Backlinks are among the many ways to optimize your website for higher search engine visibility. Also known as inbound or incoming links, they point to your website from other third-party, niche-relevant domains, helping drive its referral traffic and SEO performance.
While what are backlinks and their significance is largely known to most entrepreneurs and SEO experts, a thorough understanding of how to generate them is still rare. Here’s a detailed guide that promptly brings light to this information!
What Are Backlinks?
Backlinks, as the name suggests, are your domain links posted elsewhere to get users back to your website. But where exactly is this “elsewhere”?
Backlinks are usually posted on high-authority, credible online platforms in your industry, preferably influential among your target audience. To identify them, you must consider a few aspects.
Your ideal website to host backlinks must have super high domain ratings and huge organic traffic from your target audience. It must be significant to your niche and appear on top SERP responses for target keywords.
It’s also essential to examine the scope of link-building opportunities it presents. To save time, consider reviewing your competitor’s backlinks and simply replicating the backlinks that have generated the most traffic from the widest range of sources.
Why Are Backlinks Important for SEO?
Backlinks are an important part of SEO as they help increase the organic traffic of a website. Since the traffic sources are credible and reputable platforms in your niche, they pass valuable link juice or link equity to your site, boosting its overall authoritativeness and online visibility simultaneously. As a result, your domain rating and SERP rankings grow enormously in a short time.
Link building has been a legitimate part of Page Rank, Google’s core algorithm for ranking websites on the search engine. Created by Google’s co-founder Larry Page, it discusses how backlinks help crawl bots recognize the resourcefulness of a particular website or web page and enhance its indexing over time. However, for this to happen, the quality of backlinks must be top-notch! We’ll discuss how to generate high-quality backlinks further in this blog.
Types of Backlinks
To receive maximum SEO impact, you need to build backlinks that are diverse, natural, and high-quality. Here are a few different types that can help you in your endeavor!
Editorial backlinks
Editorial links are superb, high-quality backlinks you can naturally acquire by publishing incredibly relevant and well-researched content in your niche. These could be articles, explanatory, blogs, or research papers. Publishers and bloggers link to them primarily to increase their site authority, so imagine the credibility users and search bots would attach to the links.
Guest post backlinks
These links are earned on niche-specific websites. The process involves identifying influential and top-ranking sites in your industry and writing relevant, high-quality guest post content adhering to their guidelines. You can place your site’s link in the post itself or the author's bio to earn the backlink. Guest post links are usually no-follow according to Google’s guidelines but may still help boost organic traffic.
Business profile backlinks
You can even earn backlinks by making business accounts on directories, online forums, review sites, Google, Yelp, and several other niche-specific sites. However, these are typically no-follow links, meaning Google can’t trace them back to your website. So, there’s no direct flow of link equity here. However, they impact your overall SEO performance and help prevent spam.
Social media backlinks
Sharing your links on social media can also help you gain backlinks. These links may belong to an article, blog, webpage, or other website resources. However, the links are no-follow, so you won’t get direct link juice from them. Nevertheless, they are considered important in terms of enhancing your online visibility and brand reputation.
Press release backlinks
You can also place your links in media placements announced on social media, news portals, or press release sites. They may be do-follow if the platform is reputable and allows for the same. However, in most instances, they’re no-follow links yet highly relevant for the direct promotion of your brand and its products.
Directory backlinks
Directories are typically websites that carry the names of businesses in a particular niche. Users refer to them when they need service providers in that niche. As a business, you can use directories to create your profile and earn backlinks. Although these links are no-follow, they are an excellent way to market your services locally.
Forum backlinks
Forum backlinks are created when you participate in online forums or community discussion boards. You can include the link in your signature, comments, or relevant posts you publish on the platform. While these backlinks are usually no-follow, they can still drive targeted traffic, increase brand awareness, and help build long-term networking with your peers.
How to Get Quality Backlinks?
Not all backlinks have the same effect. The better their quality, the more significant impact they produce on your SEO results. Generating high-quality free backlinks requires a strategic approach, though. Here are a few tips to guide you along the way!
Creating High-Quality, Shareable Content
Your backlinks are placed on a host content. Barring a few link-building techniques, such as niche edits and media placements, you need to curate the host content yourself. Now, the question is, what type of content qualifies?
The type of content depends on the site where your backlink will be posted. Some sites permit a detailed, explanatory blog, whereas others may welcome media elements like images, videos, and infographics.
Nevertheless, irrespective of the type, their quality must be exceptional. Consider creating a post on trending topics and giving it your unique turn, provided nothing is specified in advance. Authenticity and information matter the most!
Also, place the links contextually at a few places in the content to avoid seeming desperate, manipulative, and spammy. The more natural the clicks, the higher authority Google assigns your site.
Guest Posting on Authoritative Websites
Some sites allow paid or unpaid guest posting by several niche bloggers. Consider writing for them to get dedicated traffic. However, picking the ideal guest post site for your site may present a pickle if your choices are random!
Before creating content for a guest posting site, analyze its domain authority. The metrics must be high, probably over 60, to grant a green flag. Secondly, check whether it has a real audience in your niche. In this context, ensuring high site traffic may not be enough.
You need to check the specific posts previously published in your category and consider audience engagement metrics like comments and shares. Also, ensure the posts have been published for a long time to guarantee the permanent placement of your backlinks.
