I’m sure that while surfing the Internet, you have come across the term backlinks. And even more so if you work or study Digital Marketing. Because… if you like SEO, I hope you are already clear about this important concept.
To have a good web positioning, it is essential to get quality backlinks naturally.
This article will help you better understand what inbound links are, what they are for, the types of backlinks that exist, how to get them, and their importance for a website.
Do you still have doubts? Do you need to refresh your knowledge? Or maybe you want to improve the positioning of your website? Go for it!
What are backlinks or incoming links?
A backlink is a link or link from a website that points to yours. That is, they are those links that you receive from other web pages different from yours.
Many people confuse backlinks with internal and external links. It is essential to be clear about these three concepts to avoid confusion.
The internal links are used to connect different URLs for the same website. They facilitate navigation, are part of the web architecture and its internal linking.
On a simple website, your internal links can be the URL of the blog, the contact page, or each of the blog articles.
On the other hand, external links leave our website to another domain in order, for example, to provide more information to the user.
For example, think of those articles that show a list of the best blogs on a particular topic. The person who created the list will have put an (external) link in each of the blog names to save the reader time.
Imagine that you are one of the lucky ones to appear on that list. Therefore, you will have a link (backlink) from that website pointing to yours. Simple, right?
What are backlinks for in SEO?
It is vitally important for both a new website and a mature one to get quality inbound links through an excellent link-building strategy.
Backlinks add relevance to our website, increasing the authority (strength) of the domain. In this way, our website will be more important to Google; we will improve SEO Off Page, and ultimately our web positioning.
Don’t forget that Google values the quality of incoming links more than the quantity.
It is better to get 50 links from relevant websites than 100 from pages with low domain authority.
Also, it is not recommended to receive many links from the same domain.
Google prefers that a website receives, for example, ten links from different domains to 10 links from the same domain; the work will be in vain and will not help you to improve the SEO of your website.
So what characteristics should a backlink have to be of quality?
- They must come from different websites with high domain authority.
- Websites with traffic, active, and with fresh content.
- That the webs are trustworthy.
- Related topics (contextual).
- With relevant information.
- With an optimized anchor text.
- Websites without penalties and with the same language as our website.
It is not recommended to obtain links from fraudulent websites or dangerous pages such as pornography websites, online gambling, casinos, etc. Your PageRank will drop, and you may even suffer a penalty from Google.
On the other hand, the websites of newspapers, universities, schools, or official bodies usually have high domain authority.
In short, if you get enough natural and quality inbound links, your web positioning will improve significantly. You will get faster indexing on your page, enhance the authority of your domain, have more quality and direct (referral) traffic, and increase the relevance and trust of your website.
Now that you know what backlinks are for SEO, I hope you design an effective link-building strategy.
Also Read: Web Domain Authority: A Critical Factor In SEO Strategies
Types of backlinks: Dofollow and Nofollow links
Until now, it seemed relatively easy to get links to your website, but what if I told you that not all links convey authority or link juice?
Then everything gets a little more complicated. We can differentiate the Dofollow backlinks within the incoming links and the Nofollow backlinks.
Next, I will explain the characteristics of each one and how to differentiate them:
Dofollow Links
They are those links that transmit authority (of the page that links us) to our website. They are quality links, so they are beneficial for your web positioning.
They are created by default; if we do not indicate otherwise through the rel=” no follow” tag, they will transmit PageRank.
Nofollow Links
These links “do not transfer authority to the linked page, “that is, they are the opposite of do-follow links.
Do not stop using them, as they continue to link URLs, expand information, attract traffic to your website, improve the user experience and provide naturalness.
In addition, you should always use the no-follow tag when you link other websites with questionable, low-quality, or untrustworthy content.
How to Get Quality Links: 17 Things to Keep in Mind
There are many ways to get backlinks, but the quality is another matter …
Therefore, to make your work easier, I will tell you the best techniques to get quality inbound links and avoid penalties.
Also, do not forget to always consider the characteristics that a good backlink must have not to waste time.
1) Quality content
Publish articles with valuable content on your blog to attract the most significant number of people and for them to share it on social networks or their blogs.
Downloadable guides, tutorials, or ebooks are an excellent option to get quality backlinks quickly.
2) Guest blogging
It consists of writing a post on a blog external to yours as a guest author. In return, you will receive one or two links to the URLs you choose from your website.
The ideal is to make a list of the leading blogs in your sector and order them by total traffic, domain authority, and community.
In this way, you will know the pages to get more exciting quality links.
