 Websites
Unsurprisingly, Google, YouTube and Apple are in first place. On some of the highly ranked websites, you can post content yourself to provide links, such as Youtube, Blogger and WordPress. In addition to various sites from the Google empire, social media portals, Wikipedia, universities, the UN and sites for creating your own websites, editorial websites stand out as another type.
At positions 39 and 40 are the BBC and CNN. Forty-five is followed by the New York Times. As the first German website Spiegel. de is on place 233 and on 496 just so with Zeit. de. This type of website has a great temptation for website operators: Here content is created that makes it possible to link to other websites. And this content stays online for practically always. With extremely high authority that can be transferred to your own website.
How do I get a link on an editorial page?
The supposedly easiest way is to send a press release. This may work for DAX corporations and startup unicorns. For everyone else, the likelihood that you will get a journalist's attention with a press release, whether sent directly or through a distribution service, is extremely small.
So how can you do it?
You need a top interesting contributionthat the journalist 1. has never seen before and 2. is exactly in his field of interest. You should send it directly to him with a short, concise and friendly cover letter. If it goes well, you have it.
Journalists depend on permanently finding content for new interesting articles. When they find something interesting, they adopt it and quote them. With a link. Bingo. Or as Oliver Kahn once so beautifully put it, "There's the thing. "
How do link magnets work for search engine ranking?
Now, the fascinating thing is that linking entails further linking. Every journalist prefers to have a good story first. But if not first, then at least as quickly as possible behind. That's why journalists like to see what competitors are publishing. And if there's something good in it, why not write about it?
And now your link magnet comes into play again. If magazine A used your infographic, ideally magazine B will use it too, even though you never communicated with that magazine. The same goes for your study. Or a very special photo, animation or whatever.
Social Media can act as an additional avalanche for your link magnet. Influencers can't just publish paid posts either. They also depend on exciting news. The possibility of further dissemination, also to other journalists, is thus pushed.
Links in renowned media therefore magnetically attract further links. Your link magnet works.
And once the links are published, the authority of your website increases and your keywords in the search engine ranking automatically move up.
What can a link magnet be?
Link magnets work best when they are new and emotional are. New can be that you have developed an innovation. Or described or visualized a context in a special way for the first time. A new study. An expert interview with someone who is usually scarce. A new infographic. There are endless possibilities. Be creative!
What is the best way to push the search engine ranking?
- Analysis Content
Analyze possible content in the context of your company. The content should already suit you. Get together as a team. Consider: What is new? What is exciting? Which topics cause emotions to run high in your industry? - Analysis target audience
Your target audience for your link magnet are editors and journalists. Do your research. Who has already written about this topic? In which context? Twitter and Google News are good sources. Collect the addresses. - Creating the content
Content creation can mean writing text, creating graphics, taking a survey, or interviewing an expert. Whatever it is, do it carefully. Make sure no mistakes creep in. And best of all, pack a WOW effect into it. - Pitching to journalists.
Write a message to the journalists you found. This can be a direct email or a direct message on twitter or another social portal. Get right to the point. Concise. And friendly. - Demands without annoying
After a few days, it's okay to ask again. It's possible that your valuable message got lost in the daily routine. - Monitoring results
And then it's: Wait and see. Watch. And as soon as something has been published, share it diligently to do something yourself for further dissemination.
Summary
Backlinks are important for search engine ranking. Especially from websites with high authority. Link magnets are an excellent and sustainable way to get links from editorial websites. Your articles with novelty value and emotionality are eligible for this. We wish you good luck!
