Out of Google's 200 ranking factors, some of them are considered of vital importance. Backlinks are one of them.
You might have often seen the highlighted texts that open up on another page of the same domain or a different domain.
That's what backlinks are. In SEO or search engine optimization, backlinks hold one of the highest regards. Even when the Google algorithm changes, the importance of backlinks remains intact.
So, let’s understand what are backlinks and why are they important?
What are Backlinks?
Backlinks are the links from other domains to your domain or a webpage. They help boost your website's ranking in search engines like Google and Bing, and they can also improve the traffic that comes to your site.
Various quality backlinks may help you rank higher in search engines like Google and Bing. That’s why backlinks can be the deciding factor used to determine how popular your website is among the readers.
Why are Backlinks Important?
Backlinks work like a vote from another website to your website. A search engine takes backlinks as a vote suggesting that the site or the content is valuable, credible, and useful for the audience alike.
The more quality votes you have, the more trust search engines have in you.
Backlinks majorly help with three things:
Ranking
Backlinks depending on the quality, may affect your search engine rankings. In general, the more quality backlinks your web pages receive, the better chance your web pages have of ranking for relevant search searches.
This is why most people want to build as many quality and relevant backlinks as possible, especially if your website focuses on a specific topic or industry.
In fact, the page rank is determined largely by the quality of backlinks that a page has received for a certain keyword or the anchor text.
Referral Traffic
Backlinks can also lead to referral traffic. If a website has links from reputable websites, visitors who click on these links might be interested in your content as well.
Therefore, backlinks that mention your website or provide valuable information are especially important for building referral traffic.
Increased Visibility
Search engines discover new content by returning to previously visited pages to look for fresh links.
Because search engines revisit popular pages more frequently than unpopular pages, backlinks from popular pages may help them discover your material more quickly.
How do Backlinks Work?
Backlinks have proven crucial for ranking on search engines, SEO, and overall website growth.
It can be considered as a conversation between websites.
When you manually add a link to your website from another web page, you're actually creating a backlink.
Adding one link can provide a significant advantage for your website in the search engine rankings because it shows that other websites believe in the value of your content.
As mentioned before, search engines see backlinks as votes of confidence and may affect how high or low your site appears in search results. Different types of links can have a varying impact on your website's rankings in the search engines.
The type of link you put forth determines which SEO factors most heavily influence your site.
Types of Backlinks
There are majorly two types of backlinks that may determine a page's ranking. These two backlink types are; nofollow and do-follow.
A nofollow link asks search engines to ignore a certain link. Such links do not pass any value from one website to another. Thus, they do not affect the search engine rankings.
On the other hand, do-follow links are among the most coveted backlink types. These links from the most reputable domains are considered valuable.
Thus, they can affect your search engine rankings.
However, not all do-follow links are considered good. Some of them may come from bad or suspicious sites affecting the page quality. In other words, a low-quality incoming link may affect your site's reputation in the search engine's eye.
What Types of Backlinks are Valuable?
Quality backlinks are vital to rank higher in SERPs.
According to most SEO experts, a single high-quality backlink is better than 1,000 low-quality links.
Here is what you should look for when creating a quality backlink from a webpage:
#1: They should come from a trusted and authoritative website
Would you have a backlink from Forbes or a backlink from some random guy's website?
Google thinks the same way. Thus, Google considers 'Domain Authority' one of the major factors in determining the quality of backlinks.
If a backlink comes from a page with high domain authority, the backlink is considered lucrative. However, if a backlink comes from a page with low DA and a high spam score, it will have a negative impact on your rankings and page SEO.
#2: Including keywords in the link's anchor text
Anchor text or hyperlink is the visible text portion of a link. An anchor text includes the keyword you want to rank for on the search engine.
Search engines may get an indication that the topic revolves around the anchor text.
You don't want to use too many keywords in your anchor text. In fact, Google's algorithm includes a "Google Penguin" filter.
Google Penguin penalizes websites that employ black-hat link-building tactics. And it concentrates on sites that employ exact match anchor text to build backlinks.
#3: The site is relevant to your niche
Google lays more emphasis on sites that are topically related and relevant.
Therefore, make sure your target niche isn't too broad or unrelated to your topic. For example, if you write a blog about dance, don't try and get links from car manufacturers. A link from the entertainment, dance, or music site would be more relevant than any other backlink.
#4: Make sure the link is do-follow
As mentioned, dofollow links have a 'dofollow' attribute added to them.
"Dofollow links" are important because they signal to Google that you genuinely believe in the site's quality linking back to your own content.
Nofollow links do not count under the search engine ranking algorithm.
The majority of nofollow links aren't valuable to begin with. For example, nofollow links may come from:
- Blog comments
- Press releases
- Paid advertisements
What’s the Difference Between a Link and a Backlink?
The web pages are connected through the links that may act as a glue keeping these pages relatively relevant.
While internal links are links between web pages on the same domain intended to help users navigate the site, external links or outbound links go from one domain to a different domain that establishes a relationship between the two domains.
In other words, an internal link within the same site is considered the link, whereas the links from the other webpage of a different domain may be called the backlink.
