Whether you’re a small business owner or run a Fortune 500 company, SEO has an enormous impact on the success of your business. Your SEO strategy determines how easily your target customers can find you. Given that 75% of internet users don’t even look past the first page of search results, that’s no easy task.

Here are 12 simple SEO tips and tricks you can use to get your site in front of your future customers:

1. Target Relevant Primary and Secondary Keywords

Keyword research is the foundation of any good SEO strategy. If you know how to use keywords effectively, you can develop content that attracts more people to your website. The first step is to identify your page’s primary and secondary keywords.

Your primary keyword is the main focus of your content. You only need to pick one primary keyword per page. It should be relevant to what your page’s focus, your brand identity, your products, and your services.

Your secondary keywords support the main topic. You will probably have several of these. Often, they’re more granular than the primary keyword and represent subtopics you’re covering throughout an article. Try to include them naturally in your content, but don’t force them if they don’t fit.

You can use the Keyword Magic Tool to find your primary and secondary keywords.

Here’s how it works:

First, enter a seed keyword representing the main topic you want to target.

Next, choose your primary keyword. Try and find one that’s super relevant and aligns with your goals. For example, perhaps you want to write an educational blog post about travel, and you want to find a keyword with a lower difficulty.

Pay close attention to the Questions and Related Keywords sections to build your list of potential supporting keywords.

To learn more, check out our blog post about the four types of keywords you could target.

2. Write Quality Original Content

If you want users to find and return to your site, you need quality content that is original, comprehensive, and evergreen.

Original content shows the audience your unique perspective and expertise and enables them to build a relationship with you. What’s more, search engine algorithms, especially Google, are designed to sniff out unique content. Those who practice good SEO and publish trustworthy original content are likely to increase searches.

Ideally, your content should be comprehensive. That means the content you publish answers everything a user might want to know about that topic. Comprehensive pages help show search engines that you’re an authority on that topic.

The SEO Content Template Tool can help you write more comprehensive content. It analyzes high-ranking competitor content for your target keyword and tells you what attributes you should target to perform well.

Finally, evergreen content has long-term value, which will continue to be relevant and generate traffic over a long period. Inbound marketing is the gift that keeps on giving because it continues to produce results while your focus is elsewhere.

When creating evergreen content, think about what topics will bring long-term value to your readers without needing significant updates. Try to avoid seasonal, breaking news stories, or time-sensitive data stories. These pages are unlikely to remain relevant over time.

3. Format Your Content for Search Engines & Target Featured Snippets

If you want the content you write to perform well, make sure you’re answering the questions your audience is asking. One way to do this is to target featured snippets.

Featured snippets appear at the top of the search results page on Google. They’re designed to answer a user’s question without requiring them to leave the page. They’re highly visible, helpful, and likely to attract organic traffic since they appear before numbered results. You might also see them referred to as SERP features.

These positions are highly sought after by digital marketers. To win one, you need to optimize your content to target them. The strategies you use to target featured snippets can make your content more helpful to readers and improve your SEO, even if you don’t win the snippet in question.

Here’s what to do:

First, choose which content you want to optimize to target a featured snippet. Use the Keyword Magic tool to identify relevant keywords with the search intent and SERP feature you want to target.

Next, search for that keyword yourself to see what type of content is currently featured. Make a note of what question the content answers and how it’s written. You can also see top SERP results in your target location by selecting the triangle next to a keyword in the tool.

For example, is the snippet a bulleted list or a table? Is the information correct? What else ranks well? These observations will give you an idea of how to edit your content.

Now edit your content.

Make sure your content both asks and answers the target question in the snippet as clearly and concisely as possible. After all, studies show that a piece of content that asks a question is more likely to have a featured snippet.

Organize your page using heading and subheaders. If it makes sense for your page, try to use one of your subheaders to target your desired SERP feature. Headings and subheadings make it easy to understand or search your page, which can help improve your search ranking.

Finally, tighten up your page’s copy. Try to use short, direct sentences (no more than 20 words) with language that isn’t too complicated. And while you should try to avoid single-sentence paragraphs, you don’t want them to be too long, either.

4. Optimize Your Page Title and Meta Description

Your page title and meta description might be the first thing your audience ever sees. Users might decide whether to click or skip your page based on these alone. That’s a lot of power for so few words, so make sure they’re impactful.

