A part of any effective search engine optimization effort is backlink generation. Links from other high-quality websites in to yours is still one of the best ways to improve your search rankings, by signaling to Google and the other search engines that your page, and your site, have a degree of authority on a given keyword or subject.

But with all the information out there about bad links, how is any marketing team supposed to know what they should and should not do to go about getting more backlinks?

Luckily, there are some areas where it makes sense to start. These ‘low-hanging fruit’ opportunities are low effort, and potentially high value.

1. Brand mentions – scour the web for any mention of your brand name, product, etc. Everywhere you find it, check for a link. If none is provided, reach out to the author or site owner to recommend that they add one.
    
2. Owned content – many companies have properties on the web that exist outside of our own sites, ie. business listings, article sites, microsites, etc. Any and all of these first-party sites should link back to your company’s main consumer-facing website.
    
3. Guest posting – it is easy to develop a list of blogs and news sites related to your industry. Check to see if they accept guest posts and put together quality content for them that links back to the key pages of your website.

When working to develop backlinks for your website, remember that quality counts more than quantity. The best links come from the best sites. So start with websites that already do well in Google rankings and work backward