Have you wondered why a discussion on search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t complete without a mention of backlinking? Backlinks are almost like “votes” that you get from other websites that vouch for your content. They establish that your site content is relevant, credible and useful.
Now, if your site can manage to get more backlinks or “votes,” it’s evident that it will rank higher on Google, Yahoo and other search engines.
Backlinks are a big deal in search engine optimization strategies, and here’s why!
Reasons for the Growing Importance of Backlinks in SEO
Using links by search engine algorithms isn’t new; this was always the basis for Google’s earlier algorithm, PageRank. Since then, Google’s algorithm has undergone many changes, but backlinks continue to be one of the key ranking factors.
How can you evaluate your site’s progress? You study a range of metrics, like organic traffic, target keywords and backlink profile. The backlink profile is extremely important for SEO because it helps you stand out from the rest.
To make your site visible and attract more viewers, you have to utilize SEO techniques. However, SEO is complex and small businesses often struggle to understand which ranking factors affect their rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs). This is why it’s important to make them aware of the importance of backlinks.
Backlinks show that your site has authority and credibility, particularly when high-authority sites link to it. While backlinks are 100 percent valuable for SEO, you need to realize that it’s not only about numbers. Even sites with fewer backlinks can outrank a site with tons of backlinks. How does this happen? It’s the quality of links that determines how your site will be benefitted.
Backlinks and SEO work hand in hand to improve rankings as they establish authority. These can increase page rankings for search terms in conjunction with factors like page loading speed and on-page SEO. Backlink building is necessary for viewers to find your website easily. So, these improve site visibility.
Search engines use web spiders that crawl through content and revisit the more popular web pages. Therefore, if you engage in backlinking, they will likely spot your content faster. Besides, backlinking brings more visitors to your site through referral traffic. For instance, viewers browsing a site may click on backlinks and find themselves on a relevant page where they get more information on what they are reading about.
Backlinks boost domain authority. This may not be a ranking factor for Google, but SEO tools typically use this metric for tweaking their SEO techniques to make you outrank your competitors. When domain authority is higher, you will fetch top ranks on SERPs.
Backlinks are needed to promote online brand visibility and awareness. Businesses continue investing heavily in brand promotion campaigns to lure new customers and showcase their products. If you can earn backlinks from high-authority websites, you can get more visitors than before. This helps to enhance your brand image because you can now target visitors from other sites.
How Challenging Is Backlinking for Your Website?
Now backlinking isn’t rocket science, but it takes time and effort. So it’s important to get professionals to do the job of link-building.
Backlinks are like signals to Google that indicate that other sites are vouching for your content. This makes earning backlinks an essential part of off-site SEO. Backlink profiles are necessary tools for guiding you on link-building and helping you do away with the “bad” links which could harm your rankings.
Some backlinks will be more valuable than others. Earning links from high-authority websites is the most desirable. At the same time, you must remember that backlinks earned from spammy and low-authority sites can be disastrous for your image. Regardless of whether links are followed or not, a mere mention of your site on high-quality sites is enough to push your brand forward.
How can you measure the success of your backlink profile? The best way is to use backlink checker tools that help to break down each link that points to your website.
Now, the question is, what is it that you should look for? Here is a list of variables that must be considered:
- Check out the number of links that point to your website and every web page. If you have more links, your rank is high. But, what if you find that the SEO strategy focuses a tad more on a page and not so much on a more valuable page? Do you have excess links directed to your site? Then, these may be spammy links indicating low authority.
- Look at the current domain authority and page-level authority of the most valuable internal web pages. If you find these numbers high, your ranks will be higher for target keywords.
- Don’t depend on the same set of domains for link-building; a diversity of domains is encouraged. Returns tend to diminish when links appear from a single source.
- Link checker tools should help you assess the domain authority of the referring domains. If numbers are high, your links are likely to be strong.
- You cannot afford to have spammy links on your site. Regardless of whether you have intentionally created these, if you find links look spammy, unnatural and low-quality, remove these at once. Else, your website could get blacklisted or be penalized.
- While links may grow for your site, you need to check whether these are the same publishers that keep linking to you. Avoid creating links that are repetitive, predictable and aggressive. Study the patterns in link-building and watch out for these mistakes.
To get the best SEO outcomes, you must perform a backlink profile evaluation every month. This helps you keep a tab on the links you create and ensure you conform to Google’s terms. It also ensures you can detect and resolve issues before they get out of hand.
Why Is It Important To Get Backlinking Done by Experts?
- Backlinking is a big deal, no doubt, for your website visibility, but it can be disastrous when done wrongly. Google has specific guidelines on how you should earn or build backlinks. If you collect backlinks that violate these guidelines, the entire SEO strategy gets affected.
- Excess backlink-building is spammy to Google. Earlier, digital marketers sought easy ways to buy backlinks for their sites. Things have changed, and now search engines are very hard on spammy links. If you suddenly get too many backlinks, search engines can suspect you of resorting to black hat tactics. Such links are deemed toxic links and contain the same anchor texts or are earned from sites with low-trust scores. A top-rated SEO agency will have experts equipped to create impactful content that can appeal to readers and Google bots alike. They use strategies like link-building, blogging and content optimization to boost SEO efforts.
- Backlinking takes time and expertise. If you try and do this on your own, you can encounter many low-quality sites that affect your ranks on SERPs. You must get only high-quality backlinks from high-authority domains and sites. If you run a small business, you should aim to get high-quality links instead of chasing the maximum number of links. SEO experts know the traits of a good backlink and ways to identify a bad link. They can help you create the best backlinking strategy to get links from relevant and authoritative sites only.
- Backlinks on websites or pages must be relevant to the pages you share. For example, you should search for backlinking on pet-related blogs if you are selling pet products. This is where professional SEO experts can guide you through creating the right links.
- Backlinks from high-quality sites transfer their authority to your website. But, high-authority sites may not always get high traffic, and if they don’t, they can’t direct referral traffic to you. So, backlinks from high-traffic sites may not affect your rankings. This is why it’s important to know which type of backlink will affect your site. There can be no-follow and do-follow backlinks. No-follow backlinks won’t impact your rankings compared to the do-follow ones, but no-follow links can still transfer authority. Experts will ensure you prioritize the do-follow links to improve rankings.
To sum up, backlinking has only one goal: to increase site traffic and help your website fetch top ranks on SERPs. When backlinks cannot direct traffic to you, they are considered to be ineffective. So, consider them as means to drive traffic and improve online visibility instead of leveraging them to manipulate ranks on Google. Then, when you analyze your SEO campaigns, you can see which backlinks are most effective for driving traffic.
When you have signed up with an SEO for link-building, you should focus on both backlinks and internal links. Backlinking improves site authority, while internal linking ensures that search engines can see the importance of web pages and site structure.
External linking is the third type of linking you cannot afford to overlook when trying to better your ranks on Google. These are links that your site creates to other websites. Now, you may feel this will defeat the purpose of link building by sending visitors away from your page, but they are beneficial for optimization.
Without SEO, you cannot enhance your presence online. However, quality SEO must take into account multiple elements, and backlinks are the cornerstone of improving site authority. So, don’t forget to adapt to this strategy to stay on top of your game!