External links coined “backlinks” are among the integral parts of Search Engine Optimization as a whole. They act like your site’s arms and legs that form bridges connecting to other websites. In turn, these connections lead generated traffic into your domain. Therefore, backlink has a significant role in SEO that it has to perform correctly to contribute to the end goal. You can find a lot of instructions and guides online as to how to do the process right, but you will still need one thing to ensure success – small SEO tools backlink checker.
Another term for backlinks is “inbound links” or “incoming links.” Both are very fitting names, actually, if you consider how a backlink is created when one website connects to another through a live link. This said link that connects to an external site is the so-called backlink. Producing a well-constructed page is one thing, but having people to come and visit it is another. One obvious way to achieve this is by constructing backlinks through off-page optimization.
Off-page optimization is all about the actions that you perform outside of your own website which attempts to influence your rankings within search engine results pages or SERPs. Moreover, this involves the advancement of search engine factors as well as the users’ perception of a site’s popularity. A page’s relevance, reliability, and authority operate under this.
The Process of Backlinking
Link earning or link building refers to the process of acquiring backlinks in all its nature of being one of the pillars of off-page optimization. Of course, you must first understand every detail of its process before you can reap its fruits. You would also need to realize that there would be backlinks that are naturally more significant than the rest of its kind.
The most sought-after backlinks that you can earn are followed backlinks that only trustworthy, popular and high-authority sites can provide. On the other hand, backlinks from low-authority websites which are spam-filled more often than not also exist. A site owner could take actions such as specifically instructing search engines to link equity or to pass or not. Either way, having a link followed or not is still relevant, though it won’t completely put aside the value of no-follow links to waste. An excellent example is by merely earning a mention on high-quality websites as it can give your brand the boost that you never knew it needed.
Quality over quantity is the game for backlinks. You may build as many as you can, but it still won’t be enough to tie in with quality backlinks. One option is to employ paid services to generate links to your site. However, going down this path will most likely have Google Penguin’s algorithm running after you.
Still, there are other things that you can do to get those quality backlinks working for your blog’s favor.
∙ Compose appealing articles.
First, you would need to conjure a convincing reason for people to come to you, and composing appealing articles would be a good start. Readers could even take it upon themselves to share it to their peers if they found your content helpful and pleasant.
After having published your articles, you could proceed to disseminate outreach emails to potentially interested readers. You can find these people by inputting your topic into Google then collecting the list of articles that the SERPs will show.
∙ Consider guest blogging.
Contrary to the first step, you will write an article for other peoples’ site rather than doing it on your own. It might come across as weird at first, but you will realize how beneficial this is in terms of link building. The payment method for the free article that you will be writing is the permission for you to insert within the post 1-2 links that will lead back to your site.
The beginning is the most challenging part, as you would have to search for sites that offer guest blogging opportunities. Reach out to pages that are already catering to guest blogs. You will know you found one when they have a page calling for contributors under page titles like “Write for Us” or “Contribute” page. Once you found your battleground, simply comply with their instructions, and you can start by submitting a pitch.
If the page that you found already featured a relevant topic, then all the more reason that they will be interested in what you have to offer. Likewise, sites that don’t initially call for contributors would more likely be willing to accept your guesting, especially about that topic.
∙ Mimic your competitors’ moves.
You can never go wrong with this excellent business strategy. Being new to the industry has one undeniable perk – the lead of their prominent competitors. These pioneers are more likely to have gained plenty of backlinks and might even have done some of their own so that they can reach better rankings. It’s an excellent guide, either way.
Using their preface to your advantage, you can learn their methods in acquiring their links and do it for your own.
∙ Build your links.
There are no links to generate if your site is filled with broken ones, so it would be better if you fix issues within first before going out and about. This ever-evolving nature of the Web could lead to alterations, modifications or deletions of pages from time to time. Another unfortunate outcome of this is broken links, which are links that lead to pages that no longer exist.
Both the webmasters and searchers wouldn’t like being led to an empty page and will subsequently result in poor user experience. Unfortunately, busy web experts often overlook situations like this, as it also takes a considerable amount of effort to regularly evict broken links from your site.
∙ Submit to web directories.
This method might as well be among the easiest to execute, but it has decreased in popularity these days. Indeed, finding a legal web directory is not an easy task. Direct submission tricks are no good either, as it will make your site appear as spam. Eventually, you will have to face a lot of problems in your domain authority and worse, your site will be wiped out from search engines.
The number of various approaches that you can engage in is there to justify the proven benefits of backlinks in SEO.
Importance and Uses of Backlink to a Website
A lot may have changed in the affairs of backlinks in the past couple of years, but its apparent advantages today are unquestionably significant. Back then, even the so-called low-quality links are still valuable to a site’s ranking. However, the emergence of Google’s Penguin algorithm changed the whole landscape of backlinking.
Today, it’s imperative for backlinks to come from quality sites and should be contextual rather than just that. The goal here is to obtain links from authoritative and relevant websites. Here are some of the reasons why.
1. Backlinks build up organic ranking.
Expect better search engine rankings once you have done your backlinking right. Your content’s gain of links from other sites will result in higher rankings in search results. Nonetheless, you would have to build them hands-on. Aim to create links to each of your site’s individual posts and pages in conjunction with those that lead to your homepage.
2. Backlinks promote faster indexing.
The only way for your website to be discovered is by having search engine bots find it. However, they will only be able to detect new webpages by tracking those from existing webpages. They can then crawl your site effectively. Thus, not having backlinks will make it difficult for the search engine bots to reach your site especially if it’s a new one. Otherwise, successful backlinking is functional in the faster indexing of your website.
3. Backlinks produce referral traffic.
Once you gained your reader’s best interest, the higher your chance is to have them click on the links in the post to learn more about the topic that you wrote. People click on links at their own free will, so their visits are usually more targeted. They would also be less likely to leave the page, and if so, there will be a low bounce rate.
Basically, backlinks serve as your bridges and doorways for people to be able to land to your page wherever else they might be. Another way to put it is how backlinks could symbolize trust and reliability from one site to the other. Hence, these connections signal to search engine bots that your pages and content are worth linking to, given the traffic that your disseminated links generate. They will then realize that they would have to display your page on search engine results pages. Aside from having a positive effect on your site’s ranking position, the production of these backlinks could also enhance your search visibility.
