Travel Backlinks for SEO
This is the ultimate guide to help you build travel Backlinks.
This is a definitive guide for getting some high-quality Travel Backlinks for your Blog in 2022.
This guide will help you with information about Backlinks and some actionable steps in order to get your first backlink.
So Let Us Dive In
Basics of Link Building
In this section of the post, we will try to understand the basics of link building. This section is to make you familiar with the term if you are not aware of Link Building. This is going to help you understand how you can get quality travel backlinks.
What is link building?
Link building is the activity in which you get a one-way hyperlink pointing to your website. This helps you to build your website authority and helps in your off-page search engine optimisation (SEO). One of the most common practices of link buildings includes Guest Blogging, Content Marketing, Email Outreach and building personal relationships with fellow travel Bloggers in the same domain.
Why do you think Link Building is very Important?
Ranking on search engine and that too in travel niche is very hard. Looking at the fact that there are around more 500 million blogs in the current environment. To make your content visible to the target audience you will have to rank at least in Top 10 on google.
And for Google to rank your travel blog on the top it looks for the data that how many websites are linking to your blog. And this link should be something which relates to your website. That means if you are travel blog then the website linking to your blog should be from the same niche i.e. travelling.
Google make sure to check the linking quality as well as compared to the linking quantity.
Now the question which will pop in your mind is?
What is a high-quality link? How can I get a high-quality link?
Well, don’t stress we are going to cover this slowly in our guide as soon as you are more familiar with the term Link Building.
If your looking for reading about some link building tips then Jonathan Gorham has shared some really cool link building tips on his website which I really find it helpful.
How can I find High-Quality travel backlinks for my blog?
Before learning about the step by step guide of linking building for your travel blog, Let us first understand about High-Quality links and the factors which make a website high-quality. Because you have to target such website for your backlinks.
If you know about these factors you can easily understand and analyze whether the backlinks which you get from the travel blog or travel website is going to be a high-quality link or not. In this way, you can focus on the link which is going to rank your travel blog on top of Google.
With that being said, here are the factors which identify whether the link is worth building or not.
Authority of the Page
You may have heard people posting ads and invitation for writing a travel guest post on Facebook by charging some amount and giving non-competitive backlinks.
I use to wonder myself what is Authority of the Page before analyzing it myself and stepping into the travel blog industry full time.
If the page which is linking to your domain is a popular page of the website having a very good rating at Ahref then getting a link from the page is going to have a very a good impact on your website ranking on Google.
That’s because links from authoritative pages pass more authority (also known as PageRank) to your site.
(Note: Although Google doesn’t share PageRank information publicly, they still use it as the foundation of their algorithm).
You can easily check a proxy indicator of PageRank (“PageRating”) using Ahrefs.
Enter the URL on Ahref and then check the URL Rating
Authority of the Site
The quality of the link is also evaluated by the authority of the site. The authority of the site is nothing but a rating of the website on scale of 0 – 100. The higher the number the higher is the authority of the site.
Lonely Planet, Nomadic Matt all these websites have higher domain authority. So if you are getting a link from a travel blog like that it is going to have a better impact on your ranking.
If you want to check the domain ranking either you can use Ahref and check the DR score or you can also go to Moz and check your “Domain Authority” Metric.
Relevancy of the Site
In a simple term to explain about this is that if you are running a travel blog like us, It is efficient to get the backlinks from the website which are under the same domain/niche.
If you get a backlink from some pet foods or other website then that link will not count for you.
So you not only have to look for authoritative website but also look out for website which is as close as to your niche.
Position of the Link
Well, Do you know that the position of the Link also a factor for the quality of your backlinks?
The link’s position on the page is a important factor.
To be specific, Links in the footers and sidebars are not as much important compared to the links in the actual body.
Bottom line? You want your links to appear within the main body of a webpage
Anchor Text of the Link
Another important factor is the anchor text of the link.
What is a anchor text?
