Show us a content maker who refuses to mention his material on well-known and reputable sites; such a person simply does not exist. Every SEO specialist strives to earn high authority backlinks, and sometimes, this race becomes endless. Today, we will reveal all the secrets around backlinks, destroy popular myths, and present you with the most effective link-building campaigns.
High authority backlinks: basic info
Starting acquaintance with high authority backlinks with confusing definitions is not the best strategy, so let’s begin with simple and vivid association. Imagine you are a novice sports blogger, but videos don’t get into trends, and the audience’s attention does not grow. However, at one point, information about your content appears on the blog of a famous athlete, e.g., Cristiano Ronaldo or LeBron James, with a message like “This is a cool channel with daily fascinating and interesting videos!”
As a result, firstly, a backlink will appear on your web page, and then web traffic will begin to grow because the placement of your link on authoritative sites will become a confirmation of the reliability and high content value for search engines. Thus, top-quality backlinks are links that come to our page from well-known sites with a high level of reputation or, more formally, with a high domain authority.
“Authority” as a central term in the SEO World
In the world of marketing and SEO, numbers play a key role, so when talking about high-quality links, it is necessary to operationalize the concept of “authority.” Fortunately, there is a special gradation for this, namely, domain authority indicators, which take values from 1 to 100.
So, inbound link quality from sites/platforms such as LinkedIn, Reddit, or Tumblr will be the highest since they have domain authority scores of 100, 99, and 98 points, respectively. There are other metrics for measuring backlinks. However, their essence boils down to the same principles as DA.
High authority backlinks & Google Search Algorithms
In a conversation between two inexperienced marketers, the phrase about high authority sites and their backlinks will sound monosyllabic. We can not say the same about search engine optimization algorithms, which perceive all backlinks in completely different ways, e.g., the Google system ranks backlinks from less to more authoritative, sending to the top those sites that have the most number of backlinks from resources with a high reputation like The Wall Street Journal or The Washington Post.
For this reason, not all backlinks will be as effective as the site owner expects; therefore, to get to the top of search engine rankings, you need to put a lot of effort into creating high-quality backlinks.
Domain Authority Score and its SEO Importance
We have repeatedly mentioned the key role of DA of high authority sites in promoting your content. However, what exact privileges does the owner of the high domain authority get?
Let’s figure it out:
- High places in search strings.
- Unconditional trust from other sites.
- Boost awareness of your own website in a certain niche.
Please remember that a high DA is not a panacea, and the success of your website primarily depends on the quality of your content marketing strategy. DA is a great help, but the quality and quantity of inbound links play a decisive role.
High Authority Backlinks Strict Definition
Now that you are familiar with all the concepts that surround the idea of a high-quality backlink, we can give a clear definition of this phenomenon. So, authority backlinks are any links that come from web pages with a DA above 70.
However, in our world, everything is relative, and this statement is also relevant for backlinks. For example, among sites with a legal orientation, a page with a DA equal to 55 will be weakly authoritative. However, the same website from the field of hairdressing will be very reliable because there are few sites linking to this topic.
Authority link building: the biggest myth destruction
Amateur SEO specialists think that their main goal is to saturate the content with a huge number of inbound and outbound links; however, let us ask a question. Suppose you create content in the field of sports; how do you think which of the options will have a greater positive impact on the site promotion – a single mention from such a giant as Sports Illustrated or a tenfold mention by newspapers that gather 20 readers daily?
The answer is obvious. Link quantity should not become an end in itself for a content maker because the credibility of the resource is much more important. If you still have doubts, then know that research has shown that a backlink from a site with 80 DA will bring more profit than ten backlinks with a DA score of half as much.
Top-5 High Authority Backlinks Creation Methods
To assess the severity of generating backlinks from high authority sites, it is enough to look at the price tag of this service, which sometimes reaches tens of thousands of dollars. However, there are a number of link-building strategies that you can successfully implement without intermediaries but with a sufficient amount of effort and time.
Write guest posts
If you open five random ratings with a presentation of popular ways of creating high-quality backlinks, then guest posts will occupy the last places because of the false idea that this method has recently begun to become outdated. However, this statement does not correspond to reality because guest posting remains one of the most powerful tools of backlink building.
In simple words, a guest post is content that the blog owner publishes. However, the author is a third party, e.g., a random subscriber, a fan, or another blogger interested in promoting. If you consider this method for obtaining high authority links, then you need to know the basic rules. Firstly, if you are going to deal with guest blogging, then select authoritative websites with a high DA or domain rating. Secondly, create relevant content for relevant websites; that is, it makes no sense to publish a post about fishing in a blog about legal services.
Thirdly, only high-quality content can encourage users to go to your site through a guest post. Today, on each authority website, there is a huge competition for publishing a blog post. Therefore, your content should be unique, interesting, and catchy. Finally, do not forget to place links to your site and insert anchor text.
