If there is one technique that can single-handedly improve a site’s SEO performance, that is proper and intelligent use of backlinks.
These are links that other sites use to connect their pages to yours. They are like votes of confidence for your good work from authorities, which automatically forces search engines to take you seriously and rank you properly in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
In this Fastlinky article, I’ll give you a rundown on these links and their importance in a site’s SEO performance.
Let’s go.
A backlink is a clickable object on a webpage that links that site to your website.
There are three key linking methods in SEO: Internal linking, external linking and backlinking. Internal linking connects pages on your site; external linking connects your pages to pages on other sites and backlinks connect other sites to your site.
Suppose you externally link one of your webpages to a page on another domain. Here, this link is an external link for your site and a backlink for the other site to which you have connected our page.
Backlinking is one of the most important factors in SERP ranking. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is preparing your webpages so they can rank higher in SERPs than their competing websites.
One key tactic to achieve this higher ranking is to build an impressive backlink profile for your site.
Search engine ranking algorithms consider backlinks a key ranking metric. In short, the quantity and quality of these links will significantly influence your pages’ ranking with search engines.
The upshot here is, the more high-quality backlinks your webpages have, the happier the search engines will be with them and the brighter will be their chances of ranking high on SERPs.
We’ll now see what important roles these links to your site from other domains play in a site’s linking strategy.
Now we’ll discuss some major benefits such links can yield one by one. Read on.
Search engines like Google take backlinks as an indicator of a site’s credibility and trustworthiness. If authority sites link to your pages, it automatically becomes clear to search engines that your site must have high-quality relevant content.
And that is exactly what search engines want to deliver in the SERPs–relevant and high-quality content. So a solid backlink profile will significantly improve your ranking prospect on SERPs.
A backlink is considered a vote of confidence in your favour from other authority sites. No sites that mean business will link them to any low-grade, low-relevance pages.
Search engines take this understanding as a universal truth and treat these links as a serious indicator of a site’s credibility and trustworthiness.
A site’s domain authority (DA) is its relevance to its niche. DA has a direct impact on a site’s SERP ranking as search engines want to deliver relevant and outstanding content against queries.
When reputable sites link their pages to yours, it tells Google that your site has authority knowledge of its subject. Thus, backlinks from credible reputed sites lift up your site’s DA which may result in high SERP ranking for it.
If other authority sites link to your pages, it increases the possibility of their visitors coming to your site through those backlinks.
This kind of traffic from other sites, rather than from search engines, is called referral traffic. links to your site from other domains can increase this referral traffic to your pages significantly.
The increase in referral traffic will automatically give your brand more exposure as more and more people will come to your site by clicking links to your pages on other sites.
Thus links to your pages from other domains will provide you with an excellent opportunity to showcase your brand and give it a strong buildup.
Since you want backlinks and since five such links from five sites are better than all five coming from a single site, you will reach out to other sites to get some links to your site from them. This will give you an excellent opportunity to build connections and forge strong relationships with people who matter.
Backlinks can be of different types and here we’ll discuss some types of such links that wield strong influence on your site’s SERP prospect.
Also, not all links leding to your site are important for your site’s SERP buildup. Now we’ll discuss major types of backlinks to tell no-gooders from do-gooders.
When you link your pages to other websites, you can add a ‘nofollow’ attribute to the HTML code or add no attribute at all.
If you add the ‘nofollow’ attribute, search engines will not consider that link for page ranking. The same goes for links that lead to your pages from other sites. It is evident that these ‘nofollow’ backlinks are worthless so far as your SEO improvement is concerned.
Unless mentioned otherwise (with “nofollow” attribute) by the webmaster, all links outbound and backlinks are ‘dofollow’ links by default.
If an authority site links back to yours with ‘dofollow’ links, search engines will consider it as an endorsement of your niche authority from that site and treat you well in their page ranking.
So, go ahead and give your eyeteeth to get good dofollow links from other sites to your pages.
You’ll be better off steering clear of this type of backlinks. They come with a ‘sponsored’ attribute in its HTML code. This means the guy who inserted that link may get financial benefits from people clicking on it.
Search engines do not consider such links as trustworthy due to this financial consideration. In fact, too many sponsored links to your site from others may even harm your page ranking profile.
These links originate from your profile on various forums, social media sites and online directories.
Search engines usually treat these kinds of backlinks as ‘nofollow’ links. Still, they can add value to your brand by increasing referral traffic and improving your brand image. They also give your brand good online exposure which is crucial for online businesses.
PBN stands for Private Blog Network. This is a clever tactic to trick search engines into ranking a site high on SERP as it gets a huge number of backlinks.
But in the case of PBN, a privately owned network of sites provides one target site with links to bolster its link profile.
This practice is strictly prohibited by Google and other search engines as they consider it as a link scheme. On detection, this practice will attract strong punitive action from search engines like very low ranking or no SERP presence at all.
So avoid such backlinks at any cost.
Naked links are hyperlinks in the form of a URL, without any anchor text. If used sparingly and intelligently, these links may add to the value of a site’s anchor text profile as they provide some kind of diversity to it.
