Backlinks are the supreme ruler of the digital marketing kingdom. It holds the ultimate power on increasing a website’s traffic organically. May it be paid or not, backlinks are sites that link to your website.
Most search engines treat backlinks as the number one metric to get a webpage indexed and it’s the only way to reach #1 on Google’s search engine. Learn more about backlinking through the simple guide below:
Chapters:
- Backlinks and why it’s good for you
- When to start backlinking
- How to start backlinking
- Backlinking mistakes.
- Getting backlinks from low quality or bad sites.
- No-follow links.
- Links only internally to their own website or homepage.
- Get links from irrelevant websites.
- Buy links.
- Benefits of backlinks
- Why practice backlinking
Backlinks and why it’s good for you
It’s very easy to understand what a backlink is if you have been in the industry far too long to know why it’s important in the first place. But for knowledge sakes, backlinks are links coming fom other websites. These links are known external links which can be deemed as “sources”. Once another website uses your webpage in their content, you get a backlink. You can do this by collaborating with the site owner for free or paid, it’s basically up to you and this can be done by different kinds of strategies.
When you get backlinks for your site, this would mean that Google or other search engines see your website as a credible source of information and you literally get a thumbs up from them. In this case, you get a point in traffic. When this happens a lot in a span of time, let’s say in between 3-6 months continuously, then this will rank your website up.
In other words, once you get up and up, more and more online searchers will see your website easier. And these users only trust websites that are in the top rank.
When to start backlinking
The present world today is getting more and more high-tech. Everything we do even the rising businesses today is getting upgraded by the minute. All the things that we do in the old times, we’re clearly transferring it on technology’s hand. And this is one of the main reason to start backlinking, we are in a digital era today. You will know when to start backlinking when:
- You’re only starting your website.
- You’re a business and you need a strategy.
- You have an online store.
- Your competitors are leading the race.
When you feel like you’re behind, it’s time to step up your game. No one knows your online activities better than you do and this goes the same if you have a business to run too. If you want to be at part with everybody else, backlinking can help you with that. Remember, this is a digital period in which marketing, selling, communication and so many more are done through online activities.
Backlinking is now an important activity to join into especially if you’re involved in the online industry.
How to start backlinking
There are several ways for you to do this but the first thing you need to do is to analyze your website first. Your website, just like you have, has needs. Such needs should be addressed according to what the work it asks for, the time and effort you need to provide as well as planning out how you can assert such an activity properly.
By analyzing your website, this will provide you with information that you might want to improve within your webpage – and this can be beneficial for you as well. In here, you’ll be able to figure out which ones need to be developed, addressed and there are times that you’ll find out if your website has a problem.
Right after you’ve done that, there are some things that you need to understand with backlinking – and these are the strategies that you can use. One of the most common strategies that everyone’s been using these days is the Guest Posting. This strategy requires you to reach out to other blogs and ask them if you can submit an article. In your article, whether you made it or not, you just need to insert your link (also different your pages) and have the other blogs publish it within your site. You just need to make the link and the article relevant to each other – since it makes more sense that way.
Once you start contacting bloggers and get them to publish your articles, resource pages, or infographics, then these things can get you your backlinks. You have to make sure that you continue doing this for a duration of time to ensure good quality links.
Backlinking Mistakes
There are some things that could be great with backlinking. But if you’re not too careful then this could affect the whole activity. Here are some things that you should avoid doing.
- Getting backlinks from low quality or bad sites.
- No-follow links.
- Links only internally to their own website or homepage.
- Get links from irrelevant websites.
- Buy links.
Getting backlinks from low quality or bad sites. There are a lot of websites out there and not all of them are good for your backlinks. But you shouldn’t base a website just because it looks bad for you. A bad site consists of several other things like spam links or a bad directory page and sometimes, a bad content too. So you better watch out for that. Search engines will only consider your site as a good one if your backlinks are of quality.
No-follow links. A no follow link allows bloggers or webmasters to signal search engines to “not follow links leading to this page” or in this regard, to your page. The whole point of backlinking is to make sure that you have websites that can use your link on their page. But if the link that is going back to your site is a no-follow, or to put it simply, the link isn’t going back to your page. And this is a no-go. Make sure to get links that can actually lead people back to your website, not the other way around.
Links only internally to their own website or homepage. Whilst it’s okay to collaborate with websites that use their own posts for backlinking, it’s easier to just avoid dealing with this type. Normally, you need someone that can link to your site and not to your own. To make sure that you won’t waste your time.
Get links from irrelevant websites. It’s pretty easy to just start contacting bloggers and have your link posted on theirs. However, you should also make sure that you only work with websites that are the same as yours (but not nearly a competitor). For example, if your weblink is about pet accessories then contact pet or animal lovers. Relevance is very important in online activities especially if you’re doing backlinking. Search engines will only honor links that are good and this is with reason.
Buy links. Search engines most specifically Google are really strict when it comes to backlinks. It has a structure that needs to be followed and if the links aren’t good then your traffic wouldn’t increase. Search engines are really particular with their set of rules and if you don’t follow through, you’d get spammed or worst, be penalized. Your site will be buried way beneath search results and never to be seen again.
Benefits of Backlinks
Online marketing is the most prominent activity in the online industry because it helps businesses gain more audience and profit. Now, this will only work if the process of backlinking is followed correctly. Online activities such as this have a step by step guide that most marketers will need to focus on. This is because there are always changes in the online industry; such as Google’s Penguin which makes backlinking much stricter. But with what backlinking can do, most eCommerce sites are now taking advantage of it. Here are some of them:
Faster Indexing
Search engines are very particular when it comes to indexing contents or websites in their system. When we say “index”, it usually means that a search engine finds your content reliable so they make it as one of there “source” when appears on search results. As far as backlinking goes, when there are a lot of websites putting up your links on their contents, it’s very possible that search engines, like Google, will index your content or your page into their system. The more indexing that will happen to your webpage, the far better you’ll go up on their search results.
Organic Ranking
Ranking in search engines, much like Google, is far better with your site. Organic ranking is a greater option in this one since Organic Ranking is the most powerful marketing strategy to speed up your rank. Plus, the more you increase your ranking, the more people will come in and visit your site.
Getting or making good articles
Making articles for your site will help you more than just relaying the information you have on your page. It’s important that you update it always so that you have more links to promote to other websites. Good articles can also tell search engines that you write better than your competitor and through that, search engines can index you even more whenever you get good articles up.
Why practice backlinking?
Backlinking isn’t just getting our links up on other websites; it’s more than the usual linking. You need backlinking because:
- You need an edge over your competitors.
- You need to get a virtual presence.
- You need to be seen by all of your consumers online.
- You also need to get a better understanding of the trends right now.
- You need to be indexed so you’re connected with every user that is present online.
You need to practice backlinking so you have another strategy other than the traditional practices you do for your business. This kind of method isn’t hard to achieve but it has plenty to offer.