What are backlinks and how do you build them?
- Written by Aniket
If you are new into the online business your first and most important job will be to increase the traffic on your website.
Working with SEO and its nuances can be difficult and we are here to help you out.
The most important SEO ranking factor you need to consider is therefore the Backlinks. This is the best way to increase your website’s traffic on Google.
In fact, Google swears by it. In 2016, Google declared that of the two most important indicators in their process of ranking websites, other than content are backlinks.
What are Backlinks?
Simply, Backlinks are links that point a person from one page of one website to another page of another website.
In the SEO world, they are also called “external links” or “inbound links”.
In comparison to internal links, that take you from one page on a website to another page, backlinks are links from a third party connecting a person to their desired website.
Why Backlinks are important for your Website Strategy?
• RANKING:
Backlinks are mostly popularity tests for Google.
The higher number of backlinks a website has the higher their ranking will be on the search engine.
However, there is a trick. Not every backlink will increase your rank.
You have to be mindful that you are earning “quality links”. These are links that don’t violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, the ones that don’t manipulate search results.
Moreover, Google also uses these links to find new pages on the internet.
Out of the millions of pages that get created all over the web every second of every day, Google agents use these backlinks to discover content and navigate through the web.
Thus, a link from a source that is reliable and trustworthy—your content will be indexed by Google quicker than others.
• TRUST:
To make your website a success, you need to understand that most search engines rely a lot on these links to judge the credibility of pages.
They are similar to online reputations for your website.
Links from authoritative websites doesn’t only rank the website from the SEO perspective. They are great boosters of trust and credibility of your website and business.
A beginner’s start up might not be very famous but with backlinks from major companies and journalistic websites, your status in the market is already on the rise.
Even if you ignore the technical SEO ranking, having notable websites choose to “link” your website will subsequently enhance your reliability in many ways.
• SEND REFERRAL TRAFFIC TO YOUR PAGE:
Backlinks can be in any form.
The advertisements you receive in your emails from Amazon, Netflix and other companies are also predominantly backlinks.
Simply, the backlinks take the browser from Page 1 to Page 2 not just within but in between different sites.
Therefore, with relevant press coverage and well-placed links, your site can receive a lot of traffic introducing a potential array of readers and later customers to your brand and vision.
Types of Backlinks:
Not all backlinks are the same. Here are the different types.
• NOFOLLOW LINKS:
NoFollow Links are where you post a link to website without vouching for it.
It is a way to let search engines know that the link has not passed the trust test.
Since, they do not pass trust, they automatically do not pass the page ranking as well and these links will not help your website from an SEO perspective.
• DOFOLLOW LINKS:
A Follow Link is the exact opposite of a NoFollow Link. They pass the trust test and are a reliable source and thus rank higher on search engines.
• SPONSORED OR PAID LINKS:
At times, you might pay a blogger or influencer to promote a piece of your content or to post a review of one of your products.
This exchange of services and money has to be informed to Google and the link, therefore, needs to have the word “sponsored” mentioned on the link.
However, this might affect your ranking in some way since this violates Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
• UGC LINKS:
These come in forums and blog comments. This helps Google understand that the link was posted by a user instead of the webmaster.
• HIGH AUTHORITY LINKS:
These links come from very trusted sources like newspapers or an already established website which has earned its trust.
These links are very valuable as it won’t just help you gain immense trust and credibility throughout the web but it will also rank you higher on Google since Google trusts these sites a lot.
• TOXIC LINKS:
These are mostly “bad” links which will harm your website’s ranking and status.
They typically come from suspicious sites violating the Webmaster Guidelines whose goal is to cause manipulations in search engine rankings.
You can identify and weed out these links by regularly and thoroughly auditing your backlinks.
• EDITORIALLY PLACED LINKS:
These are earned links and Google passes great authority to the websites that have them.
It is when a webmaster or journalist decides your website is worthy of being linked with their webpage or article and deserves generous traffic.
These links help both the person whose website is linked as well as the reader whose reading experience is enhanced.
How to build Backlinks using SEMrush?
We are here to help you build the perfectly ranked website full of integrity. For that, we have compiled the best ways to keep your backlinks growing and clean.
(Experience SEMrush with a 14-Day Free Trial)
1. Check your Profile Regularly:
It will help you be on top of everything. It is recommended that you schedule this check once every 2 weeks since Google typically takes that much time to index all new links.
To check the list, type your domain on SEMrush’s Backlink Report and check out all the new links.
Click on the “New” backlink filter and select “follow” to check the most valuable one’s first.
This will help you understand whether your previous outreach activities, affiliate programs, or any kind of marketing cooperation ended in failure.