Search engines usually treat these links as legitimate links. So, they usually help a site’s link profile if they lead to high-quality relevant content.
This type of link is found in user-generated content, rather than content carefully developed by reputed brands.
For example, a user comment on your content in a public forum or a social media platform is a UGC link.
They are also contraindicated to your SEO strategy as search engines often consider them as spam links and either ignore them or worse, take action against you for getting such links.
You can’t blame search engines for this. Lots of people create fake social media profiles and give links to their sites in meaningless low-grade comments using the phoney handles to get lots of backlinks.
So, you’d better be careful about such links or you may regret it later.
These links come from publications like news sites and blogs that generate regular content primarily to inform and/or educate.
Such links from reputable sites will help your pages do better in SERPs. However, they must come from reputable authoritative sites or blogs. Editorial backlinks from low-grade disreputable publications will not help your SEO strategy.
Try to get some of these links, but with caution.
You get guest post backlinks when you write articles for other people’s websites or blogs. For example, the guy you write for will give a link to your bio in your post.
This link is great to build new connections, get lots of referral traffic and build your brand online.
But remember, Google is sceptic about these links and recommends adding ‘nofollow’ attribute to them. This is because these links are often gestures of courtesy rather than endorsements of quality.
These are links listed in directories like travel directories, google etc. Though search engines do not usually count such links as ranking metric, they can still provide you with valuable referral traffic and possibly a business boost.
When someone goes public through the media with a new product or service, they add links to their sites for more information in the communique they send to the media houses. These are called press release backlinks.
Such links are usually ‘nofollow’ links and do not help a page’s SEO strategy much. But they often increase referral traffic and other related benefits.
Now we’ll find out backlinking best practices. I mean, how to get these links? What backlinks should you aim at and which ones should you stay away from? In short, how to get links that will help your SEO strategy and boost your link profile.
There are certain backlinks you should try to get. Again there are some that are potentially dangerous and harmful so far as SERP ranking is concerned.
Search engines usually ignore links from forum posts and comments while evaluating links for SERP ranking.
Excessive and low-grade links from these sources may even attract punitive action from search engines as they might treat them as spam.
Besides, forums usually mark such links as ‘nofollow’.
Be careful about this linking practice
If you pay for backlinks, you are violating Google’s spam policy and on detection will attract bad punitive action from the search engine.
Don’t forget, even providing free service or product in exchange for links is also treated as payment and treated accordingly by search engines. Stay away from them if you know what is good for you.
These backlinks are also treated as spam by search engines like Google and will deliver a severe blow to your SERP prospect on detection. And trust me, those search engine guys are clever and the chances of detection are high.
These are invisible links back to your site from a widget you develop. Such links are prohibited by search engines and harm your link profile with them.
The reason for this restriction is that anyone can install your widget and inadvertently click on the invisible link and be tricked into visiting your site willy-nilly.
But if the link back to your site is visible, it should be okay as the guy who installed it will know about it and can’t be tricked into clicking on it.
Search engines do not like these links and treat them as ‘nofollow’ links. Not only will they do you no good, their consistent and huge presence may even do you some serious bad.
The bottom line? Avoid them.
Valuable backlinks can significantly improve your SEO performance and SERP ranking. But let’s find out how one can get such useful links.
This is a time-tested method of earning reputation and credibility, both online and in real life. If your content is of high quality and add value to relevant search intent, other reputed sites may tag their pages to yours for additional references for their readers.
Original research-oriented content gets many backlinks due to their uniqueness and quality. Try to pack your site with such outstanding content and then go shopping for such links: Your pleas will pack a real punch.
Try and build strong relationships with owners of other reputed sites in your niche by reaching out to them.
If your content is unique and of high-quality, chances are you will get some good backlinks from them from time to time.
Don’t forget those people also want to provide their readers with valuable additional information. If they find them on your site, there is no reason why they shouldn’t refer their readers to your site.
But this is strictly a give-and-take world. You must give those site links from your domain to get their backlinks.
Posting high-quality content on other people’s sites will help you build new contacts and relationships with webmasters of your industry.
Such posting is a good public relations exercise and has the potential to prompt owners of those sites to link their content to your pages.
This relationship will help you get some good backlinks.
To summarise, I would like to remind you that backlinks are valuable to your site’s link profile in particular and its overall SERP prospect in general.
Search engines like Google consider hyperlinks on a site as a major SERP ranking metric.
Just remember, your link profile must tell web crawlers that you are trying to provide searchers with valuable information to satisfy their search intent. If you can do it, search engines will take you seriously and evaluate your links accordingly.
Just build a first-class site, fill up the needs of your readers with outstanding content and maintain good relationships with others in your chosen niche and, bingo! you are home!
Backlinks are hyperlinks that connect pages of other websites to your site’s pages.
Yes. Search engines like Google consider legitimate backlinks that provide valuable and relevant information as a major ranking metric.
I wouldn’t do it. Paid backlinks attract strong punitive action on detection from major search engines like Google.
Wouldn’t you if those links led your readers to high-quality additional information? Take it easy, the world isn’t that bad yet.