What are backlinks?
Backlinks are hyperlinks on other sites that link to a web page that you control. These can direct traffic to your home page, a product page, or even a blog post. They are also referred to as “inbound links” in SEO circles because they represent traffic coming from another place to your domain.
A backlink in SEO must do more than just exist. It must deliver an expert reference on another page that showcases and vouches for your valuable expertise, experiences, or opinions. Like an electoral vote, a backlink can be very important to your site’s search engine ranking growth. To be classed as a high-quality backlink, the site linking to you must hold some muster with Google’s rankings and when they do, this can help your business rank even higher in search engines as a result.
With backlink acquisition, that means quality is often better than quantity when trying to extend a brand’s reach.
“The total number of backlinks a website has doesn’t matter at all to the search algorithm. One good link from a relevant website can be more impactful than millions of low-quality links.”
What are the best ways to acquire website backlinks?
Search engines, like Google want to provide users with the most relevant answer to each search query. When your website delivers that result in relevance for its preferred keywords, your blog posts, landing pages and sales pages often climb to a higher search result position.
Website backlinks of quality demonstrate to search engines that your page deserves attention because others have referenced it. If you need more of this SEO asset, here are some of the best ways to have more inbound links from a website directed your way.
1. Take a peek at your competitors
Everyone has some competition, even in niche industries. When you see how those businesses are obtaining backlinks for their websites, there’s a roadmap to follow for gathering some of your own.
Several SEO-related tools, like Ubersuggest and SEMRush, deliver a complete backlink profile for any website. Once you see the domains that are interested in your industry and you can check their validity (Domain Authority is a good benchmark), via your competitor backlink catalogue, you can start earning them in the same way. This can be as easy as contacting those same sites and offering them a relevant webpage, blog post, or article to help round out their site.
2. Look for broken backlinks
Many websites that link to other sites have broken backlinks because URLs change, and companies go out of business. When your content can repair that issue for someone else’s broken link, by directing them to a page on your site instead, you are more likely to gain a meaningful link coming back to you.
This process of backlink mining helps other websites by eliminating 404 errors when visitors click on broken links. That gives them a better SEO profile while you benefit simultaneously.
3. Create better content
If you’ve been trying to create organic backlinks on Google’s directory for some time without success, the content quality could be questionable on your site.
Instead of guessing what content type attracts the most attention, use tools and analytics to see what pages deliver the most traffic currently. Once you have that info, begin to create posts in that category to continue attracting visitors (and potential backlink givers) to your site.
It is possible for one content piece to deliver hundreds of high-quality backlinks. That’s why it is such an essential component of modern SEO and brand building.
Fresh or updated content can include:
blog posts
product or service pages
other sales pages
landing pages
Blog posts often perform better for gaining backlinks, beyond your home page, or sales page because they are often topic-specific, which helps to answer search queries much more succinctly.
4. Write content for others
Content creation is a headache for everyone. It takes time to do it right, and everyone is busier than ever these days.
If you’re willing to produce content for a high-quality website, they’ll often deliver a backlink in that material that provides an organic connection to your site. You just need to be careful when using this method to avoid link farms and agencies that make it look like you’re paying for this opportunity.
5. Write more blog posts and articles on your site
Fresh content is something that search engines are always looking to add to their directories because it offers them an opportunity to answer more search queries, which grow by the day. This being the case it is more important than ever to create regular content for your website blog, speaking directly to your customer’s needs and concerns. These do not need to be sales pitches, as that is what your sales pages are for, so think about how else you can serve your potential clients with regular information that they will find useful.
6. Use infographics to capture more backlinks
Written text isn’t the only option you have when producing content for backlinks. Infographics are a great addition because they deliver a visual representation of valuable data laid out in your text. For many Internet users, these make page information easier to understand.
7. Use more video and audio
Video and audio can also help explain complex topic information more easily, especially if these are tutorials. If potential backlinkers find your explanations easy to understand, they are much more likely to recommend it natively in their own content, as well as on other online platforms, like social media.
8. Avoid “nofollow” links
Links that are disguised with a “nofollow” attribution in their code are essentially ignored by search engines and so hold no value to your website’s growth.
These types of links can often be found in blog comment areas of websites, press releases and paid advertisements. If you do enter a collaboration with a site, make sure you understand their linking policy.
What Google want you to avoid in building backlinks
Google’s Link Scheme page gives us a clear idea of what they are not looking for and that is:
Any backlinks which are bought or sold, or are part of a ‘terms of agreement’ policy with a third party
Cross-linking from site to site for no more benefit to users than it gives to you in link number. So it is better to gain a link from one hundred sites, over one hundred links from one site.
High numbers of content farmed out to other sites by guest posting, or other means and for the purposes of mass-backlink campaigns
Using link farms, or agencies who may employ tactics mentioned or automated software to provide ‘fake links’
Advert or press link inclusions into content that stands for no benefit to a webpage’s context.
Low-quality directory listings or bookmarking sites
Unnecessary forum, or blog comments where a byline link may be given to every comment made
Essentially they don’t want their search results clogged up with irrelevant content that doesn’t help their users. When you work on a new backlink strategy it is crucial, therefore, that you concentrate on building links with sites and directories you would like to be mentioned in and listed on. Quality means everything.
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