Typically, whatever platform you use to host your website offers an easy way to edit your page title and meta description. WordPress, for instance, offers two boxes labeled “SEO title” and “meta description.”

Here are a few tips to remember:

• Keep your page title between 30 and 60 characters
• Keep your meta description under 160 characters
• Include your target keyword
• Communicate what your page is about and what makes it unique
• Make sure your title and meta description are unique for every page

5. Use Short, Descriptive URLs

Improving your URL structure can significantly impact your on-page SEO with relatively little effort. A clean URL can help search engines understand your page and gives you a more user-friendly appearance in the SERPs.

Best of all, it’s relatively easy to do, even for SEO beginners.

An effective URL should:

• Use keywords: Try to include your primary keyword, if you can
• Be readable: When your visitor reads the URL, it should be easy for them to understand what the page is about
• Be concise: Shorter URLs (around 60 characters) are preferable. That’s because many search engines can’t process longer URLs and might rank you lower as a result.

6. Generate Backlinks from High Site Authority Websites

Backlinks, or external links leading to your site, are a critical ranking factor. Links from reputable sources can increase your site’s authority and improve your SEO over time. You can acquire those backlinks through a process called link building.

But how do you know which backlink sources to target? It’s simple: find out who your competitors get their backlinks from. Use the Backlink Gap Tool to compare your current backlink profile with your competitors and find new opportunities.

To use the Backlink Gap tool:

1. Enter your domain and up to four competitors, and click “Find prospects.”
2. Use the report filters to narrow down your results. For example, you might choose to look only at the best opportunities with an Authority Score of 80 or higher.
3. Select the backlink opportunities you’re interested in pursuing, and click “Start outreach” to send them to a Link Building tool project. Use the Link Building tool to pursue them without ever leaving Semrush. If you don’t have a current Link Building tool project, you’ll be prompted to create one.

Of course, that’s not the only way to generate backlinks. Here are a few other ideas:

• Offer to write a guest post for other outlets, particularly if you have an interesting infographic or something else to offer.
• Reach out to publishers to cover any original research or data you’ve put together for your on-site content.
• Get listed in industry directories. You may need to join professional industry associations, use local citation services, networking groups, or business organizations, so you can further establish credibility.

7. Remove Anything That Loads Slowly

Page load time doesn’t just impact user experience. It can also affect your SEO. After all, if a page loads too slowly, users are unlikely to stick around, increasing your bounce rate. A page’s loading time is one of the three Core Web Vitals and a ranking factor.

Google PageSpeed Insights is a free SEO tool that scores your desktop and mobile page speed on a scale of zero to 100, with 100 being the fastest.

If your page loads too slowly, look for page elements that might be increasing your load time. For example, do you have unnecessary plugins added to your page? Try removing them to increase your page’s speed.

You can check your site for this and other factors using the Site Audit tool. Site Audit has over 140 checks for various SEO issues, including slow loading time, HTTPS implementation, markups, Core Web Vitals, broken links, and more. Use it in tandem with PageSpeed insights to ensure your site is up to speed.

8. Use a Mix of Internal and External Links

Using internal and external links effectively can improve crawlability, user experience, and credibility. Ideally, these links should lead to useful, relevant information.

Internal links direct users to other pages on your site. They help search engine crawlers find your content and encourage users to stay on your site longer. For example, you could link between related blog posts to help your audience find more information on a topic they’re researching without ever leaving your site.

External links are links that lead a user to another website. You can use these to link to websites with quality, authoritative content on the topic you’re writing about. Remember to vet your external links before adding them, as linking to low-quality content could negatively impact your credibility.

9. Optimize Your Graphics

It’s hard to resist a colorful graphic or an image that perfectly captures the essence of a topic. If you create such images for your website, make sure they’re optimized. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Size and Formatting: Make sure you’re using the image size and file type that works best for your readers. If an image is too large, it could slow down your page. If the file type isn’t supported, the image might not load at all.
• Accessibility: Always include descriptive alt text for each image. Not only does this help make your site more accessible for screen readers, but it also creates opportunities to integrate more supporting keywords. Avoid embedding important text elements in your images unless there’s another way to access them.
• Context: Provide context for your images by placing them beside relevant text on your page. If possible, try to place your most important image near the top of the page.
• Links: Create descriptive names and logical URL structures for all of your images. Not only does this help to optimize them for organic search, but it also makes it easier for others to share your pictures on their sites, potentially granting you backlinks.
• Test: Always remember to test your pages on mobile and desktop. Users tend to search in Google Images from mobile more often than on desktop, so optimizing your images for mobile could have additional benefits.

