The What, Why and How of Backlinks

 

The What, Why and How of Backlinks

A Backlink, also known as an inbound link, is a link on a website to a page on a different website. The search engines take the number and quality of backlinks to a page into heavy consideration when ranking organically and the pages with a lot of other sites linking to them are more likely to be considered trustworthy, valuable and useful.

A backlink’s weight in influencing page rank is determined by the quality of the site the backlink comes from, meaning that not all backlinks are of the same value. In fact, a high-quality backlink can be worth more than hundreds or even thousands of low-quality backlinks.

So, what constitutes a high-quality link?

What to Consider When Determining Backlink Quality

There are some common things to look for when analyzing backlinks for how influential they will be on your rankings. The first is relevancy, is the site that’s linking to your page related to what your page and site are about? Google and the other search engines will put more weight on relevant links that connect related sites. Also, do the links contain keywords that are important for your site? Targeted keywords in the link will also help contribute to the quality of the link.

Backlinks from trusted and powerful sites will naturally carry a lot more weight and will contribute much more to your organic rankings than backlinks from lesser-known sites. Search engines take into account the authority of the linking site, meaning that the more authority the site that’s linking to your page has, the more authority it gives to your site by linking to it, increasing the pull a backlink has on your organic search results. It’s important to note that Google has denied the use of Domain Authority when ranking sites, however, they use a site score that is similar. A site gains authority in a few ways, one of the big ones being number and quality of backlinks.

Another sign of a quality backlink is a link from a site that hasn’t linked to your site before. A high diversity of backlinks is a big indicator of a quality, relevant, valuable and trustworthy page. The more unique domains that link to your site, the more likely you will rank well organically, Google will notice when lots of sites are telling them that your page is important.

How to Obtain High-Quality Backlinks

The most reliable and effective way to gain backlinks is to create a piece of content that is valuable. If you have nothing to link to, then you won’t be able to gain backlinks. These linkable pieces of content can come in the form of blogs, videos, webinars, infographics, quizzes, etc. Your content needs to be attention grabbing and high-quality in order for people to want to link to it.

Once you have your awesome linkable content, then you need to find the right sites to get links from. There are a few strategies to consider when trying to find backlinks. One is to find list or round up blogs. These are blogs with the singular purpose to link to cool and interesting content. When you find blogs that are relevant to the kind of content on your site, then contact the blogger to let them know that your content exists.

Another strategy is to find broken or outdated links that are related to the content you make and to reach out to the sites that are using these outdated and broken links. In a similar vein, finding mentions of your business that don’t include links to your site are a potential way to increase the number of backlinks that you have, just contact the person mentioning your business and politely ask for a link.

Another great way to get links, as well as brand awareness, is to send your product or provide a sample of your service to sites and bloggers/ vloggers with large followings. It’s important not to violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, so be careful with what you say when contacting people, just send them your product and let them decide if it’s worth including in their blog or vlog, but if your stuff is high-quality, then you shouldn’t have much to worry about. Having reviews link to your site is a great way to gain quality backlinks.

Approaching Site Owners, Bloggers and Vloggers for Links

There is a bit of an art when it comes to contacting people to gain links. First of all, be careful not to violate Google’s guidelines on link schemes, such as exchanging money, goods or services for links. It’s important to be friendly and not to beg for links. Just let them know how you found them and why you are reaching out. If you are reaching out about replacing a broken link on someone’s site, for example, let them know which links are broken and then let them know that you have a link that would be a good replacement.

Conclusion

Backlinks are essential to good rankings on the search engines. Quality over quantity, but quantity and quality are really what you’re looking for, as well as diversity in domains. You need high-quality linkable content to gain backlinks and from there you need to let site owners and bloggers that can give you quality links know that your content is out there and where to find it. Good backlinks can be difficult to obtain, but they are worth the effort.

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