It is the clickable text of the link with which your website is links. Google uses these anchor text for ranking and at times as a keyword as well.
If you have a hyperlink for getting cheap flight ticket, Google is going to assume that the website where this link is redirecting is about getting deal on flight tickets.
No Follow Vs Do Follow Link
No follow links or rel=”No Follow” in your link text means you don’t want google to share the Pagerank with the website you are linking to.
According to Google Use the nofollow value when other values don’t apply,and you’d rather Google not associate your site with, or crawl the linked page from, your site.
For your backlinks you should always target for a Do follow link wherever possible.
These are some of the factors which makes the link a high quality link,
Now let us dig in more to understand, How can we get the link by using White Hat SEO technique.
How do I get high-quality travel backlinks using Content Marketing
We all know about this crude fact that content is the king, writing a quality content keep user as the center of the post should be you first priority. But your journey doesn’t end there.
You have come up with different ideas to promote your content. But then do you know which kind of contents is good for link building?
Here are the 4 types of content that tend to generate the most travel backlinks:
Visual Elements
What it is?
Do define what are visual elements – It is the information which you share in forms of image which can be used or referred by another website by giving you due credit.
- Images
- Infographics
- Hotel Photographs
- Location Photographs
- Charts and other visual Elements.
Why it works?
Well the answer is simple, It it super easy to refer to. Also you are creating one minute product which people can use and refer your website. Not everyone knows graphic designing or have the pictures of the location which you have visited. So they can always refer to the images you created and give you due credit for them.
It doesn’t work in case of text. The above Infographics which I created for How to use Content marketing for high quality backlinks is an example of visual elements.
List Post
What it is?
Anything which you are sharing in form of List, be it your travel itinerary, Your top things to do in a country, Best food to try in a city or be it the list of the picturesque location at a particular place. All the contents of these form come under this.
Why it works?
List post have a lot of information which people is looking for.
Let us suppose I am going to travel to Amsterdam. I make use of these list post in every stages of my planning to the particular destination.
I start planning by looking for the options for flights, then I look for the list of places to live in the city and once the commute is planned. I start looking for top things to do in the city, foods to try in the city.
Even if I want to find any Indian restaurant in the city, I search for the list on Google. So you understand the importance of List Post.
In Depth Guide
What it is?
If you know about something and you are good at it.It is better to create a guide about that certain topic including all the information you can about that topic. Your in depth analysis. So that if people want to learn about that topic they can find each and every information about that in a single Page.
Why it works?
This is an easy one, It packs so much amount of data that you don’t have to look at any other place if you want to know about that topic. Like in case you feel like starting a Travel Blog in 2022 we covered that in one of our Blog post.
Now that you’ve created a piece of link-worthy content, it’s time to build some links.
How?
Let read more about it in our next section.
How to Build Good Quality Travel Backlinks?
Now that you know about What is Travel Backlinks and the importance of link building. In this section, we will learn about the actionable steps for getting high-quality travel backlinks for your website.
These are different methods you can use in order to get the travel backlinks.
Let us read more about them
Guest Posting
What it is?
Guest Posting is when you are posting on something at someone’s else website. There are website which accept writers other their in house writers.
There could be number of reason why this happens but the most common one in travel domain is when you personally have not visited a particular country and you want to write about that you try to get in touch with fellow travel bloggers who have visited that country or who are resident of that country.
You can either join Facebook group which are there in market there is fair chance for you getting some good option for guest posting. One other thing you can do is searching on google to find blogs accepting guest contributors:
your keyword + inurl:write-for-us
your keyword + guest-posts
your keyword + inurl:guest-post-guidelines
your keyword + become a contributor
your keyword + bloggers wanted
your keyword + submit an article
your keyword + want to write for
your keyword + contribute
your keyword + become an author
your keyword + guest post by
your keyword + now accepting guest posts
Why it works?
When you write a guest post you actually don’t get paid for writing a guest post but in return, you can add a do follow link in the post ( for not competing keywords ) or maybe a author info link.
