Photo of a hand holding a globe with connections to show the importance of backlinks to connect sites to one another and improve rankings on Google.

4 of My Most Surprising Backlinks

Preparing for our upcoming Building Backlinks Masterclass means I’ve been thinking a lot about the various places my own backlinks have come from.  Honestly, my backlinks have come from all over but I thought it would be fun to share a few places that might be less common. You might be familiar with more common backlink opportunities such as guest blogging, news interviews and therapist directories. But the truth is there are many, many different ways to get backlinks. So, here are a few of my more “out of the box” backlinks!

Job Listings

Honestly, some of my highest quality (.edu and .gov) backlinks have come from job listings!  My undergraduate degree was from the School of Social Work at the University of Missouri.  As a graduate, I’ve always known they have an online job board for job openings that are relevant to our field.  So, when I’ve had local openings I always make sure to ask it be added to that site.  One day when I was looking at my own backlinks I realized that this thing I’ve just kind of automatically done is actually getting us great backlinks!  Recently, I realized our state (Missouri) also has a state wide job board I can post openings which gives me a .gov backlinks!

*Quick Tip: .edu and .gov backlinks are considered some of the best, because search engines assume those websites are only going to link to other high quality sites!

Podcasts

I have discovered that I love being interviewed on podcasts! I have no intention of ever starting my own because they sound like a ton of work, but it’s so much fun to just chat with someone for awhile and call it work.  The other great benefit is that podcasts always publish show notes where they can link to your website.  Best of all, their websites usually have great SEO themselves so they can be really powerful backlinks!

Many of my current or former SEO clients have managed to get interviewed on podcasts after we work together and I always love listening when they send me the link.  They’ve gotten interviewed on business building podcasts, local ones where they serve as a mental health professional or podcasts from other therapists created such as my friend Veronica’s podcast for moms.

*Quick Tip: No matter what stage of practice you are in, you can probably find a podcast to reach out to. If you haven’t been on a podcast before, just think of it as talking to a friend on the phone. They’re generally pretty casual conversations.

Comment Boards

Pretty often I’ll be looking at my Google Search Console and realize that I have a backlink to my site from somewhere I’ve never heard of.  Interestingly, when I follow those links I’ll occasionally find one of my blog posts was given as a resource in answer to a question on a comment board somewhere else on the web.  This has actually happened a couple of times with a blog post I wrote on basic sleep hygiene and another I wrote about how I like to explain leaning in to anxiety.

In other words, if you write blog posts on subjects people want to hear about they will naturally share your posts! This is how Google really likes to see your website being shared.

People often make the mistake of thinking they’re only writing blog posts for SEO. The truth is that you’ll get the best results if you write truly helpful information with the intent of helping people similar to your ideal client.

Quick Tip: If you focus on writing truly helpful blog posts, people will want to share them! I caution you against assuming blog posts are just for SEO.  They serve many other purposes as well and really great ones will get you future backlinks if they’re shared!

A Paleo Meal Prep Business

One of my favorite local businesses is Paleo meal prep shop called Back 2 Basics Cooking.  I’ve gotten to know the owner over the years and we’ve become friends.  She teaches meal prep classes for people who want to learn to prep their meals ahead of time and eat healthy all week. And the last couple years she’s also offered premade frozen paleo meals that people can purchase and heat up when they’re ready to eat.  It’s such a cool business!  But since many of her clients are interested in a healthy, wholistic lifestyle she created a “Local Resources” page and was kind enough to link to my private practice website.

Quick Tip: Think outside the box when building backlinks.  What other local businesses might have clients who could also benefit from your services?  See if they have a resource page on their website they could list you on or if you could write a guest blog post!  A friend of mine even wrote a guest blog post about travel anxiety for our local airport’s website!

Image of a city with the words" Building Backlinks Simplified SEO Consulting" to promote our upcoming Building Backlinks training for private practice owners.

Upcoming Masterclass

Are you interested in learning more ways you can build backlinks for your website?  I’m giving a very low cost ($59) two part training on Building Backlinks July 2 & 9th from 1-2:15 Central time.  I’ll go over everything you know to develop your own ethical and effective backlink building strategy.  Then, I’ll send you the replay a couple days later so you have the video to refer to later!

 

 

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