Increase Your Event Traffic and Sales Online with Backlinks
Do you ever find yourself searching a website trying to find the best ways to make a quesadilla, and then 4 hours later, you're falling down a rabbit hole and are now on an article about the best horse breeds?
Backlinks work in that way — they are what take you to different websites. Backlinks are the creator of the rabbit hole most students fall into at 1 am.
Backlinks are a crucial part of Search Engine Optimization (SEO); a tool websites used to rank higher on search queries. Understanding how to develop backlinks correctly can help your website gain popularity in the search engine, bringing more traffic towards your site.
With this recent surge of traffic, your event marketing team will look good and any event you plan will need a VIP list.
What is a backlink?
A backlink is when another website mentions your site and includes a link.
These external websites help drive traffic towards your website, which creates a higher ranking in Google’s organic results page. Backlinks are a brilliant tool to aid sites in gaining popularity and earn a larger following.
For example, if BuzzFeed posts an article titled “10 Events You Will Not Want To Miss” and your site is linked, google will see the value in your site and move you up in the search engine; higher search ranking means more discoverability and an easier way to sell tickets online.
What do backlinks look like?
Backlinks come in the form of hyperlinks.
Hyperlinks allow you to click on the link and take you to the following website — they act as a connector. These underlined blue words keep you hypnotized in the internet rabbit hole throughout the night.
We know these hyperlinks as anchor texts.
These highlighted words are anchors that pull you deeper and deeper as you read an article, linking you to more captivating resources.
Anchor texts can take on distinct forms:
Naked URL: “Buy tickets for the best events at https://www.purplepass.com/#195939.”
Branded term: “Get Eli Young Band tickets.”
Generic term: “Click here for Eli Young Band tickets!”
These are just three dominant types of anchor texts used for backlinks.
Understanding the value of a backlink
Backlinks are like an endorsement or giving a like to a post.
Link equity is the measure of value that is passed from site to site. Backlinks pass equity from the website owner to the place they are backlinking to or endorsing.
For example, if you are promoting an event and you receive a backlink from BuzzFeed News, writing about the best summer events to attend. Then, your company will receive more link equity than if you were to get a backlink from your local new site writing about what activities are going on this summer.
Since Buzzfeed is a bigger brand, their link equity is worth more than a small local source.
Follow and no-follow links
When a website is backlinked, the goal is to have this backlink help the site gain more authority and traffic on the site. The best type of backlink is a follow link.
A follow link is crawled and indexed by the search engine, which allows the engine to store the information. This link then contributes to the authority and reliability of the backlinked website, helping with rank in organic results.
The other type of backlink is a no-follow backlink.
These links are NOT crawled and indexed by the search engine. They do not help with organic results and give no authority to the backlinked website.
Follow links are similar to in-season basketball games.
These games affect your ranking in the division, and the stats taken are used to test your team. On the other hand, no-follow links are scrimmages.
These games do not count towards your ranking in the division.
What is the point of a no-follow Link?
You may ask yourself, why would someone use a no-follow link for your website? Follow links and no-follow links look the same, so why put in the extra work to make it a no-follow link?
No-follow links are used in the comment section of blogs.
Spammers can quickly post the link to their website in the comments — helping them gain popularity with the search engine. This makes it seem as if the blog is passing link equity to the spammed site. With the use of a backlink, blogs can put a “no-follow” code in the comment section, so their website does not lose authority to websites they may not approve of.
Major news sites also use No-follow links.
These news sites have multiple articles and writers. The news site does not want to pass so much equity to all the sites endorsed.
So, they use no-follow backlinks to help manage all the content, leaving their website.
But, no-follow links still help with SEO. These backlinks always take you to the linked website which helps increase traffic for the site. Though they may seem “not as good”, the consumer will still see it as a major site endorsing your brand.
Google may not recognize it, but if a consumer clicks on your link, they can still spread awareness about an event being promoted and purchase tickets. This will cause more action on your site and bring in more business.
Since No-follow links are scrimmages in basketball, they do not affect your standing in the division or Google. But fans can still watch you play and see how good you are. Thus, letting fans believe you can be first in the division.
How to get backlinks to your website
The first way to generate backlinks is to reach out to site owners who could benefit from backlinking to your site.
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Pitch quality content, like a guest post, to the site owner in an email
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Grab the site owner’s attention and example how this would benefit them
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Keep your outreach request simple and understandable
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Make sure your email is customized to the site owner by doing research of the website
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Show how the site owner could value from backlinking to you
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Make your offer: What are you asking?
Listed are steps to take when drafting an email to send to a site owner you hope to be linked to. The principal goal is to illustrate why linking to you benefits them.
Asking for a backlink is like asking your parents for something. Most of the time, we would have an entire presentation. We would explain to them how what we want benefits them and the value of it.
When asking for a car, we said that it benefits our parents because they do not have to drive us anymore, and we can help with our siblings.
When outreaching, pretend it was like when you asked your parents for a car.
Be well informed, prepared, understandable, and explain the benefit and value.
Conclusion
Backlinks add value to your website and increase traffic. Understanding how and why to backlink will not only optimize your page, but it will help you climb organic results ranks and make selling event tickets online easy!
Author: Lucy Long
Lucy Long is a Strategic Communications major with a Data Analytics minor at Texas Christian University and is currently interning for Magnus Opus. She also spends her time writing for Carson Leslie Center blog.