10. Conduct Regular Site Audits

Performing regular site audits helps to ensure your site remains both functional and user-friendly. It’s also an excellent way to catch issues you might have missed, like broken links, orphaned pages, or slow load times. Then, you can prioritize and address them before they have a significant impact.

To get started:

1. Create a new project for your website.
2. Specify your page source and how many pages you’d like to crawl.
3. Provide any additional specifications, including your crawler settings, disallowed URLs, or URL parameters.
4. Run or schedule your site audit.

Let me take a guess as to where you’re at right now.

You’re writing a blog, and following all of the so-called “best practices,” but you’re not seeing any SEO impact.

Trust me, you’re not alone on this one.

Heck, even I’ve been there—having my blog dwindle down to the unexplored depths of Page 50 and failing to see any organic traffic.

…No matter how many times I refreshed Google Analytics.

The Relationship Between Blogging and Backlinks

When you’re writing a blog, you wouldn’t be alone in thinking that great content will be enough to make your site rank in Google. After all, content is king, right?

Not necessarily.

Although having quality content is essential, it’s just as essential to have backlinks. 

Connecting your blog to another, high-quality website is how you’ll reach the top spots.

Why? Well, because backlinks are Google’s reputation tool. Their search engine spiders sieve through the internet by crawling backlinks, and having your site virtually connected to a trustworthy website is how you’ll pass that reputation to your own blog.

Think about it: Google’s (or any search engine’s, for that matter) main aim is to show the best, most relevant and highest quality result for a user’s query. If they fail—and show fishy results on the first page—they won’t be trusted, and their audience will head elsewhere.

Simply put: It’s in everyone’s best interests to have a great reputation for your blog. You want to be the best source of content in your niche, and your users want to visit a trustworthy site. Google wants to connect the two.

But, don’t just take my word for it. Let’s put it into practice.

Take a quick look at the top results when you type a phrase into Google. As an example, I’ll use “best times to post on social media.”

But why is this page ranking so highly? Yes, the content is great—but that’s not the only reason why. I’ll bet it’s their backlinks.

After digging through this information, I found tons of awesome backlinks pointing back to their “Best Times to Post on Social Media” blog post that’s ranking so highly in the SERPs:

There’s no doubt that these backlinks—from websites like CBBlogers (DA of 52)—are contributing to CoSchedule’s high rankings.

Still don’t believe me? Consider this: 99.2% of all top 50 results in the SERPs have at least one external link pointing to them.

In short: You’ll need strong backlinks to stand any chance of your blog (or blog posts) ranking highly in any search engine.

How to Get Backlinks to Your Blog: 10 Simple Tricks for Blogs of Any Size

1. Think About Your Content’s Format

I know what you’re thinking: “Elise, you just told me that content isn’t king. Why are you listing this as the first step?”

…Hear me out.

While backlinks are the best way to boost organic search traffic, you’ll need something to rank in Google and send that search traffic to. Yes, that’s your blog content.

(Trust me—that sounds tricker than it actually is. If you’re really knowledgeable about a topic and you can type fast, you’ll be able to knock a 2,000+ word post out in a couple of hours!)

Why is 2,000+ words the sweet spot for blogging, though?

Well, according to this data by HubSpot, pages with 2,000 – 2,249 words see the second-highest volume of linking domains (AKA backlinks). That shoots even higher for blog posts that exceed 2,500 words:

A similar correlation happens for word count and organic traffic, too, with blog content that’ s 2,250 – 2,500 words in length seeing the highest amount of organic search traffic:

So, since Google obviously rewards sites that aren’t afraid to go in-depth with their content, don’t be afraid to go all out with your blog posts.

But hold up—are you letting out a sigh of relief after your 2,000 words have been cranked out? It’s not time to relax, yet!

Listicles, tutorials and how-to guides tend to dominate the SERPs, but it’s also worth spending some time on the headline of your blog content—often used as the meta title shown in the SERPs.

Create a headline that grabs attention so the people who are looking to dish out backlinks are more likely to click your result.

If you’re able to win them over with your awesome, 2,000+ word content, why wouldn’t they link to it?

2. Share Your Content on Social Media

You already know that social shares are a blog’s nirvana, right?

