Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last couple of years (apologies to any of you that specialise in geology) you probably understand the importance of having your own translation website.

After creating your site, you may well have become absorbed in the dark art of SEO (search engine optimisation), tweaking your site to perfection and creating earth-shattering content to get ranked high on Google. 

If that sounds like you, you’ll probably also be aware of the need to create a strong web of backlinks to your site to boost its favour with the search engine gods.

Creating good, relevant links can sometimes feel like a task even Hercules himself might struggle with, and you may even have been kept awake at night muttering “where can I get more backlinks from” to yourself.

Mutter no more, as I have compiled a few cheeky sources for you to bump up your backlink numbers and hopefully kick your site up the rankings. Let’s go, number 1!

Help A Reporter Out

Help A Reporter Out, or HARO is a brilliant mine for links based around a daily email from journalists begging for your specialist knowledge in turn for a shiny and authoritative backlink. Journalists use the service to get quotes and info from industry professionals like yourself. Just sign up, get replying to journalists’ cries for help and wait for the links to roll in. If links can roll, that is.

Profile Backlinks

Most sites from the usual translation industry suspects give you the option to add your site to your personal profile as a link. You’ve probably done this, but did you know there are hundreds of other sites that will let you do the same? Yes, there are, and I’ll give you a link to them here. Just sign up with each site and add your URL, easy huh?

Linking via outreach

This is the hard slog of backlink earning, but the best fruit in life is usually at the top of the tree (unless the birds get there first, in which case, ignore that comment). Got an incredible blog post you’d like links to? Get searching the web for blogs that might link to you, and send them a message asking if they’d pretty please feature your post. At the end of the day, you’re asking a stranger for a massive favour, so get ready for some rejections, but you’re likely to score some very relevant links if you put the work in. Bonus tip – explain to the site owner why the article will be loved by their readers and get a contact name for increased success. You should also have a good look round your prospective site to help you with this last point.

Sites that are indirectly connected to translation services (e.g translator advice sites and general language learning blogs) are often your best bet, as translation service site owners often have a policy of not linking to sites they deem to be competitors.         

Mark Hemming loves SEO and runs Libra Translation in Liverpool, UK.