3) Lists and rankings
Creating a list or ranking on a specific topic and including other bloggers or professionals will help you develop relationships with them.
This is highly valued content, linked, and often shared a lot, so the result is usually very positive if you also add a dissemination and promotion plan.
4) Networking
Share your post and others on the different social networks, interact with people in your sector, leave comments, create lists on Twitter, etc.
But above all, attend congresses in your sector and work on relationships personally and closely.
5) Interviews
Conduct and publish interviews with professionals or references in the sector on your blog to strengthen relationships with them, get them to link you, and share your content with their community.
In addition to a way to get links, it can also be a way to attract qualified traffic from YouTube.
Also Read: What Is CTR In Digital Marketing?
6) Participate in podcasts
You can participate as a guest in podcasts of other people or colleagues in your sector to get a link in return (and visibility).
In addition, Podcasts often include links to articles you have mentioned during the interview, so if you say any of your own, it is an excellent way to get those additional links.
7) RSS aggregators
News aggregators allow you to post content from your blog and get a link.
Their links are usually nofollow, but they will still help you bring traffic to your website.
Some examples can be Marketing Fan, Nuzzel, Marketer Top, Taringa, etc.
8) Comments on blogs
Most blogs and newspapers include a section to have a comment. They usually ask for the user’s name, email, and website (link).
But most of them include the Nofollow attribute, so you will have to detect which ones do not fit and take advantage of them to put on your website.
9) Help other websites
Although it may take longer than other options, it is one of the most effective techniques to get a backlink.
Analyze the website or blog in your field and detect any errors that you can quickly solve.
Get in touch with him and offer him your help in a disinterested way. Then, tell him if it is possible to include a link to your website. The safest thing is that it will not cause you any problems.
10) Detect Mentions
See if they have mentioned you on any website (your brand, name, or website) and have not put a link.
Kindly ask them to link to your website, and don’t forget to thank them for the mention.
11) Forums
Look for forums related to the topic of your blog and make sure they are reliable.
Put your website link in the public profile, signature, or forum post.
12) Press releases
Publishing press releases in news portals or newspapers will help you get a quality link.
Try to do it naturally and take care of the content you write.
13) Images or infographics
Designing your infographics or images for the articles on your website will bring you many advantages.
If they are eye-catching and instructive, many sites will want to use them to illustrate or expand the information in their content.
If you notice that a website has used a photo of yours and has “forgotten” to include the source, remind them to link to your content.
14) Directories
Try to put your website in reliable quality directories accepted by Google, with authority and relevance for users.
15) Broken links
Detect broken links on other websites with the help of tools like Broken Link Check, W3C Link Checker, or Screaming Frog.
Then, propose to change that link for another to your website or include one to return the favour.
16) Spy on the competition
Use tools like Ahrefs, Open Site Explorer, or Majestic SEO to see where your competition is getting links from.
It is pretty easy and fast!
17) References on Wikipedia
The first thing you should do is register on Wikipedia to edit its contents.
Improve, correct and expand the information of those topics that you control the most to put a link to your website in the references section.
The link will be nofollow, but it will transfer a lot of traffic to you. It will not do you any good to put links like crazy because they will take them away from you. They have to be justified links in content related to your specialty.
Also Read: Semantic SEO: What Is It And How To Optimize It
Are backlinks important on a web page?
Of course, yes!
Especially if your website is new, getting quality inbound links is very important. It will help you increase the authority of your domain, attract direct traffic, visibility and popularity.
If you correctly apply the techniques explained above, your new project will gain a reputation, and it will be easier for you to position your website.
Think carefully about each of the strategies and apply the different techniques carefully. Remember that the links must be quality, natural, and related to your theme.
It is useless to get 100 links from one day to the next (or even in less than a month), as Google will understand it as an unnatural practice and penalize you.
And believe me, you will have a hard time getting your results back if you manage to get out of a Google Penguin penalty.
For this reason, one of the most frequent negative SEO attacks consists of massively sending viagra, porn, or gambling website links to a specific domain.
Conclusion
In short, with all the information and advice that I have provided in this article, you can start to get quality links and design your link-building strategy to climb positions in the SERPs.
Always remember to follow Google’s guidelines, because after all, it is the one who sets the rules of the game.
Much encouragement and patience! With planning and hard work, you will get good results.
I hope that now you have no doubts about what backlinks are and their importance in SEO. Don’t forget to leave a comment if you have any questions. If you have everything clear, I would like to know your opinion!