I, personally, do this all the time. Since I’m a freelance digital marketing writer, I’m no stranger to stalking the #SEO hashtag and browsing new content from other blogs in the industry.

I’ll bet my bottom dollar that your audience (and the people who are looking to dish out backlinks) are doing the same, too.

Sharing your content on social media not only boosts the number of eyeballs on your blog, but it helps to establish credibility.

Think about it: Which one of these websites would you trust more if you were looking to add an external link from your blog?

A) A blog post with 0 social shares

B) A blog post with 834 social shares on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest

I’ll bet my second bottom dollar that you’d pick option B. You want to point your audience—and Google’s spiders—in the direction of awesome content with great user experience, right?

Remember: Authority and credibility are crucial to SEO.

Having your content shared on social media also puts you in a better position to gain backlinks.

YouTube video:

These links are no-follow, but there’s still a debate as to how much Google references these no-follow links in their ranking algorithm. Regardless of how much they’re used in the SERPs, you’ll still get one huge benefit when building these backlinks to your blog: brand awareness.

Remember what I said about other bloggers always being on the hunt for pages to link to?

Here’s where things get interesting. Although these social media giants dish out no-follow links, there’s a proven relationship between social shares and organic rankings.

The same happens for Facebook shares and incoming links, too:

But what does that mean?

Well, although Google doesn’t technically class social shares as part of their algorithm, it’s clear to see that there’s some impact between the volume of social shares on your blog content and its chances of ranking highly.

You can improve your chances of gaining backlinks by using these tips when sharing your blog content on social media:

• Include an image to accompany your link
• Add relevant hashtags to boost the number of impressions on your post
• Optimize your content for each platform, using this infographic by Digital Branding Institute:

3. … Including Relevant Communities

54.4% of the world’s population use the internet. That’s just shy of 4.2 billion people.

With so many people relying on the internet to do weird, wacky and everyday things, there’s bound to be a community of people who are interested in your content.

Heck, there’s even a subreddit for people who love Photoshopping arms onto birds—over 169,000 of them, for that matter!

What I’m trying to get at is this: There’s bound to be an online community of people who’d love to read the blog content you’re sharing.

…Even if you’re writing about birds with Photoshopped arms.

But how can you find these online communities without dedicating an entire afternoon to digging through the internet? There are two ways:

1. Send a survey to your blog readers, asking where they like to hang out online. (Bonus: People might be more inclined to answer if you offer an incentive to take part—such as free access to one of your products, or a gift card.)

2. Dig through places that cultivate online communities like Facebook Groups, Quora, Reddit and LinkedIn.

The first one is pretty simple.

The second one is a bit tricker, but not impossible. I’m going to show you how.

So, let’s pretend that I’ve got a technology blog that reviews gaming products. I could search for “technology” or “gaming” on Facebook, hit Groups and join any of these:

I could do the same on Quora using the Topics tab:

…and the same on Reddit using the Communities and users tab:

Although you won’t always get follow links from these communities, you’re placing your blog content in front of people who are most likely to link to it from their own content.

Don’t believe me?

Adding content to Quora was named as one of the techniques that drove an 11,065% increase in organic traffic to UAV Coach. In fact, Quora became their third-highest source of referral traffic overall:

…I’ll bet that a high percentage of these people were other bloggers. Since UAV Coach nailed the structure and depth of their blog post, there’s a solid chance they’ll build links from it.

4. Syndicate Your Content to Other Websites

How many times have you seen the words, “This post previously appeared on…” at the end of an article you’re reading?

You know, the things that look like this:

That’s taken from my syndicated blog post on Business 2 Community—and a fantastic way for bloggers to build backlinks to their blog.

I mean, that screenshot is living proof!

Syndicating your content means copying all (or part) of a blog post you’ve written, and submitting it as a guest post on another blog.

You’re able to get contextual backlinks to your original post, and with websites like Business 2 Community (DA 83), Medium (DA 93) and LinkedIn Publisher (DA 98) all allowing content syndication, you could get fantastic backlinks from SEO powerhouses that are bound to make a dent in your blog’s backlink profile.

The best part? Because it’s a simple copy-and-paste job, it won’t take long to start seeing new backlinks.

Digital Current, a marketing agency, syndicated an old piece of content from their blog. The result?

