Backlinks are an essential part of any good SEO strategy, as they can have a significant impact on your SEO ranking.
Ensure you consider the following 7 tips when optimizing your backlinks.
What are backlinks?
Backlinks are links from other websites that lead to your website. They are directly related to search engine optimization.
The better the reputation of the site linking to your site, the more valuable the recommendation and the more positively it will influence your website's SEO ranking. High domain popularity (number of sites linking to your site) is also important.
Google works like us humans: the more important the person making the recommendation is, the more seriously we take it. And we tend to consider a recommendation from a hundred people to be more relevant than a hundred recommendations from the same person.
Links not only signal to search engines how important your website is, but are also helpful for users and generate traffic ( clicks) to your site.
A good backlink strategy supports your SEO strategy and strengthens your website overall.
🔗 1/ Competitive analysis
Find out where you currently stand and who your competitors are.
Tools such as SEMrush or suite.searchmetrics.com can help you identify your competitors and determine how many visitors your website has.
Compare yourself with the competition and orient yourself towards the companies that appear at the top of search engines for your keywords – because that's where you want to be.
If you are in first place here, then CONGRATULATIONS: you already have a good backlink strategy and probably don't need to make any further optimizations. 😉
SEMrush analysis of www.sbb.ch
Tools such as linkody.com or SEMrush check how your existing backlinks are rated. Here, too, it is important to compare yourself with the competition.
SEMrush Backlink Analysis of www.sbb.ch
What does SEO mean?
SEO stands for "search engine optimization ."
The goal is for search engines such as Google and Bing to rank your website as high as possible. As soon as someone enters a relevant search query (which is often forgotten), clicks can then be generated on your own website.
This is achieved through various optimizations. Unlike Google advertising or Google Ads, clicks are free of charge after optimization.
🔗 2/ What makes good backlinks?
Good backlinks depend on quality and appropriate frequency. Less can also be more, because if the quality of the linking pages is not right, it will also drag your page down.
Let's take a trip into the offline world:
A friend in his mid-60s, single, insurance agent, no children, recommends that you rediscover baby food. Does that sound credible? Of course not. Google also notices this in the backlinks. That's why backlinks must be placed carefully on pages that are as relevant as possible. Google quickly recognizes when a link has been placed solely for SEO purposes.
Relevance is assessed on the basis of various factors.
👉 Content of the linking domain
👉 Quality of backlinks
👉 Relevance of content to the topic
Content links, i.e., links from continuous text , are most effective. These can be integrated into the text using anchor links that describe the linked page.
For example, an article recommendation can be linked as follows using an anchor: Online marketing trends for SMEs in 2020. Search engines rate it positively when your website links in a natural way.
Caution should be exercised with "trash links" from press portals, directories, or comment fields, as these are ineffective and can even be harmful.
As a general rule, the easier it is to create a link, for example through a comment, the less value the link has in terms of SEO ranking.
The more difficult it is to create a link, such as editorial links from a daily newspaper, the more value is assigned to the link. Such editorial links should be relevant to the content. For example, if a clothing store is linked to a car magazine, it is not relevant to the topic.
🔗 3/ Pay attention to link juice
It makes sense to link to other relevant pages on the site. A healthy balance is the key to success here. If too many other pages are linked, you will have to share the so-called link juice with the other pages.
Link juice refers to the characteristics and relevance that a page passes on to the linked pages.
Your site may lose credibility if Google considers it to be fake due to too many links. The placement of links on the page is also important. The fewer clicks it takes to get from the home page to the linked page, the more valuable the backlink is. Links in the footer or on the sidebar are suboptimal.
🔗 4/ The significance of DoFollow and NoFollow links
It is important to distinguish between DoFollow and NoFollow links.
DoFollow links are increasingly included in search engine rankings, whereas NoFollow links are included to a lesser extent or not at all.
When all links were still DoFollow links, there was an increase in spam and irrelevant links. Today, a link can be coded with "rel=nofollow" to separate it from the ranking power.
NoFollow links therefore primarily influence search engines indirectly by generating additional traffic, which in turn has a positive impact on SEO.
There are also voices saying that NoFollow links now directly influence SEO again—however, there are still no large-scale studies on this.
On-page and off-page optimizations
SEO is divided into off-page and on-page optimizations. As the name suggests, on-page optimization involves making improvements to your own website. Once the website has been improved, both users and search engines rate the site more highly, which in turn leads to a higher ranking and additional clicks from searchers.
Off-page optimization is the second subgroup in the field of SEO. Off-page optimization refers to optimizations that do NOT take place on your own website. Backlink building is a central component of this.
🔗 5/ Suitable backlink pages
Use competitor comparison to find pages that are suitable for backlinks. Make sure you only use good backlinks —after all, you don't want to rank as well as your competitors, you want to rank better.
Various tools allow you to enter relevant keywords and receive a list of the top 100 websites that currently rank for your keywords. If you can position your link on these pages, you will also benefit from their link juice.
The easiest backlinks to create are links in your email footer, in job postings, and on sites such as Bing Places or Google My Business.
🔗 6/ Backlink sources
You know where you want to link your site and are wondering how to get these links? Basically, good backlink building requires time and often money.
The most effective way is to write to the site owners with an explanation of why they should link to your site.
It is important that you deliver good content—keyword: content marketing. Website operators often want something in return for this in the form of financial compensation, which can range from CHF 100 to several thousand francs.
The amount of this remuneration depends on the industry and the quality of the site. With so-called affiliate partnerships with bloggers, the amount of remuneration per click can be regulated via the set link.
Furthermore, the websites of your business partners, customers, and suppliers can also be valuable sources for backlinks.
The same applies to pages belonging to your friends, acquaintances, and relatives, provided that a link is thematically appropriate.
🔗 7/ Remove bad backlinks
When building links, Google penalties should be avoided. Penalties are warnings issued when Google determines that backlinks have been artificially created , the linking pages are of poor quality, or are spam. They devalue your website.
SEMrush and other tools offer page detection for bad links, but removing all bad links is nearly impossible because the website owners are often unknown.
Although Google allows you to declare bad links as invalid, this feature should be used with caution. If used improperly, it can also have negative consequences for your SEO.
In addition, Google is usually "smart" enough to filter out these untrustworthy links itself. After all, Google wants to provide users with the most relevant search results possible.
Conclusion
Google, Bing, and other search engines are constantly changing and continuously adapting their SEO algorithms.
Your backlink and SEO strategy must therefore also be constantly adapted.
Building backlinks is a long-term, ongoing process and cannot be done overnight. It requires a strategy, including competitive analysis and regular adjustments based on new findings.
Backlinks alone do not guarantee successful SEO. A comprehensive SEO strategy is required, which includes on-page and off-page optimization.
Do you have any questions or input? Write them in the comments. For a professional SEO agency, please contact onlineKarma.