Many companies and independent content creators struggle to find a footing in the digital realm. However, many of them fail to realize the potential of interlinking their own content throughout the website. Interlinked content with only a few outbound links is the sign of a high quality website.
Studies have also shown that brands with high quality blog content receive 97% more links to their website as a result. Why pass on the opportunity to get inbound traffic if all it takes is to change your optimization strategy?
Whitehat content optimization is something that very few people consider even today. But why is that the case? Let’s take a look at several guidelines as to how whitehat backlinks can help your site grow and rank higher in the SERPs.
Content first, SEO second
In order to talk about whitehat content optimization, we need to establish what that actually means. In short, content managers usually optimize content for SEO based on tools such as Adwords and SEM Rush – and call it a day. This is what is commonly referred to as “technical SEO” and there is nothing wrong with it.
However, recent changes to Google’s SERP algorithms have made it more viable for semantic search optimization (bear with us). Semantic search represents literal questions and phrasal search instead of using keywords as a starting point. Let’s look at an example of what whitehat optimization looks like as opposed to classic SEO:
- Technical – “Pregnancy medical research article”
- Semantic – “I would like to find medical research about pregnancies, articles in particular”
Whitehat optimization aims to make the user’s browsing experience faster, more comfortable and easier to manage. As backlinks represent interlinked content on your own website, coupling this method with semantic optimization can create a very user-friendly site as a result.
This is why whitehat backlink building is a very viable strategy in today’s age of AI-driven SERPs. Now that we have a better understanding of what whitehat backlinks can do, let’s see how we can create them. We promise that it gets easier as we move along.
Identify your audience
The easiest way to build a whitehat content creation methodology is to recognize who your readers are. Content should be written differently for professional marketing experts as opposed to the elderly who want to read something curious from time to time.
You can use a traffic tracking tool to identify who your visitors are and see if your current content plan suits their interests. Since you are going after whitehat backlinks, you don’t need to worry about keywords in your topics (as much as before, at least). Instead, you will rely on backlinks to your previous content in order to drive traffic forward.
Create a visitor’s profile and see if you can come up with conversational, thought-provoking content which doesn’t rely on keywords, industry trends or expected conventions. You’d be surprised as to how much people like seeing original content without the burdens of SEO.
Introduce guest blogging
Everyone likes substitute teachers, right? Think of your guest posts as occasional substitute teachers who come to your site and talk about something new for a change.
According to studies, 57% of companies use guest posts as a means to drive traffic in their websites. This is a great change of pace for any website and will certainly add to your whitehat backlink repository. You can fill guest posts with interlinked content just as you would do for your own writing.
However, the difference will be in the writing style, formatting as well as the topic of discussion. Being host to such varied content will do wonders for your SEO as well since you offer a multitude of pieces for people of different calibers.
Implement multimedia content
One of the best ways to break the proverbial ice with new audiences is to present them with content other than written pieces. Since you won’t target technical SEO with your backlinks, you can amend for that by introducing multimedia content into your website.
Videos, images, animation as well as podcasts are a great way to mix up the content plan from time to time. People love seeing varied content which they can see and hear rather than read exclusively. You are also able to mix multimedia into written articles to drive your point forward and solidify your claims.
Any piece of multimedia which you choose to place on your site should be hosted on a third-party service such as YouTube or ImageShack. This is to prevent slow load times and make sure that your site is easy to access by everyone, including people with low bandwidth.
Research has shown that 81% of online users skim through content without going into the details of anything they read. This can be amended by letting them enjoy a video, listen to an interview or look at a neatly designed chart. Mixing things up with multimedia and interlinking said content with existing articles and your products and services (if there are any) will do more than enough to rank your site higher in Google’s SERPs.
Talk to your audience
Communicating with your audience is the epitome of whitehat backlink building. Since there is no technical SEO, the driving force of your ranking can and should be your blog’s interactions.
Make sure to answer any comments that might pop up on your website and engage with the audience every chance you get. This goes both for your website and social media channels.
Live chat is also poised to become more popular, with growth of up to 87% in the next year. The more you engage with your audience throughout the website, the higher you will rank within the SERPs and attract new readers. This will build a community around your website and ensure that you get a lot of recurring traffic.
Integrate with social media
We are all guilty of using social media more than we care to admit. A great way to combine whitehat content optimization with social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram is to simply create dedicated pages on them.
You can interlink your social media channels with blog content and vice versa to create a network of backlinks. The multi-billion user base present on social media is ripe for taking over if you play your cards right.
After all, whitehat content aims to please the reader, not the technical SEO behind it. Luckily, social media platforms prefer content with more panache rather than content that sticks to formal rules and corporate bureaucracy (heavy words there).
Place creative people in charge of managing your social media pages and let them backlink to your blog as many times as possible during a week. Let people on Twitter and LinkedIn know that yes, there is this cool website out there with a lot of internal content ready to be enjoyed.
Ongoing optimization (Conclusion)
Once your backlinks are in place, you should continue developing the network further. Create new content which reflects the tone and style of previously published pieces. This will appease existing audiences and ensure that the whitehat backlink system you created continues evolving.
Just like with traditional SEO, your site will still need ongoing support and optimization to stay relevant. If you do it the right way, your site will rank high within SERPs and enjoy some much deserved traffic.
