If you know anything about SEO, you know that building links is tough but essential. Website owners and content creators are always looking for new ways to get more backlinks. That said, one effective strategy is to create link-worthy content that can attract editorial links. Editorial links are one of the basic backlinks everyone should know about.
This guide will cover what editorial links are, their advantages, and how to get more of them.
What We Cover in This Article🧐
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What are Editorial Links❓
An editorial link is a hyperlink from another website, often a prominent publication, leading back to your site.
Owners of high authority websites understand that high quality editorial links are essential, so they don’t link to random, low quality web pages. Instead, they select only the highest quality content for their editorial link building efforts.
For example, eCommerce product pages usually don’t gain editorial links. However, helpful guides or free tools can earn many editorial backlinks because websites want to share valuable resources with their readers.
Editorial links.
Editorial links are hyperlinks from one website to another that are given naturally by editors, writers, or content creators without any direct exchange or request. These links are considered highly valuable in the context of search engine optimization (SEO), especially for SaaS and technology companies.
They are seen as a strong endorsement of the quality and relevance of the linked content, indicating that the linking site finds the content useful and worthy of sharing with its audience.
Editorial links are essentially a vote of confidence from one site to another. When a reputable site links to your content, it signals to search engines that your content is trustworthy and valuable. This can significantly boost your site’s authority and improve its rankings in search results.
For SaaS and technology companies, earning these links can be a game-changer, as it positions them as leaders in their field and drives organic traffic to their site.
Why are Editorial Links Important?💡
Editorial links are important because they don’t violate Google’s spam policies and are part of its key ranking factors. Google sees links as ‘votes,’ helping to decide which pages rank higher in search results. So, generally, pages with more backlinks rank better because they are seen as trustworthy recommendations from other websites.
To generate editorial links, consider strategies such as digital PR campaigns and creating link-worthy content like original research and statistics, which can attract backlinks from journalists and bloggers.
How are editorial links beneficial over other types of link building? Let’s find out.
Any backlink can improve your standing with Google; however, the linking site’s authority matters. When a respected website links to yours, which is generally the case with editorial links, it boosts your credibility with Google and internet users.
Therefore, I recommend aiming for backlinks from high authority sites to enhance your visibility and traffic and increase your chances of getting more backlinks. Prioritizing quality over quantity in link acquisition is crucial, so aim for inbound links from respected and high-authority websites.
Quality vs. Quantity in Link Building
Importance of Editorial Links in SEO
Editorial links play a crucial role in SEO as they are a key factor in search engine rankings. Search engines view editorial links as a sign of authority and trustworthiness, indicating that the linked content is of high quality and relevant to the user’s search query. The acquisition of editorial links can drive targeted traffic to a website, enhance its authority and credibility, and improve its overall SEO performance.
When search engines like Google see that your site is being linked to by high-authority websites, they interpret this as a signal that your content is valuable and relevant. This can lead to higher rankings in search results, which in turn drives more organic traffic to your site.
How SEO Works
Editorial links can also help build a strong link profile, further boosting your site’s SEO performance and making it more resilient to algorithm changes.
Benefits of Editorial Links🎯
Editorial links bring traffic by boosting your search engine positioning. People who see your content become more aware of your brand, thus increasing brand awareness. This cycle of building links is powerful because as you gain more traffic, more people might naturally link to your content.
Building good editorial links is about communication and relationships. Even though your website is online, people need to know who’s behind it.
For example, if you see your website hyperlinked somewhere, email and get in touch to thank them. This can lead to more opportunities to gain backlinks and is good for business.
You also build relationships when you contact other websites to build editorial links. Asking for a backlink is often as simple as reaching out. This helps you connect with other website owners and get your brand out there.
Get Featured in High-Quality Publications
Getting featured in high-quality publications is an effective way to attract editorial links. These publications have high editorial standards and are often out of reach for typical link-building tactics.
However, by creating high-quality, informative, and engaging content, websites can increase their chances of being featured in these publications. This can be achieved by publishing original research, comprehensive guides, insightful articles, or compelling multimedia content.