• 80+ backlinks from 34 referring domains on major industry sites.
• 10+ keywords ranked on the first page of the SERPs—including competitive terms like “mobile SEO” and “mobile search engine optimization.”
• 1,500+ social shares across Google+, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Not a bad result for a simple bit of copy and pasting, right?

However, content syndication comes with a warning: The syndicated version of your content might outrank the original piece on your own blog.

That’s because these websites have strong ranking power already, meaning they could take up the top spots and push your original blog post further down in the SERPs.

5. Submit Guest Posts

Back in 2014, the guest blogging debate was rife.

“Okay, I’m calling it: If you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s become a more and more spammy practice, and if you’re doing a lot of guest blogging then you’re hanging out with really bad company.”

Here’s why: Google doesn’t like spammy guest blogging that’s only done for the purpose of gaining links. You know the ones—500-words of spun content that’s barely relevant to the site it’s being pitched to.

These days, bloggers don’t want to publish low-quality, spun content on their website. Not only does it worsen user experience, but it doesn’t help to build the high-authority reputation that Google rewards with higher rankings.

However, guest blogs that are long-form and value-packed aren’t dead. In fact, they’re thriving.

Just take a look at this post I’m writing for Monitor Backlinks, with a do-follow link in the author bio section:

…I’m building a backlink to my blog from a website with a DA score of 54.

The best part? I’m building brand awareness for my blog, and writing for a group of SEOs that might link to it from their own blog. That’ll give me another backlink, and an even better chance of ranking in Google!

Wouldn’t you love to get a link from one of those websites to your blog?

When you’re using the guest blogging strategy to build backlinks to your blog, you’ll need to carefully craft an awesome piece of content if you want to get accepted.

Hare a few tips to boost your chances of a successful guest post:

• Read the blog’s guidelines before submitting your post.
• Make it long-form (2,000+ words).
• Add internal links to relevant pieces from the blog you’re pitching the article to.
• Include a link to your blog in the article (if you’re allowed). If not, stick to author bio links.
• If possible, offer to contribute regular content—i.e. one post per month.

6. Comment on Other Popular Blogs

Another old-school link building tactic to build backlinks to blogs is commenting on other blogs in your industry.

Let me explain: If I had a beauty blog which was used to review makeup products, I might want to comment on blog posts from Cult Beauty, Makeup Savvy or Women’s Health.

The only problem with blog commenting as a link building tactic?

The links you’re building might be no-follow. Remember: The SEO value of no-follow links is a bit blurry, but they’re not totally useless.

No-follow links make it easy for other bloggers—who are looking to hand out backlinks—to find your content. If you’ve followed the first step (of creating awesome content), why wouldn’t they treat yours as a backlink source goldmine?

When you’re using this strategy, though, there’s one thing to be wary of: Avoid pointless commenting.

You don’t want to be that person who leaves “great post!” as every comment. It’s obvious you haven’t taken time to read the post, and it gives you a spammy reputation. That’s not going to do anyone any favors.

So, take the time to read the post you’re going to comment on. You could:

• Reference a certain point they made in the post
• Mention how you love their writing style
• Ask a question related to a point they’ve covered

SEO expert Matthew Woodward ran his own experiment to check how blog commenting impacted his blog’s rankings.

After commenting on hundreds of high PR blog posts, his keywords jumped up at least 10 positions—and that’s before Google had time to catch up with them all.

Here’s what he ended his experiment with:

“Clearly high PR blog comments do carry some weight and still provide traction with Google although I wouldn’t like to completely rely on them to get me to the number 1 position. You should definitely be using them to support and diversify your existing link building campaigns.”

7. Send Press Releases About Your Blog

If you’re still wondering how to build backlinks to your blog, here’s a tip you mightn’t have heard of: using press releases.

Acting as mini news stories telling people things about your website, you might be fooled into thinking that press releases are only relevant for blogs attached to e-commerce websites.

After all, new product launches and events make up 90% of press releases, right?

Not necessarily.

You could create a press release if there’s something exciting happening on your blog. That could be:

• If you’re hiring someone (like a virtual assistant)
• If you’ve recently re-designed your blog
• If you’re reviewing a new product from a brand

And the best part about press release backlinks? You could get contextual backlinks from huge news websites—including Forbes, Huffington Post and Entrepreneur.

Just take a look at this piece of coverage of Making Sense of Cents, a personal finance blog, on Forbes:

Who’s to say you couldn’t turn a story like this into a press release for your blog?