Overall, if your post will differ favorably from others and benefit both the site owner and his readership, then there is every chance that you will create a bridge between the audience from a high authority site and your blog, which will be the key to perfect SEO results.
Link exchanges
Generally speaking, among all the ways by which you can attract backlinks, this one is both the simplest and the trickiest one. The meaning is too simple: two parties agree on the exchange of links, but there are two limitations. Firstly, the simple publication of links will not appeal to the website’s search engine ranking algorithms, so it is necessary to accompany the link with content. Secondly, exchange is always about trust, which is very easy to destroy if you interact with, e.g., spammy websites. Therefore, to make the link exchange effective, pick the right partners and follow the rules of the search engine.
HARO
The “Help a reporter out” platform, popularly known as HARO, is a very in-demand way to get a high authority backlink. You may ask, what is the tool’s essence? So, this resource brings together journalists from different fields and all registered users. Usually, journalists need to prepare material by a strict deadline, so they turn to outside ideas. At this moment, you come on stage, and if the journalist likes your proposition, he will mention you in his article, and you will get a backlink.
There are also a few nuances in this link-building strategy:
- When registering, specify the scope of your specialization to receive offers from relevant sites.
- Carefully study the requirements because if your response does not comply with the described rules, you will simply lose time.
- Cooperate with the sites of your profile because if you work with construction content but fulfill orders for a cooking site, then its backlink will not give you profit.
- Be careful with anonymous sites because it can be either a world-famous publisher who does not want to disclose himself or a dummy who does not deserve attention.
- Accept offers only from high authority websites since if your domain rating is equal to 50, and you accept an order from a publisher with a 14 rating, then it will do you harm rather than benefit.
HARO is very similar to an academic community in which a young researcher wants a recognized scientist to mention him in the work. To encourage journalists from Forbes or Marca to pay attention to you, you should provide them with top-quality content, and if they use it at least once, then, firstly, you will obtain a reliable backlink, and secondly, the demand for your expertise will increase exponentially.
SkyScraper Strategy
The race for first place in search engines is a competition that does not stop day or night. Content creators regularly try to outperform each other, and on the basis of such competitiveness, a SkyScraper strategy with a simple meaning but complex execution appeared.
Its essence lies in the fact that you use keyword research to find the content in demand, analyze it, and produce even more unique information, that is as if you are adding an extra floor to a skyscraper. Next, you offer your updated content to interested, reputable sites and get high-quality backlinks.
As in the case of HARO, a one-time success in the SkyScraper strategy can put on stream the receipt of high authority links for your site. The hardest thing is to get recognition from other sources who will agree to publish your content, so you need to treat its creation with full dedication.
Replace broken links
Very often, news sites, educational platforms, sports resources, and other websites place so many links inside the materials that they do not have time to monitor their relevance, and many of them turn into broken links. This moment is perfect for you because, using the dead link checker tool, you can detect a broken link and offer your own.
Once again, you should offer your content in place of broken links only to highly authoritative sources to extract more profit and upgrade organic traffic and awareness among users. Overall, the broken link-building practice is one of the most promising because you can replace a few links with your content in parallel.
Red flags in authority link building
There are scammers in any business, and, unfortunately, in attempts to build backlinks with high authority, you can run into them. The idea of the scheme is not new; the seller offers you a backlink with a fake high level of authority and sets a solid price tag, but it turns out that the linking page is either empty or does not carry any value.
Nevertheless, with the growth of fraud, specialists invent various tools to counteract, and in our scenario, these are special tags, in particular, nofollow and noindex. In the first case, large publishers and sites add a tag to nofollow links, which instantly indicates to other community members the dishonesty of this backlink. In turn, the noindex attribute is a sign that the system should hide the content that contains such inbound links from organic search.
In contrast, the dofollow tag means that the editorial board of a reputable source has approved the material; it refers to it without fear, and other sites can also use this verified content.
Frequently Asked Questions — FAQ
In the SEO context, which backlinks fall into the category of authoritative?
If we operate only with numbers, then you can consider backlinks from sites with a DA rating above 70-75 reliable and expect that the presence of such a link in your article or blog will increase the trust and recognition of your content.
Which domain authority indicator is acceptable for developing trust?
It all depends on the niche to which your content belongs. So, for the legal, marketing, or business spheres, authoritative backlinks are those that come from sites with a DA above 80. In turn, for the area of fishing, hunting, or crop production, a 50 DA score is the threshold of a high authority website.
What methods besides those mentioned above are effective in getting backlinks from high-quality websites?
Without a word, writing posts with anchor text, replacing broken links, or using the SkyScraper strategy are the most popular options. However, we also recommend taking a closer look at such methods as link roundup, social media account development, and collaboration with experts in your niche.