Try getting a link in the actual content body as they add more value, which we have already covered above.
Broken Link Building
What it is?
Broken link building is a method in which you find a high quality site under your niche and then check for existing link on that site which is ending up with 404 error i.e. website not found.
You can use this Free Chrome Tool to check for Broken links which is called Check my link.
Once you have identified the link where that website is throwing page not found error the next step if that you will have drop the website owner an email about that.
Why it works?
When you explain the website owner clearly to the certain resource is not working and you offer them your personal link.
You are helping them out for their ranking as well as Google track all the links which you are linking and 404 error affects in bad way when it comes to user experience.
In that way Google knows that the articles are being updated on a frequent basis and it is worth ranking.
Press Releases
What it is?
Press releases are official statement to media persons.It is better to cover any events happening around you which are related to the niche you website is about, if you are good at writing press releases there are higher chances for your getting travel backlinks from bloggers or Journalist.
Why it works?
If you have attended the event you are the best person to write about that in detail manner and if it is good. It is free promotion which you are getting when people link to your post.
Link to Relevant Site in your niche
What it is?
You shouldn’t just wait for authoritative site under your niche to link to you. You have to send out an outreach email to them. Be proactive and connect with them in order to get a link to your website.
Why it works?
There is always a 50-50 percent chance that they will link you back. If not linking they could at least share your content with their audience if you are lucky.
At Backlinko, Brian Dean has explained in a very efficient way of using Outreach Email for creating backlinks.
You can follow the steps in order to find out how to use Outreach Email for linking.
Submit your website to Business Directories
What it is?
Business Directories are website’s which act as directory for searching other websites based on the niche.
If you haven’t submitted you Website under the Business directory you should consider doing that.
Why it works?
Since travelling and things related to travel is a hot topic on internet. Business directories links for travel get a really good click as compared to other niche.
Content Promotion
What it is?
If you have money to spare you can consider promoting the content on social media platform in forms of ads. This will help you widen the reach of the new post which you have shared or written.
Why it works?
If you have setup the ad in a correct target audience. Your post visibility will increase and if you have followed all the steps for a generating good quality content then you have chances for getting a link back.
.Edu links
What it is?
The backlinks from the domain ending with .edu has a very high domain authority and are considerd to provide high quality backlinks.
If you have want some high quality travel backlinks from .EDU sites, you can check out the resource page from the universities around you.
Resource pages have link to website which are helpful for students and faculties.
If you find that they are linking to travel blogs same as you then you can reach out to them over an email.
Why it works?
All SEO experts will come on the same point that getting a link from .EDU site is going to boost your Google rankings. There could be slim chance of getting an .EDU backlinks but you should try because if you get one your website ranking will become very good.
Creating Infographics
What it is?
One interesting thing which you can try doing is creating visual elements like inforgraphics which I explained above in the Post.
You can embed the infographics and shareable method on your website so that it is easy for other bloggers or website owner to use that. One interesting tool is using the embedded code generator for sharing your infographic.
You can get travel backlinks without any issues.
Why it works?
Infographics are the one which gets shared on all the social platform , be it instagram, twitter , facebook or Pinterest. The complete social network Pinterest is around the idea of infographics.
Writing Testimonials
What it is?
You may have read this very often on the website which offer product and services.
There is a section where the website shared the feedbacks from the customers. Those feedbacks are called Testimonials.
If you have been using some software related to your travelling or something under the travel niche.
Write down a testimonials for that and ask the website owner to point it to your personal website.
Why it works?
Testimonials if something which brings trust to the business owners websites. So if you are their valuable customer they will be more than happy to share your feedback about their business service and in return you will get an easy backlink to your website.
Discussion Boards and Answer Sites
What it is?
You know about Quora, Yahoo boards, Reddit these websites are perfect example of discussion boards.
You can join them for the area of expertise in our case travelling and wait for the time if someone is asking around something which you can answer.
Got a question?