…Not me, that’s for sure!

So, are you ready to start using press releases to build backlinks? Here’s what you’ll need to do:

1. Think of your story. Try to make it as interesting as possible.

2. Write the press release—including the who, what, where, when, why and how’s.

3. Write a landing page and publish it on your blog—including more information than the press releases, which will give journalists a reason to dish out a backlink to your blog.

4. Link to the landing page in your press release.

5. Make a list of news websites to target. Remember, always aim for the most relevant person (i.e. if you’re a personal finance blog, add the personal finance editor to your target list).

6. Send your pitch.

7. Follow-up, if necessary, after a couple of days.

If you’re thinking of trying this tip, remember that it may only work for more established blogs. News websites need to cater to demand, and if you don’t have an already-established audience who have heard of your blog, it’s unlikely to get coverage.

So, add it to your long-term to-do list!

8. Respond to HARO Queries

Here’s a not-so-secret tip that I’ve used to build backlinks to my blog: responding to HARO queries.

A platform that connects journalists looking for sources to ordinary people (like you and I), using HARO is a fantastic—and scalable—way to give your blog’s backlink profile a boost.

HARO allows bloggers to sign up as a source, and receive daily emails from journalists who are looking for someone to contribute to the piece they’re writing.

There’s over 50,000+ news queries from journalists every year, but you’re able to sign up to the channel that best suits your blog—including business and finance, tech and general lifestyle.

…But while that’s all well and good, you want to know how it actually helps to build backlinks. Am I right?

Here’s your answer: After spotting a journalist asking for tips on getting more freelance clients, I chirped in with my two cents. As a freelancer, that’s my bread and butter.

The result of spending five minutes on a Monday morning writing a quick response? This contextual backlink to my blog’s homepage, from a site with a Domain Authority of 65:

Not bad, right?

You can kick off this strategy for your own blog by signing up to HARO here.

Set aside a few minutes each day to respond to relevant queries, making sure that your pitch stands out. Here’s how to do that:

• Prove you’re credible by adding links to previous coverage of your blog.
• Make your pitch unique. Don’t re-hash the same, overused tip!
• Don’t over-do it. Keep it short enough for the journalist to digest.
• Add your personality. Remember: There’s nobody else like you. Use that to your advantage!

Once your pitch has been sent, keep an eye on your backlink profile. If you’ve followed the steps above, I’m sure there’ll be new additions coming soon!

9. Create Round-Up Blog Posts

I’ll bet you’re thinking this right now: “Elise, I should be taking part in other blogger’s round-ups if I want to get links… Not the other way around!”

Let me tell you something, my friend: That’s not true. (You’ve been brainwashed.)

You see, you’re able to build links to your blog by creating round-ups, and hosting them on your website.

…But I’ve got something to admit: This wasn’t my idea. It’s a great one, but I can’t take credit.

When I took part in the HARO request I shared in the step above, Fit Small Business reached out to me to let me know—and asked whether I’d consider linking to the blog post from my own site:

This technique also worked for our small business SEO round-up.

One of the SEO experts who took part, Jordan Kasteller, added a link to the round-up (and his feature) on his blog’s.

If you’re wanting to use this technique to build backlinks to your blog, here’s what you can do:

1. Find a list of other bloggers to take part in your round-up. (You can even use HARO for this, by taking on the part of a journalist.)

2. Publish the round-up piece.

3. Email all of your contributors, thanking them for taking part—and asking for it to be shared on their website.

Do you believe me now when I say round-ups on your own blog can get you backlinks?

10. Review Products, and Tell the Company

If you’re regularly reviewing products on your blog, you might be sitting on a huge backlink opportunity goldmine. Whether you’re reviewing gaming products or mascaras, you’re able to turn this blog content into tons of backlinks.

Here’s how:

1. Write the review, as normal—linking to the brand’s website in your piece.

2. Send an email to the PR team of the brand’s product that you’ve reviewed, including a link to your coverage. Ask them to consider sharing this on their social media, or adding to their product page.

Simple, right? But extremely effective.

This link building strategy works because it’s similar to giving testimonials. If you’re able to write a piece of content that praises a brand’s product, why wouldn’t they want to share it?

Plus, this tactic takes a job off their hands. Instead of taking time from their business to send products and ask for reviews, you’re helping them out. The least they can do is reward you with a backlink to your blog.