HARO Links
Besides traditional industry-specific sites, you can also get your backlinks published with reputable media sources for a broader outreach. These are called HARO (Help-a-reporter-out) links.
Typically, a lot of times, media outlets seek expert comments or opinions on a particular topic. They reach out to influential bloggers on the internet and social media for the same through HARO emails.
What you can do is identify HARO mails in your domain expertise and concisely respond to them with your unique perspective on the subject matter. Consider sending a self-written, catchy quote, briefly explained, to stand out. Also, attach relevant links to your site in the mail.
Upon approval, your backlink will be created on the specified media channel. Quick tip! Respond within 24 hours to increase your chances of getting published.
Reaching Out for Broken Link Building
Broken links are links on a website that do not point to any resources, giving 404 errors as a result. They can prove to be a great link-building opportunity. All you need to do is go through the websites in your niche and identify the broken links.
Upon identification, reach out to the website owners, informing them of the links, and pitch your relevant domain link as a replacement. If the owners find your link valuable, they will redirect their broken link to your website.
Broken link building is, hence, a win-win situation for both parties! While you get yourself high-quality backlinks, the host website can remove a 404 error that would have adversely impacted its SEO performance.
How to Analyze Website Backlinks?
Analyzing your website is necessary to understand their performance and make quick fixes where required. You can use multiple tools for the purpose. However, Ahref’s has been our go-to choice for years. Here’s how it works!
Create an Ahref Account
First, you must create an Ahref account using your email address and a strong, self-built password. Since it’s a paid tool, you can choose your subscriber plan during the sign-up process itself. Also, enter your billing details, such as name, address, and payment method.
Upon submitting them, you’ll receive a verification mail to complete the process.
Enter Domain Details in Site Explorer
Log in with your credentials. To check the website backlink profile, navigate to the Site Explorer section. Here, paste the link to your site and choose the “domain” category alongside. Your backlink profile will appear on the screen.
Analyze Backlinks
You’ll find the “backlinks” category indicating the number of links you’ve generated on other sites and “referring domains” highlighting how many different websites are linking to you. High metrics for both reflect a strong and diverse backlink profile. Additionally, you can analyze the backlink growth rate and compare it with your competitors to determine where you stand.
How to Remove Toxic Backlinks?
Toxic backlinks are links that neither add value to your backlink profile nor are suitable for your site’s SEO performance. Moreover, they may lead to a sudden plunge in SEO metrics, especially SERP and domain ratings, and incur penalties from Google. So, removing them promptly is incredibly essential! Here’s how you can do that.
Identify Toxic Links
What exactly are toxic backlinks? These are links generated from entirely unrelated sites, link networks, online forums, sites in grey domains, foreign language sites, PBN sites, spammy CTLDs, etc. To identify them, use backlink analysis tools like Moz or Ahrefs.
Create a Disavow File
After sorting the toxic backlinks, export them in a .txt file. You can use any text editor installed in your system for this purpose. In your first attempt to remove toxic backlinks, you can personally reach out to the hosting domains and request them to delink your site. However, this may not always deliver results. So, let’s fix the situation with a more permanent option.
Upload the Disavow File
You can straightaway approach the Webmaster to disavow your toxic backlinks. Go to the Google Disavow tool and select a property. Next, upload the disavow file you had previously created. No need to change the file format as .txt is already compatible with the upload format. Remember, a single property can only have one disavow file. So, make sure your list is detailed and comprehensive.
Wait for a Few Weeks
Google doesn’t immediately act upon your disavow request. You’ll get the results in a span of a few weeks. Until then, keep identifying more toxic backlinks that are spoiling your site’s health, and repeat the disavow steps once this cycle gets completed.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is the difference between DoFollow and NoFollow links?
DoFollow and NoFollow links determine whether or not Google search bots will trace back to your website via your backlink. These are “rel” attributes added to your backlink anchor’s HTML code. While DoFollow links encourage and allow Google to reach your website through your backlink, NoFollow links do not.
As a result, Google deems DoFollow links to be more authoritative and credible, worthy enough to raise the domain rating of your site. On the other hand, NoFollow links may increase your website traffic and clicks but have minimum impact on the overall site rankings.
Are all backlinks good for SEO?
The impact on SEO depends on the type and quality of backlinks generated, apart from the fact that they must be do-follow. Editorial backlinks, for instance, are considered the highest-quality links that boost site traffic and promote SEO. They are typically do-follow, so they also pass link juice to your website, enhancing its domain rating and authority.
How do I check my website’s backlinks?
You can use tools like Ahrefs and Moz to check the status and performance of your backlink. Just visit the dashboard and enter your domain link and the category as “domain.” There you go! Your entire backlink profile appears on the screen. You can sort out the bad-quality, toxic, and 404 broken links to fix them and enhance your online presence.
Is it safe to buy backlinks for SEO?
Yes, it can be safe to buy backlinks for SEO if done ethically. Focus on high-quality, relevant links from reputable sources to avoid penalties.
What are the best tools to analyze backlinks?
While there are several tools to analyze your link-building profile, a few of our best picks include Ahrefs, Moz, Majestic, and Google Search Console. Their results are quite detailed, and you can run several reports on their user-friendly interface without having to deal with many issues.