To get noticed by top-tier publications, focus on producing content that stands out. Original research and data-driven articles are attractive because they offer unique insights that other sites are likely to reference.
Comprehensive guides and tutorials that provide in-depth information on a topic can also attract editorial links, as they serve as valuable resources for readers. Multimedia content like infographics and videos can also make your content more engaging and shareable, increasing the likelihood of earning high-quality editorial links.
Lower Your Risk of Google Penalties
Editorial links are a 100% safe, white-hat SEO method that won’t land you in trouble with Google. Unlike acquired links, which can be obtained through link schemes or paid links, editorial links are given naturally by editors, writers, or content creators. This reduces the risk of Google penalties, which can negatively impact a website’s SEO performance.
Google’s algorithms are designed to detect and penalize manipulative link building practices. Paid links and link schemes can lead to severe penalties, including drops in search rankings or even de-indexing. In contrast, editorial links are earned naturally and are seen as genuine endorsements of your content.
Helps You Establish Authority
Any backlink can improve your standing with Google; however, the linking site’s authority matters. When a respected website links to yours, it boosts your credibility with Google and internet users.
Therefore, I recommend aiming for backlinks from high authority sites to enhance your visibility and traffic and increase your chances of getting more backlinks.
Improves Your Search Engine Ranking
Editorial links provide a significant boost to your website’s SEO value. Prioritizing quality over quantity in link acquisition is crucial, so aim for inbound links from respected and high-authority websites.
This has two main benefits:
1. Higher Google Ranking: More acquired links mean a better chance of outranking your competitors.
2. Stronger Link Profile: More editorial links can lead to even more links as your content gains visibility on Google, creating a snowball effect.
Benefits of editorial links.
Generates Traffic
Editorial links bring traffic by boosting your search engine positioning. People who see your content become more aware of your brand, thus increasing brand awareness. This cycle of building links is powerful because as you gain more traffic, more people might naturally link to your content.
Build Brand Awareness
Editorial links are great for brand building as they associate your company with a reputable publication. When a high-quality publication links to your website, it introduces your brand to their audience, increasing your visibility and credibility.
This can lead to more targeted traffic, improved brand awareness, and increased trust in your brand. By attracting editorial links, websites can establish themselves as authorities in their industry and build a strong brand reputation.
Helps you Build Better Relationships
Building good editorial links is about communication and relationships. Even though your website is online, people need to know who’s behind it.
For example, if you see your website hyperlinked somewhere, email and get in touch to thank them. This can lead to more opportunities to gain backlinks, which is good for business.
You also build relationships when you contact other websites to build editorial links. Asking for a backlink is often as simple as reaching out. This helps you connect with other website owners and get your brand out there.
What Type of Content Earns Editorial Backlinks?📝
To get backlinks, you need good content, called linkable assets. However, not all content attracts links, and not all linkable assets are made just for that purpose. Creating link-worthy content that focuses on getting organic links instead of just search traffic has many benefits.
Here are some forms of content that work well as linkable assets and how to create them.
Infographics
Infographics are still highly valued as linkable assets. They help you build quality links because they present information in a visually appealing and easy-to-understand format. People are more likely to share and link to visually engaging content, making infographics highly shareable on social media platforms and websites.
When other websites reference your infographic by linking to your site, it improves your website’s visibility and authority, leading to more traffic and better search engine placements.
Link building infographic | k2bIndia.
Tip: Use infographics when your content could be better understood in a visual format.
Online Tools and Calculators
Online tools and calculators can get many editorial links. For instance, here’s the backlink profile for the title capitalization or headline checker tool:
Screenshot of the number of backlinks earned by capitalizemytitle.com.
While such a resource can bring in a good number of links, it takes time and money to create.
Creating tools or calculators showcases your knowledge and credibility in your field, which appeals to websites seeking trustworthy resources to link to. As more sites link to your tools, it enhances your website’s visibility and authority, increasing your likelihood of gaining more links.
Case Studies and Research
Case studies and research can help you build links by providing valuable and original insights that others find worth referencing and sharing. For example, SERPninja’s B2B SaaS case study details their attempts to increase the company’s sign-ups and monthly revenue.