Search engines understand the relevancy and reward the target URL by driving the traffic or pushing it in the SERPs for the keyword used in anchor text.
Backlinks pointing to your website signal that your content is valuable. Backlinks are, in fact, one of the most important ranking factors. When it comes to organic search traffic, backlinks play a vital role in every website's success (or failure).
How to Create Backlinks?
Google considers the quality of backlinks as paramount. Thus, SEOs spend huge time, effort, and money finding the most effective backlinks for their page.
However, there are some white hat and black hat methods to go about it.
Most backlinks may require you to create an outreach pitch to gain valuable backlinks.
One of the best ways to find the linked domains is using a backlink analysis tool like Ahrefs or SEMRush. Alternatively, you can also find the linked domains using the Scalenut report.
In the Scalenut report, click on Citation to find the sites that your competitors have linked to.
The following are some examples of building backlinks that matter:
Guest Posting & Guest Blogging
Are there any reputable industry-specific websites that welcome guest articles? You can reach out to them and offer to guest post one or more free/paid articles on a relevant topic in exchange for a link to your website.
Keep in mind, though, that you can't just guest post anywhere and expect it to assist.
In fact, black hat SEOs have distorted the value of guest posts for years by 'building private blog networks,' which publish large amounts of low-quality content only for the purpose of swapping backlinks. Google has noticed this and is penalizing websites as a result.
As a result, you want to make sure that you only send guest posts to trustworthy, well-respected blogs in your field.
Local Citations
Backlinks from Google, Yelp, LinkedIn, Facebook, Yellow Pages, and other sources are counted as business address listings. Perhaps more crucially, they may help assist customers in locating your company!
There are a plethora of similar websites. Once you have a list of these citations, make sure to keep Google as your first focus - make it a point to build up a couple of new citation profiles every week.
Use it as a checklist to look for updated lists of credible company listing sites. Once you find a site that seems interesting and offers promise, bookmark it on your phone or in the browser tab of some preferred device.
Press Releases
The success of your small business depends largely on its visibility. And that visibility starts with PR.
To see if you're ready to take the plunge, start by looking for companies in your industry that have already gone through the process and emerged victoriously. Their stories will provide valuable insights into what it takes to be successful when chasing press coverage and some helpful advice on formatting and pitching a compelling story idea.
Not all press releases, however, are made equal. Cheap press release providers do not distribute their releases anywhere, resulting in non-valuable backlinks.
You'll need to collaborate with high-quality publishers like Business Wire or PR Newswire to make this work. Be warned: a 500-word press release will set you back around $1,000.
However, if done correctly, it may be worthwhile.
News Articles and Directories
Journalists and authors are always looking to get exposure for their journals. Getting quotes in the media is a terrific approach to gain backlinks and establish a reputation in your field.
But how can you get your name in the news?
Websites like HARO and ProfNet can help you connect with journalists who are looking for specific stories, and there are additional tools that can assist you to send fascinating pitches to writers.
Even watching for relevant journalistic conversations on Twitter might lead to opportunities to interact with writers working on pieces about your sector.
Social Media
Social media is one of the best link-building strategies. Social media offers a mix of quality link profiles to your web page. Also, one thing to keep in mind is that the links from Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms are not considered as nofollow backlinks.
How to Check Backlink Profile?
Google Search Console, SEMRush, Ahrefs, and other backlink monitoring tools can help you check and monitor your backlinks.
By using these tools, you can monitor your links lost and gained.
According to the Google Webmaster Guidelines, a toxic or bad link from another site may hurt your rankings. Thus, you should immediately remove such links.
If you don't, Google may penalize your website, and your page rank in search results will begin to decline.
You can also use the Google webmaster or search console tool to check the top linking site. This tool also lets you disavow the bad or toxic links from your link profile, thus reducing the spam score.
FAQs
Q. Is the quantity of backlinks more important than quality?
Ans: No, the quality of backlinks holds more importance than quantity. A single high-quality backlink is considered more important than 1000 low-quality backlinks.
Q. How many backlinks are considered good?
Ans: There is no fixed number of backlinks that are considered good. What matters is the backlink should be from the high domain authority page and it should come from the relevant domain.
Q. Does blog comments help with backlink building?
Ans: You can create backlinks using blog comments, but these links are generally considered a nofollow.
Q. Is a backlink from Quora valuable?
Ans: Backlinks from Quora are still highly beneficial. Backlinks provide not only 'Link Equity' (yes, even no-follow links provide some link equity), but also vital traffic in the form of individuals visiting your website. As a result, they're really beneficial in getting traffic to your website.
Q. Which backlink is more valuable: home page or content page?
Ans: When it comes to link building, both your home page and internal sites are equally important. Rather than sending more connections to your homepage, it is preferable to have backlinks dispersed throughout your website.
Conclusion
Keyword research, on-page optimization, and backlink building are the three important elements of SEO. Obtaining backlinks, however, is perhaps the most crucial of these.
Links are beneficial in more ways than one. They can also help build awareness and increase traffic. Link building should be a key component of your SEO plan.
With Scalenut, you can check the top referring links to use in your content and the most credible sources for your content piece. The best part; Scalenut is completely free to use.
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