Running a successful business these days isn't just about having great products. With fierce competition and the ever-changing Google algorithm, you need to work on your website's SEO (search engine optimisation) to make sure people can find you.
Good SEO helps your website climb the Google rankings, making it easier for customers to discover your lovely products. One key aspect of this is your domain rating and backlink profile, which tell Google how relevant and trustworthy your website is.
The domain rating is measured on a 100-point scale - though aiming for 100 might be a bit ambitious! You can get an estimation of your score for free on Ahrefs, a comprehensive SEO toolset that provides various features to help website owners improve their search engine rankings.
As well as running the Small Business Assistant, a service where I bring big brand experience to small businesses to support with with admin, website and analytical tasks, I also run a product business called Skudaboo where I sell premium giclee art prints, designed by many talented artists.
As a product business founder, I know how intimidating SEO and backlink building can be. I had no clue how to reach out to bloggers and press, especially as it seemed like they only wanted affiliate links when featuring products, which just wasn't doable. Plus, there are so many services promising to boost your links with shady tactics, which are tempting but can end up hurting you in the long run.
Despite the challenges, building backlinks is crucial and shouldn't be overlooked. I'm no SEO expert, but I managed to increase my domain rating to 14 (at the time of writing) over the past year, so I wanted to share some simple and less intimidating strategies that I used, that can help you improve your SEO too.
Small Business Collaborations
I am part of the Studio Cotton Clubhouse, a community of small businesses founded by Studio Cotton, a website design studio, based in Bristol. The clubhouse has opened up some amazing collaboration opportunities, so being in a community like this helps a lot, but you don't need to join one to collaborate with others. You can always reach out to other businesses through social media platforms like Instagram or find them on my Small Business Collab Directory.
Here's how our collaborations work: we start by deciding on a blog topic, like "6 Gift Ideas from Small Businesses for Christmas." Each participating business selects products from the other businesses in the group and requests quotes about these products to feature in their blog, providing links back to each collaborating business.
This way, you end up with several blogs mentioning your business, giving you multiple relevant backlinks from a single collaboration. This strategy helped boost my domain rating to an 8, so I highly recommend trying it out! It's also a great way to discover other small businesses and learn more about their products.
However, it's important to note that reciprocal backlinks are frowned upon by Google. The goal of this collaboration should be to create great piece content for your website with the added bonus of a link for your business. You shouldn't backlink other businesses, just to get one in return. I recommend collaborating only with businesses you're truly happy to recommend to your audience.
Also, do not solely rely on this method, as you might end up spending a lot of time writing blogs, which can be quite time-consuming. Plus, you don't want all of your blog content to be product listicles, so use this tactic sparingly. Depending on what your business sells, these collaborations can be especially effective around key selling periods like Christmas, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, etc.
Reaching out to bloggers
One of the easiest ways I found to work with bloggers is through Press Loft, a digital platform designed to connect businesses with journalists, bloggers, and influencers. I signed up for a free trial, which lets you put out one brief a month via the influencer section.
With this brief, you can collaborate with influencers on a gifted or paid basis, and it can be for social media content as well. For my brief, I specifically asked for blog mentions and honest reviews for gifted products.
Here's how it works: bloggers can respond to your brief to apply to work with you. You can approve as many as you want and send them an agreement. Just keep in mind your budget and how many products you can afford to gift. Once you send out your products, the bloggers will write their reviews, and you'll get valuable backlinks.
This method is much easier than cold emailing multiple bloggers yourself as you know they're already interested in working with you. However, remember that once your trial is over, you'll need to pay extra to send these briefs through Press Loft. It's a great way to get a little boost to your domain rating though!
Giving my opinion
I also did this through the Studio Cotton Clubhouse, where other small businesses would reach out when they needed quotes for their blogs, but you can also find journo requests on Twitter, Threads, and JournoLink. Just keep an eye out for requests relevant to your small business and offer your opinion in exchange for a backlink.
Also, if you're part of a community of small businesses, you can ask other small businesses for their opinions for your blogs. They aren't obligated to include you in their next one if you do include them, but this does help build relationships. They might then think of you next time they're writing a blog that's relevant to your business.
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I still have a long way to go in improving my domain rating - I’m aiming for 30, but I think 20 by the end of the year is more realistic. Considering I was stuck at 2 for a long time though, any improvement feels like a big win!
If you're looking for more tips on SEO and backlink strategies, I highly recommend checking out website and SEO guru, Aime from Studio Cotton on Instagram. There are so many great ways to gain backlinks beyond what I've mentioned here, and I've learned a ton by being part of the Studio Cotton Clubhouse. Aime is an expert and shares really actionable ideas that make the whole process feel much less daunting.
Do you have any tips on improving your domain rating? Share them below!