Screenshot of a case study conducted by SERPninja.
When you conduct thorough research or present compelling case studies like the one above, you offer unique perspectives and data that enrich the conversation within your industry.
Other websites, bloggers, and researchers may find your findings valuable and choose to link back to your content as a credible and authoritative source. This helps enhance your website’s visibility and credibility while attracting more traffic and potential customers.
Guides and Tutorials
Since there’s a lot of information online, finding the exact answer you’re looking for is tough. That’s why detailed guides and tutorials usually get many backlinks. Guides and tutorials can help you earn links by providing valuable and useful information to your audience.
For example, SEMrush’s link building guide for beginners offers a comprehensive overview of essential link acquisition strategies and techniques in a beginner-friendly format.
SEMrush’s link building guide for beginners.
When people find your guides or tutorials helpful, they are more likely to share them with others on their websites, social media platforms, or blogs. This sharing can increase your content’s visibility and the likelihood of other websites linking to your guides or tutorials as references.
Nailing editorial links comes down to smart link prospecting and finding the right places to score those high-quality backlinks.
How to Get High Quality Editorial Links🚀
Building editorial links takes effort, and there are no shortcuts. However, there are several effective ways to acquire these links.
Here are some foolproof methods to acquire editorial backlinks:
Create Link Worthy Content
It is pretty obvious, but link acquisition starts with great content. Your content must be unique, engaging, and valuable to your readers.
You’ll earn editorial links if you prove to Google and Internet users that you publish authoritative and actionable content. The simplest way to create a great piece of content is by understanding your target audience and offering more value than other top-rated articles for that query.
For example, if you are a link building agency, you want to create articles, resources, and tools surrounding topics such as SEO and link building.
Screenshot of the resources offered by SERPninja on their site.
When people search for information and write articles, they often link to the first credible website they find on Google. That’s why creating authoritative content is crucial. You want to impress visitors with your content so they use it as a resource instead of looking elsewhere.
Steps to Create Authoritative Content:
1. Brainstorm: Start by generating ideas for topics and choosing one that is relevant and important to your audience. Focus on addressing unanswered questions or providing in-depth insights into broader topics.
2. Research: Even if you’re an expert, there’s always more to learn. Conduct extensive research to discover new insights about your topic. Review what your competitors say and note anything valuable you find.
Hire a PR Professional For Outreach
Consider hiring a PR professional for outreach attempts. If you have a PR department, have them contact editors of major online publications. A PR professional helps get editorial links by contacting journalists, bloggers, and editors interested in featuring your content or story.
They create compelling and relevant pitches for these individuals and then share them. If the content resonates with the editors, they might include links to your website or content in their articles or posts.
If you don’t have a PR department, consider hiring a PR professional or using services from marketing agencies or independent providers.
Outreach Attempts
PR professionals use various networking techniques to engage with journalists, bloggers, and editors. This may involve personalized emails, social media messages, or direct calls to introduce your content or story and explain why it’s valuable to their audience.
Building relationships and maintaining open communication channels are essential for successful outreach efforts.
In most cases, you are required to pay a certain sum to the publication that chooses to link your site.
Manual Outreach Vs. Editorial Links
byu/Primary-Air6070 inlinkbuilding
Paid linking involves compensating publishers or websites to include a hyperlink to your content within their articles or posts. This payment can be for administrative fees, placement costs, or other related expenses associated with securing the editorial link.
Look For Broken Links
Broken links present an opportunity for you to gain editorial links. To do this, search for inactive and expired domains related to your area of focus. Use a backlink checker to examine the expired domain and its broken backlinks.
Ahrefs offers a specialized tool for checking backlinks and helping you identify broken backlinks.
Focus on checking the links from editorial websites with a high domain rating and numerous referring domains. Reach out to the editorial site owners, informing them about the issue and requesting them to replace the dead links with your website links.
Because you’re helping webmasters by flagging broken links on editorial websites, your site should get priority for replacing the dead link.
Dominate Your Niche
Infographic of the steps involved in dominating your niche.
