What is backlinking and why is it important for SEO?
Earlier, the Google ranking algorithm was confined to only numbers— your site ranked high with the number of backlinks you earned.
The major task for an SEO agency was to earn as many links as they could, to improve their website rankings.
However, the efforts of every digital marketing agency have evolved to compete with the Google algorithm becoming smarter and more complex.
The role of backlinks has evolved, with an emphasis on quality in addition to quantity, making the process more refined.
This article gives you in-depth insights into backlinks, their significance, and the strategies to gain backlinks for the website effectively.
What are backlinks?
Backlinks, also called inbound links, one-way links, or incoming links are those links you earn from a website to another website’s page.
They work well for SEO since they define the “vote of confidence” that a site offers to the other.
Backlinks to the websites are the signals that notify search engines about your content being vouched by others.
If several sites link to the same website or webpage, the search engines can understand that the content in that site is worth linking to, and great to surface on the SERPs.
Hence, earning the backlinks create a positive impact on the ranking position or search visibility of a site.
Backlinks are not a result of sudden action, it takes time to earn them.
The new websites and those sites that look to expand their keyword footprint might find it hard where to start with link building.
This is where competitive backlink research comes into action: It involves analyzing the backlink profile ( the set of pages or domains that link to the website) of a well-ranking competitor for your targeted keywords.
In this way, you can understand in detail the link-building techniques they adopt to improve SEO results.
Why are backlinks important to your website?
The websites that rank No.1 on Google have reportedly 3.8x more backlinks when compared to the other top 10 websites, according to a survey.
Backlinks are generally voted from other websites, and each vote speaks to the search engines about the value, credibility, and usefulness of the content they offer.
The higher the number of these votes, the higher the site will be ranked on Google or any other search engine.
Google search had developed an algorithm called “PageRank”, to rank web pages in SERPs and track the importance of web pages.
Though Google has made numerous changes in the algorithm, backlinks are still an integral part of ranking signals.
This is why Google has already confirmed that out of three major search engine ranking factors, backlinks are one among them.
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How to utilize backlinks effectively?
Creating a backlink is not that difficult, however in SEO, a backlink might not be the only aspect that helps you beat your competitors.
You would require thousands or millions of backlinks to grow the SEO results.
But, this doesn’t mean you need to go behind this all day and night or spam the tool frequently.
Creating links will involve penalties from Google’s Webspam, and your efforts toward link building could fail miserably.
Rather than making links massively, businesses should create backlinks from sites with high page rankings, credibility, and reputation.
Such backlinks are quality backlinks and become helpful to increase website rankings.
Additionally, businesses can buy and exchange links in regular quantities which avoids the penalties Google Webspam could impose.
Another aspect that businesses should pay attention to is that the backlink to the website should be strong, of good quality, and provide the same as the business site that performs SEO.
If this isn’t met, then it turns unprofitable to the website and can affect the ranking of the website.
Also, you should pay attention to the structure and diversity of the anchor text list. An unnatural anchor text profile can degrade the way your website functions.
Backlinks you should avoid
1. Paid links
Search engines understand the value of your website based on the extent to which the other real and earned sites like it.
Google states that buying/selling the links negatively impacts the search rankings of a website.
When you buy the links to earn an SEO advantage, you never make what you pay for.
2. Creating press releases for backlinks
3. Untrusted & irrelevant directory links
4. Forum backlinks with low quality
Strategies to use to create great backlinks
Post comments on the related blogs
You can earn significant traffic with this approach if you are aware of the blogs you choose to comment on, and if those comments can add value to the blog post.
Your ultimate focus is to add value to the post rather than just attempting to have the link posted.
This way, you are trying to create a connection with the blogger and share a perspective in their minds as a valuable contributor to their industry.
To make a lasting impression, choose a particular point from the article to discuss in the comments.
Share your thoughts in a few lines and earn your backlinks inorganically.
Take part in the industry forums
Join the forums related to the niche you work in— this lets you gain backlinks and earn useful referrals for your site.
Initially, search “forum” and the name of your industry or niche on Google.
Submitting your profile in any of the forums can let you earn a backlink since they are likely to demand it as a part of the registration.
Make sure you also add keywords you wish to rank for related to the profile.
Thus you can:
- Start posting on other’s threads
- Begin the discussion threads
- Include your links when others upload their links in the comments
- Interact with the other users
This can help you to prevent yourself from sounding too promotional.
Format the links properly
You can rely on two types of backlinks to be transparent and relevant: Firstly, the naked links that you can see as the URL itself. The next is branded links, which include your company name.
It might look clear, however, to know whether the link is relevant, you need Google’s crawlers. Else, they would discount it.
Final thoughts
In SEO, backlinks generally improve rankings since they earn votes of confidence from various other websites based on the quality and quantity of these links.
With more number of backlinks and the improved quality of the backlinks you earn, you can give birth to higher search rankings for your websites.
An ideal digital marketing agency understands that backlink is the heart of SEO and a factor that decides the success of SEO efforts.
Choosing the right SEO company in Perth lets you strengthen the backbone of all your SEO projects, including the effective backlink strategy for your business websites.