The internet is only able to be interconnected because of links. Links create connections between individual documents and websites, allowing us to surf the web effortlessly. But there are different types of links, all of which are important when it comes to building SEO. Backlinks are one of the most important. If you want to boost your site, follow the backlink strategies we talk about below. We go through just what backlinking is, why backlinking is so important to you, and just how you can cooperate with other websites to have backlinks to support each other.
Backlinks will help boost your SEO, and help grow the popularity of your website. When it comes to getting your web pages to the first page of Google, you want your website to be interconnected with other websites. This is a great way to “spread your brand” in a way, sending bridges straight to your website. Backlinks build SEO connections and build your website’s reputation.
What is Backlinking
In simple terms, backlinking is a link on somebody else’s website that goes to a page on your website. Many times people use links on articles, news, or opinion pieces because they want some statistical proof to back up their argument. The links they use are usually high quality and very specific. Coincidentally, most backlinks are taken from the first couple pages of Google. In other words, most websites with the highest amount of backlinks usually have a high SEO score. The #1 ranking page in Google gets an additional 5%-14.5% more follow backlinks from new websites each month.
As you can imagine, being able to have a large collection of backlinks connected to your site will do wonders to boost your SEO. As mentioned before, once your SEO gets you on the first or second page of Google, there’s only a higher chance of you getting more and more backlinks. They are highly valuable as a sign of your website’s worth.
But, backlinking has become more difficult to do lately. Google’s search algorithms are constantly updating, checking to make sure backlinks are legitimate. A website with manipulative links is likely to be penalized. A manipulative link is insincere, usually occurring when a website pays for links to their website to be spread throughout the internet. Make sure your links are relevant, spread out, and are legitimate. They also need to be credible and high in volume.
It’s important to take advantage of this because 66.31% of pages have no backlinks. Get those numbers moving.
Why Backlinks are Important
So how do you get backlinks? The answer is surprisingly simple: legitimacy. Backlinks are a stamp of approval from other websites, who are telling their users that your website—and all the content that it contains—live up to a high standard to satisfy their users. As a website, you want your customers to have a great experience.
Building your backlinks starts with good quality content that other sites will want to post about. The links should ideally be connected to websites with trusted and authoritative domains. Moreover, the sites should have some type of topical relation to your site. Google’s algorithm likes it when things are easy to track. Creating strong backlinks to pages with similar topics can help improve SEO rankings on Google.
While you don’t want to smother your pages in backlinks (as said before, this will diminish your SEO ranking on Google), you certainly need to have plenty of backlinks to guarantee your search engine ranking factors are strong. As mentioned here, Google uses backlinks as one of the three most important factors in getting a strong SEO rank. A great backlink strategy is to use these two together to build your credibility with search engines. They are essential to get both users and create relationships with other websites.
What Types of Backlinks are Valuable
Source: NBC Los Angeles
All backlinks are valuable, but some are more valuable than others. Let’s take this backlink above as an example. It’s a perfect example of how backlinks can boost SEO ranking while also being properly used. This link to Captain Dave’s Dolphin is a strong backlink because of a few different reasons.
- Valuable website: This website is considered strong. As a legitimate business with a well-designed website, it checks off all the marks, but beyond that, it is well known. Google looks for websites that have social credibility. In other words, the better a website is, the higher chances it will be considered a strong backlink.
- Relevant: This article is focused on a private whale watching trip from this company, proving to search engines that this backlink has a purpose (SEO encouraged) by being here. You want your links to be relevant. Search engines pay attention to the domain and the page of a backlink, making sure that the backlink is relevant.
- Natural: You don’t want to have your links appear unnatural. Your writing needs to include a backlink strategy in its design. Fluidity and grammatical precision are key to keeping both your readers and the search engine algorithm appeased. Backlinks should appear as though they work for the user’s benefit (which is their proper use) rather than for the website page being linked.
They Come From Trusted, Authoritative Websites
As mentioned before, having a trustworthy website is a great way to grow your SEO. A backlink from Harvard is going to be more valuable than from a random person’s website. But how do you get a website that is trusted and authoritative?
The idea comes from a principle known as Domain Authority. Domain authority, or often called DA, is a metric that aims to predict how likely a website will appear in the search engines. To answer the question how do you get a website that is trusted and authoritative, it once again comes back to the backlinks. More than anything else, you need these links to be authentic and legitimate. SEO boosted backlinks need to be used for your website to be trusted. If they aren’t used, what backing support does your website have? First, you want to build the content that other websites can use as reference, and from there you become a trusted website.