The most effective way to obtain top-notch editorial links is by creating content that leads to your area of expertise. Produce multiple high-quality, authoritative, and thorough content to achieve dominance in your field.
Here’s how you can produce content to help you dominate your area of focus:
- Find Solutions to Problems: Find answers and solutions to questions and problems in your area of specialization. No matter your field, people will have unanswered questions and challenges. Your goal is to address as many of these as possible. Keep refining your content by adding new ideas and details over time to make it more authoritative and comprehensive.
- Explore Every Topic And Sub-topic In-depth: Explore every topic and sub-topic thoroughly. To create comprehensive content, delve deep into each subject, explore every angle, and cover every perspective. For instance, if you’re writing about guest posting, discuss topics like benefits and strategies involved in guest posting.
You can elaborate on each topic extensively within one article or make different articles surrounding the topics of guest posting.
- Create Evergreen Content and Infographics: Evergreen content stays relevant over time. For example, guides on link building strategies can be considered evergreen. Since the fundamentals of link building remain relatively constant over time, this guide will continue to be relevant and useful to readers regardless of changes in search engine algorithms or digital marketing trends.
As a result, such content can keep earning links for many years. But does that mean non-evergreen material can’t get editorial links?
SEO and search rankings of evergreen vs. non-evergreen content over time.
Even if it’s not timeless, link-worthy, data-rich content can still attract links. The key is to keep it updated. Nobody wants to link to outdated content. So, if you create topical content, I suggest updating it regularly with relevant and current data.
Connect with Experts to Gain Insider Knowledge: If your website covers topics you’re not an expert in, it’s smart to connect with specialists in the field. This gives you an edge over others who just research online and repeat what they find.
Seeking expert advice is a worthwhile investment in creating excellent content for your audience. If you want content that people naturally share and talk about in your niche, consulting with experts will help you reach that goal.
Participate in Discussion Forums: Forum link building using discussion forums is a great way to make people discover your content and acquire editorial links on relevant forums. But using them needs skill.
Use your signature wisely. Put your best link in your forum signature with text that makes people want to click. Don’t put more than one link; it might look like spam.
When there’s a big discussion on a forum, pay attention. Figure out the main arguments and create content that’s a reliable source for solving those questions.
Format your content based on the discussion. Answer every question and be fair. Use data and research to back up your points. It might take a lot of work, but if the topic is hot and your content is great, people will share your link.
Collaborations 🤝 Editorial LinksNetworking and collaborations have a lot of universal perks that benefit a lot of niches. But how do they help gain editorial links? Say you collaborate with industry peers or influencers, there’s a chance to co-create content like blog posts, research studies, or even case studies. These types of projects naturally come with attribution, meaning your collaborator will link back to your site, giving you high-quality editorial links. If you’re open to collaborating by being a guest on podcasts or interviews, other websites will often link back to your homepage or relevant pages as a citation. The more expert-level content you can offer, the higher the chance these interviews or mentions will come with a juicy editorial link. Hence, participating in collaborations exposes your brand to multiple ways of obtaining editorial links that can come in organically. |
Final Thoughts
Earning editorial links is crucial for SEO success. Creating valuable content, reaching out to experts, and dominating your niche can strengthen your online presence and enhance your website’s authority.
The strategies in this guide will help you get high-quality editorial links and improve your search engine rankings in 2024.
FAQs
- What exactly are editorial links?
Editorial links are backlinks you earn naturally when another website links to your content because it’s helpful or authoritative. No strings are attached, and no payment or trades are involved. Think of it as someone recommending your content just because it’s that good! - Why are editorial links important for SEO?
Editorial links are gold for SEO because they come from high-authority sites and signal to Google that your content is valuable. More editorial links mean better rankings and more traffic coming your way. Plus, they’re considered super “clean” in Google’s eyes! - How can I get more editorial links?
Create top-notch, shareable content. Write killer guides, conduct original research, or create useful tools—things that others find valuable and want to link to. Pro tip: Start building relationships with other website owners; it’s easier to get links from people you know.Related Articles
