The world of the internet is constantly changing. And without adequate knowledge of latest trends, technologies, and techniques, one cannot expect to do well on the internet SERPs.
One of the most basic tools any websites can use to survive and progress in the modern-day world of the internet is Search Engine Optimisation or SEO.
Search engine optimisation, as the term suggests, is the procedure of increasing the traffic to a particular website by making it rank higher on the search engine results list.
However, in this post we are going to talk about one of the most important, yet often overlooked tools of SEO, the humble backlink.
Backlinks play a vital role in the world of Search Engine Optimisation and are considered to be the building blocks of SEO.
We will also shed light on different questions, such as what is a backlink? Why are backlinks important? And How are backlinks helpful?
OK, So let’s get on with it.
What exactly are backlinks?
Backlinks are simply links that direct traffic towards your website.
They are also referred to as Inbound links, or IBL’s.
The quantity of backlinks indicates the popularity of a website.
Backlinks are central to SEO these days, because search engines like Google give more recognition to websites that have a decent number of high quality backlinks.
Basically, what happens is that when search engines analyse the relevance of a website for a keyword, they take into account the number of quality backlinks to that site.
Therefore, along with the quantity of backlinks, quality also matters… a lot!
Search engines analyse the content of websites in order to calculate the quality of a link.
When a backlink to your site comes from websites that have similar content to your site, they are considered more relevant.
Hence, the more relevant content is, the greater the quality of the backlink.
Currently, a search engine’s standards for determining quality backlinks has become stricter.
This is due to users trying to attain inbound links by deceptive techniques (black hat SEO.)
As an example:
Users employ methods such as hidden links and automatically created pages with the purpose of providing backlinks to websites.
Such pages are known as link farms… and are highly disregarded by search engines.
Reciprocal Links are Not Always Good
Another method often used to bring visitors to website is reciprocal linking.
As the term suggests, reciprocal linking involves webmasters agreeing upon link exchanges to lift their site’s rankings on the basis of number of backlinks.
Basically, one website admin places a backlink of another website on their website; and vice versa.
This leads to degradation in the quality of the backlinks as they are not relevant to the content.
And then BAM! Your websites drop in trust and ranking. Not what you want to happen at all!
It is important to be careful with reciprocal links, because they can land you in a lot of hot water.
Of course, if the two sites share similar content, then this is only a good thing!
One thing you should check before going ahead with this method is that the site who will link to you is not bulging to the seams with useless links.
Also have a look at their domain authority; this can determine the trust score of their links.
It is also important to be careful when interlinking multiple websites using the same IP.
This is known as ‘backlink bombing’ and can be bad news for your site.
So, in short: Only link to sites that are relevant to your niche.
Safe Ways to Get Backlinks
The following techniques can be employed for safe backlinking.
First of all, keeping track of your backlinks will be helpful in understanding which websites are linking back to yours.
It will also help to see whether the anchor text of the backlink includes keywords relevant to your website.
There are many tools available online which display the backlinks of a domain in different search engines, such as Google and Yahoo.
Such tools also indicate other details related to your website such as listings in the Open Directory, DMOZ, and Alexa traffic rank, etc.
Backlink Builder Tool is also a great tool which can help with your backlinking campaign.
The tool automatically looks for websites with themes and content related to your website… and which are most likely to place your link to their website.
All you have to do is to put a particular keyword or phrase in the search box and the tool will do the rest for you.
This helps a great deal in simplifying backlink building efforts by facilitating the creation of quality-oriented, relevant backlinks to your website.
In addition to that, another way to achieve quality backlinks to your website is using the anchor text.
Quality anchor text refers to the incorporation of a keyword into the text of the hyperlink in a link.
Although, link anchor text is greatly underestimated by webmasters, the boost in traffic it provides is amazing!
Using phrases which include the keywords related to your site works like a charm.
‘Feel free to visit our instructions page to learn how to run an effective backlinking campaign’ is much better than ‘click here’. This is how to utilise a hyperlink in a far better way.
There are many anchor text analysis tools available online to help with finding desired backlinks and text being used to link your website.
Upon finding that your site is getting linked to from another website with the anchor text not being employed properly, you are suggested to request the concerned website modify the anchor text in such a way that incorporates relevant keywords.
This method also assists boosting the quality backlink score.
It is evident that generating quality backlinks is tremendously important in Search Engine Optimisation.
These simple little links can drive your site up the SERPs and help you become more visible… and all with minimal work!
Always run checks to make sure that websites that link to you have a low spam score. If you have spam sites linking to your website, you can request that the links be ignored.
Reach out to bloggers and brands in the same niche as you and ask for backlinks to content you feel is relevant.
If you have a gardening website, it would be pointless asking a motorcycle website to give you a link: there’s no relevance between the two.
Well, that is about it for today’s post. If you want to learn more about SEO tips and tricks that actually work, check out this post for much more.