Answer with all your knowledge and share the website link which has covered that topic in more depth.
Why it works?
Because eveyrone has question around something and you are just solving their problems. You just have to keep this in mind that this is going to give you a no follow link.
Now you may have question that ,
Wait, Does No follow link really count in SEO?
For that I would like you do head out again to Backlinko and see what Brian Dean has to say about that in his post no follow link.
A simple and short answer is yet they work.
Roundup Posts
What it is?
A round up post is a post which you create with the help of the top influencer in your niche asking them a single question and see how they respond to that.
So first thing you will have to find out the top influencer in your travel niche and connect with them explaining about that you are looking for creating a roundup post and you can share your question with them.
When you received the response, you create a roundup post with their answers using their profile images and linking to their website.
Why it works?
Once you have shared the blogpost, you will send out an email to all the person in that blog . This is one great way of getting more social shares.
Social shares means that your post will have a wider audience reach and there are chances more people will link to your website.
Find Unlinked Mentions
What it is?
Maybe somewhere on web people have referred your site but have not share the link there. These are the places from where you can get backlinks. Because the website owner is already aware of you that is why he/she has refereed your name.
How can you find your mentions?
Well, you can either use Mention or Buzzsumo both will help you out in knowing about which all websites are mentioning you without linking to you.
Once you have found the website you can check the Domain Authority for that site from here Free Backlink Checker.
If the Domain Authority is really good it is worth hitting the website owner with an email asking the backlinks. If not you can pass.
Why it works?
It is easy to get backlinks from the websites which are already referring you in their content. Since the website owner already know about you there are more chances for you to get a travel backlink.
Do a Reverse Image Search
What it is?
This is certainly a common thing in the travel domain. You may find website using your travel image without giving you credit for that.
So a reverse image search is a way of finding the website which is hosting the image by doing a search of the image.
Why it works?
If you have found a website which is using your image you can reach out to them thanking for using your visual element and asking them to give the due credit to your website as the image is copyright property of your site.
Competitor Backlink Check
What it is?
Finding out the website which is linking to your competitor website for the content which you have also posted.
There are multiple tools which you can use to get this information.
If you want to know the domain authority of a certain website or their backlink profile you can check that from Ahref.com website. But all these feature are not free.
If you want to check the Domain Authority for free you can do it by searching open site explorer which will take you to Moz.com.
One other free tool which I love using is Ubersuggest by Neil. You can analyse the backlink of your competitor for a single keyword easily from there. You can do 3 search per day for free.
Why it works?
Since the websites are already linking to your competitor website so if your content of the post is really nice there is a fair chance that you can get a backlink too.
Commenting
What it is?
This needs to explanation, Although it is not the biggest help in the link building campaign but it sure works in bringing traffic to your pages when you give some very good insight and share knowledge in the comments.
In cases people tend to like the link of the comment when they like what you are talking.
Why it works?
It is not going to be the best thing for getting backlinks. All the backlinks from comments are no-follow one. But you can certainly try doing this once in a while.
Conclusion
Link building is a very important thing for your SEO and ranking on Google be it any industry. Sure for Travel Backlinks, you will have to research in a different way but the methods of building link remain the same.
So you have to make sure that you are building more backlinks to your website along with your On-Page SEO.
The other ranking factors are Improved Page time, mobile friendly site, secure websites.
Now that I have shared the different methods of getting Backlinks
Which one you are going to use first for creating your Travel Backlinks, Send the response in comments.
FAQ
Are Backlinks still important for SEO?
How do you do backlinks for SEO?
Keep your links relevant.
Make friends with authority websites.
Concentrate on websites with real traffic.
Be careful while spreading your anchor text.
Get backlinks from high standard websites.
You can read more about that in our Travel Backlinks SEO Guide
Do follow backlinks sites 2020?
blogspot.com.
kinja.com.
purevolume.com.
kiwibox.com.
minds.com.
tumblr.com.
storeboard.com.
