[tweetshareinline tweet=”Backlinks are vital to your SEO strategy. They tell Google that your content is of high quality and that others think it’s good enough to link to.” username=”BrainVineSEO”]But getting backlinks can be difficult. You could always offer a guest blog in exchange for a backlink, but not every site that you want to link back to you wants to take that offer.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t have a backlink strategy and employ other methods of gaining backlinks. But you can increase the number of organic backlinks to your site simply by offering high-quality content that people want to link to. So what kind of content generates organic backlinks?

Think About Why People Link

The first step to creating backlink-worthy content is to know why people link in the first place. If you link to an external site either on a webpage or on a blog post, why do you choose that site? Usually, it’s because you get something out of it – it lends authority to your own content, there are images or video content that you want to reference, or even because you think it would be helpful for your own readers.

Take a close look at content that you choose to link to and think about what characteristics led you to link to that content over something else about the same topic. Then, try to create your own content to reflect those characteristics.

Be an Authority

A key characteristic of high-quality content is that it’s informative. It’s something users want to read. Sure, it’s important to include keywords and alt text for SEO, but your content should cater to readers, not to search engines. The search engines are taking user experience into account when ranking sites, so it’s important to make sure that you’re creating content with your users in mind.

[tweetshareinline tweet=”Research what’s already out there and then put your own spin on it. Make sure to link back to credible sites. If your content is better than the other content that’s out there, then yours will be what people will naturally link to.” username=”BrainVineSEO”]

Use Video and Images

The Internet is steadily moving towards video. Users will spend more time watching videos than they will reading text. So not only will this help with your SEO, but it’ll also attract more users who will spend more time on your page. And it’s not just about videos, either – images and infographics are also essential to your content.

[tweetshareinline tweet=”Visuals can help break up the text so it’s less intimidating to users, as well as helping users understand what your content is about.” username=”BrainVineSEO”] It makes your content much more engaging to your users, who will spend more time on your page, improving your bounce rate. Studies have shown that in addition to all of that, visual content also helps you obtain more organic backlinks.

The quality of your content and how it resonates with your users is the most important thing. Adding visuals improves your content, which has the knock-on effect of improving user experience, which increases your CTR and the number of backlinks you can get, which then improves your search rankings.