At the same time also use the backlink checker to check for and eliminate toxic links. To get rid of the toxic links, click “All Links” and choose ascending sorting by page score, which is a good detector for an undesirable referring domain.
Setup your Backlink Audit Tool for the analyzed domain and export all your findings in .txt format.
Then from your Disavow list, you’ll be able to add it to the Disavow tab in your current project, so that you can send it to the Google Disavow Tool afterwards.
This way you successfully grow your domain without any hitches along the way.
2. Find Ideas from Correct Rivals:
While we are firm believers of the idiom “beg, borrow, do not steal” it is somewhat okay to take reference from others when nothing is new anymore.
So, you can very well take ideas from others to boost your website.
But how will you know who to take the ideas from?
SEMrush’s Backlinks Competitors Reports shows rival websites with similar referral domains and the size of their backlinks profile.
You can compare and contrast their profiles with yours to find the optimum way to make your site better.
These are companies that might be getting referral traffic from resources where your target audience resides.
You can also use the Organic Competitors report if you want to spy on your competitor’s organic traffic sources.
Just create a new Backlinks analytics report of your competitor’s domain and see the sites that refer to your competitor.
You can use this list for your future “outreach” register.
3. Get Back Everything You Lost:
While getting new links is a pretty big deal you wouldn’t want to lose on anything valuable.
Click on the “Lost” tab on your profile to find every link you might have lost and add the “Follow” feature on them with descending sorting by the Page Score.
This way you’ll find your biggest losses by trusted domains. Try to reach out to the site owners and get the backlinks back.
4. Find Content Ideas:
Generating content on a regular basis is hard and so is deciding what to create.
Through SEMrush you can find valuable content ideas for your website.
The Indexed Pages helps you find backlink attractive content which will help you gain tons of referral traffic.
Just type in your rival’s domain and see which pages attracts the biggest number of links from different domains.
5. Use Redirects for Previously Successful Pages:
There are times when a specific backlink will stop working.
Maybe if your product is out of stock or you have removed the article you posted earlier.
At times like these, it is better to redirect the customer/reader to another link which offers a similar product or article to the one they were searching for.
This will help you not only keep your users but also `not ruin your relationship with people linking to your organization in the future.
6. Naturalise your Backlinks Profile:
Google believes that there should be a fine balance between anchor texts and branded compounds.
You can check this on the Anchors Report.
To find all the domains that link to your site with a particular text, type the words you want to check in the search column.
In the drop-down menu, you will see suggestions that are taken from all the anchor texts that you already have.
You can create a nice template asking to change the text of your anchors and speed up the outreaching process.
This will prevent Google from thinking your site is actually spam or manipulative and against the Webmaster Guidelines and stop you from getting blocked or banned.
7. Get Rid of All Toxic BackLinks:
Use the Backlink Audit to get rid of all toxic backlinks.
No one wants to be penalized for their websites and toxic backlinks might do that to you.
Therefore regularly check for them and make sure audit them.
Once you have done that, you can ask the website to remove it or you can put it on the Disavow List.
But make sure you remove all of them. Every one link!
8. Set up an Alarm:
Additionally to checking you can also set up an alarm and notifications with the Backlink Audit which will inform you immediately of toxic links and help you put them out as quickly as possible. ‘
9. Automatic Link Building Idea Search:
This feature researches through numerous content to find the optimum ideas for link to help you build appropriate backlinks.
You can start the research by clicking on the setup button in the link building widget and enter up to 10 keywords that you wish to rank for.
Subsequently, you will find targets that will be presented based on the backlinks that are helping other websites rank for your target keywords.
Also, you can enter up to 10 competitors which will help SEMrush determine which domains have backlinks pointing to your competitors.
These are a few tips you can use to build a strong and watertight backlink profile for your website and gain your desired ranking on Google and other search engines.
Conclusion
So, that was my small attempt to offer an understanding of one of the most important words in the world of SEO – “backlinks”
When you start as a content creator, it’s very overwhelming especially getting your content in front of the right audience.
Luckily we have tools today that help us lessen our pain by providing us the right SEO strategy and thorough competitor analysis.
So, take advantage of them and apply the recommendations they give. I personally use SEMrush and love it.
Implement the strategies mentioned above and let me know if I missed on any of the tips.
Also, post in the comments section what topic you want me to cover in my next post.
With that, thank you for reading and see you in the next one!
Ta-da!
You might also like :
• SEMrush Review & Tutorial: 2020 Edition
• 5 Ways Bloggers Can Use SEMrush For More Traffic And Revenue
• How To Do Keyword Research For Affiliate Marketing?
• SEMrush Free Trial: Test Dive SEMrush with a 14 Day Trial
• SEMrush Affiliate Program (Berush): Is it worth it?
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