Using Google’s Highest-Ranking Factors
A good backlink strategy includes your target keyword in the link’s anchor text. Anchor text is valuable, as the visible characters and words that make up hyperlinks linking to other pages on the internet, and they can be used to do more than one thing. When you put your target keyword in the anchor text, you are using another factor that helps to boost your SEO rankings. Backlinks can use target keywords, which could potentially link the two texts through relevancy as well. SEO service companies prioritize anchor links as an essential piece of designing website pages that have a strong SEO rank.
The Link has a “Nofollow” Attribute
Some links have a “nofollow” attribute that will cause them to be ignored by search engines. As one of the simplest HTML tags you can design, they help make your links more legitimate, which is exactly what you need to do when trying to rank up your SEO. If you have three links on a single page, and two of them follow the three rules to getting a strong backlink for SEO (valuable website, relevant, and natural) but the last one doesn’t, you can write into the code to “nofollow” the link not considered a strong backlink, and therefore is a great way to boost your metrics.
The Linked Domain is Unique
As we talked about before, it’s important to have a lot of backlinks linking to your website, but they have to be part of a bigger backlink strategy. Search engines have learned to find sites that are exploiting SEO strategies unfairly to gain undeserved ranks. If a single page has a saturated amount of backlinks to your page exclusively, it’s going to look suspicious, and you might be penalized for your backlink SEO. If the other site hasn’t been linked to yours before, it yields more value and you have more market saturation. For search engines, when your site is being linked for the first time, this proves that the reason was earnest, and not suspicious.
Key Practices
Source: Today
Update Your Web Pages
Your work always needs to be updated. Take for example the gift guide above, which is updated every holiday season to keep it relevant. Site content should be kept fresh so it can constantly go through Google’s search algorithms. For SEOs, backlinks need to connect to web pages that are up to date.
Use Evergreen Content
If you have content that is certified “evergreen”, you can help to promote your content. Evergreen is content that doesn’t feel dated, which is great for pandering to an audience as wide as possible for as long as possible. You don’t want content that feels dated.
When you have timeless material, then you can implement it into your backlink strategy. Make sure to show off the other content on your site as much as possible. If you have statistics that can be used or quotes that can be pulled, there’s a higher chance of other sites using yours. High SEO sites rely on honest backlinks that are useful. Keep that in mind, you want your content to be useful enough that other people come to you for reliable data. That is how you grow as a site.
Work with Other Websites
Blogs are great ways to help promote your content through voices that aren’t commercial. Blogs, especially ones relating any way to a product, need to be supported by backlinks. Similar to the work cited page on an essay, if a blog wants to appear legitimate, it needs to have backlinks. This is the perfect opportunity to work with other websites, create backlinks and build up your SEO skills in the process. You can create a mutual relationship with backlinks to and from another site. 43.7% of the top tanking pages in Google contain reciprocal links.
Spread the Word
Guides are often some of the most searched for pages on the internet. A great way to push your backlink strategy and spread the word of your website’s content is by writing a comprehensive guide. Having high-quality guides with backlinks will register you higher with Google’s algorithms. People need advice, regardless of what the topic is, and they want the facts that make up the guide to be logical, honest, and direct. You can write a great guide with links to your sites.
Keep Visitors Engaged
As a big necessity to proper website design, visuals are an amazing way to get users to pay attention to you and your website. They can be used in backlinks as well to help traffic and SEO. Having visuals makes content more easily digestible with audiences. Infographics and charts are also a great way to spread your content, requiring not much more than a link. You can keep visitors engaged and more likely to click on links when there is a visual element. Humans are drawn to visual cues, preferring to comprehend visuals rather than writing.
A Few Bonuses
Source: Pink Lily
Rounding out your backlinks with these techniques will make it even more likely your site ranks high with Google.
Use Linkable Assets
Extra tools like blog posts, videos, software, quizzes, and more are often more inviting for people to click on and visit through backlinks. These pages, which are sometimes more enticing to fully read than a simple product page, are a great way to get an alternative look at what your website is all about, and is a wonderful way to feature more links to the site. As part of your larger backlink strategy, they help encourage a more comprehensive interaction with your website, rather than just using your website to click a few buttons, buy a product, and exit.
Link Roundups
Link roundups are scheduled blog posts to highlight and link to your best content. It’s important to keep track of your content that attracts users. Keep this in mind as you go forward, and you can find a lot more traffic on your site.
Broken Link Building
Some links may go to nonexistent pages. Updating them will give you the best results, helping to boost your high-quality content and keep a reputation by being a reliable and up-to-date website.
Conclusion
When it comes to backlinks and building SEO to help your website get noticed, you need your work to be both consistent and reliable. To rank well with Google, link building is a must. As one of Google’s essential ways to build SEO ranking, backlinking brings people to your website. Luckily for you, there are plenty of experts out there with years of experience to help you.