Enhance your link-building profile and boost your rankings through the quality of your backlinks.
If you have been reading about SEO, you would have most likely come across the term ‘backlinks’ – this is when an external website is linking back or pointing to your website. A link from a trusted, relevant website is like a ‘vote’ for your site—‘votes’ from quality or “authority” websites that are relevant to the theme of your website, the higher your rankings will be. Find out more about backlinks and the important role they play in increasing your website’s visibility.
Why are backlinks important?
Your link-building profile is one of the most influential signals in search engine algorithms. When ranking your website for certain keywords, search engines look at the number and quality of websites that link back to your site. Ideally, you want incoming links from sites that have high authority but also have high relevancy, such as government bodies, industry organisations and subject-specific sites.
What are quality backlinks?
Decades ago, a website would just need to have any kind of links pointing to their website to improve their search engine ranking. Now, particularly in light of Google’s recent algorithm changes, a website linking to your site now ideally should be high-authority, credible and trustworthy. Of course, you cannot control who links back to your site, but it is something to take note of when planning your link-building campaigns.
How to build a natural link profile
Search engines want to see a link profile that is built naturally over time. If a search engine believes that you are trying to increase links to your website by methods outside their webmaster guidelines, they may get suspicious, and your website may be penalised as a result. Companies penalised by Google for unethical link-building campaigns include JC Penney and Overstock.
Tips for creating a natural link-building profile include:
- Focus on creating quality content that other websites naturally want to link back to.
- Build relevant and authoritative links slowly over months rather than weeks. You don’t want to arouse the suspicion or the ire of search engines.
- Use a variation of anchor text (the underlined text that is clickable—also known as a hyperlink) in your backlinks. The anchor text should reflect the content on the page, but don’t over-commercialise the anchor text with too many keyword-rich links.
- Have a blend of internal and external links, as well as do follow and no follow links on web pages.
- A natural link profile will also be linking out to other authoritative websites.
Read more about ten link-building strategies you can implement on your website.
Search engines put a lot of emphasis on off-page optimisation and consider it one of the major factors in website ranking. At The SEO Works, we have a large team of experienced link acquisition specialists who can assist you with your link building as part of an overall SEO campaign. If you would like to know more about backlinks and our link-building services, included as part of our SEO packages, please contact one of our consultants today.
