new guide How to Build Backlinks in 2018
SEO should be at the forefront of your blog traffic building strategy. Backlinking is extremely important in SEO, and so you may be wondering; what is backlinking, and how to do it.
Organic search is one of the only ways to get traffic for free – however, it probably takes the most work of any of the traffic building methods. For that reason alone, if you’re going to do it, make sure you’re doing it right.
You’ve probably heard by now that “backlinks” will help you appear higher in search results – so today, I’m going to explain what backlinking is.
There are hundreds of other factors that can affect your appearance in the search results, but backlinks are widely regarded as one of the most important.
What Is Backlinking And How To Do It
To help you out, I’ve written this pretty extensive guide. In it, I’m going to cover every aspect of backlinking and why it’s important for search engine optimization (SEO).
Let’s start with the basics;
What is a backlink?
A backlink is any link that points to one page, from another page. For example this link is a backlink for SmartBlogger.com.
Link building is one of the oldest and most effective SEO tactics. It’s also one of the most productive ways to grow organic search traffic.
But you have to be cautious with how you go about earning quality links.
Links have been a major part of how Google and other search engines determine how trustworthy a website is from the beginning.
They viewed each link as a sort of recommendation, so the more links a website had pointing to it, the more credibility it would hold, and the higher it would rank in search results.
Unfortunately, some site owners and SEOs attempted to “game” this process by acquiring links through questionable tactics.
Since then, many of Google’s updates have largely been about getting ahead of these suspicious link-building efforts.
We’re now at a point where only very “white hat,” or ethical, link building methods still reliably work.
It’s basically impossible to beg, borrow, steal, or buy links in a way that will boost rankings. For site owners that used to rely on shady link-building tactics, this is bad news.
But if you’re willing to put in the time it takes to earn valid links, it’s still entirely possible to boost your credibility (and rankings).
That’s why in this post, I’ll explain six smart ways to earn legitimate, high-quality backlinks that will help show Google and other search engines that your site is worthy of high rankings.
Backlinks can be internal or external. Internal links are those that link from one page of your website to another page within your website. External links are those that link from a page on your site, to a page on someone else’s site (or the other way around).
Backlinks can also be incoming or outgoing. Incoming means they are coming from a different domain to your domain, and outgoing means they are going from your domain to another domain.
Pretty simple right?
Formatting your links
You’ll notice that most anchor links have some “text” that displays instead of the actual URL – this is called “Anchor Text”.
When creating a link, you have two options;
- Use the URL as anchor text – this is called a “Naked Link”.
- Include some text that tells people what they’ll see when they click the link.
The anchor text is not just for people however, it is also key for search engines.
The different types of backlink
There are two other key distinctions that you should take into consideration when creating your links, and those are the “dofollow” and “nofollow” attributes.
This post explains the difference in full – but essentially, dofollow means that search engines read it as a link, and nofollow means that they won’t. That’s really as much as you need to know for now!
Now that we’ve (briefly) covered the different types of links that can be used – now let’s get into how that affects you.
Why do backlinks matter for SEO?
Okay, here’s the REALLY important part.
One of the ways that search engines, such as Google, figure out how useful your page will be to searchers, is to see what links other people have pointed to your content.
Think of each link to your blog as a “vote” for your site. BUT the important thing is that it’s not about how many votes you have; it’s all about the quality.
The weight of the “vote” you receive is dependant on a few things;
- The popularity of the site the link is coming from (based on their votes).
- The amount of links you receive from each voter (less is more).
- The anchor text used in the link.
- Whether the website they’re coming from is relevant or not.
It used to be the case that every link was an equal vote. No matter where it came from, or how popular either site was.
That is no longer the case. 1 link from 100 domains is better than 100 links on 1 domain – provided the domains you’re getting links from are relevant and authoritative.
CLICK TO TWEET
The next thing to think about is your anchor text. Naked links are all well and good, they serve their purpose… but do they tell Google what your page is about? Not really.
That’s where keywords come in.
What is a keyword?
Keywords, are the phrases people type into Google in order to find something. That’s the simplest way I can put it!
So, it would make sense, that you need to let Google know that when someone types in “what is backlinking and how to do it” that Google should send them to this post.
The way we make this blatantly obvious to Google, is through the use of keywords in our pages, and in our links.
Keywords can be used in a variety of ways – but right now we’re going to focus on only the backlinks.
The way keywords are used in backlinks is through (you guessed it) the anchor text.
To find appropriate keywords, you can use the Google keyword planner, but if you’re serious about getting higher up on Google’s ladder – then a tool like Long Tail Pro is what you need.
Why is the anchor text important?
The anchor text is the key indicator for search engines to tell what a link points to.
Just like when you use anchor text to tell people what they’ll find when they click on a link, you can do the same thing to tell Google.
The key difference is, Google’s robots will take what you use as an anchor link and use that to figure out what you’re linking to.
If you use a keyword in your anchor text, it MAY help you to rank higher for that specific keyword.
BUT – pay attention here – do not spam links or keywords as anchor text. Try to make sure your links are varied (when possible) and aren’t always the same.
You’re not normally going to be in control of your links. But you can check what links point to your site and if you find someone linking inappropriately, you can contact them requesting changes (more on this point later).
If Google thinks you’re being spammy, or that it’s just you and your buddies trying to trick the system, they’ll slap you with a penalty quicker than you can say “SEO”.
Why are the sites your links come from important?
In the Google popularity contest, as I mentioned before, not all links are created equal.
CLICK TO TWEET
You want your links to come from sites that are already doing well in the popularity contest.
When popular sites send a link your way, they’re vouching for you in a way that brings you a boost in the searches, but won’t effect their rankings one bit.
What does have an effect on their rankings though, is exactly what effects yours – links from other authoritative sites.
It’s a continuous chain of power, whereby each site that passes on some of their “link juice” doesn’t lose any of their own through passing it on.
When people refer to “link juice” that’s exactly what they’re referring to – the power passed on from one site to another through backlinks.
How to check your incoming backlinks
The best way to check your backlinks is through an SEO analysis tool.
There are lots out there, but I recommend Majestic.
Majestic can tell you all of the links that point to your site (or any site for that matter) – but it also tells you exactly where they are from and to, and if they’re dofollow or nofollow (amongst other things).
Majestic also grades domains with a “trust flow” and a “citation flow” – this site explains these in full. They are essentially a “quick stat” for your reference to indicate how authoritative a domain is.
So how do you actually use all of this information to backlink effectively?
This seems like a lot of information to take in – especially for a beginner – so I’m going to break it down in simple terms for you here;
Good things to do
- Link to other sites – you won’t lose any link juice, and your link receiver will see the benefit.
- Format links properly to include appropriate anchor text.
- Make a conscious effort to gain new links from relevant domains – more links are good, as long as they’re relevant, authoritative and not repetitive.
- Make sure the links that you get are dofollow so that search engines take them into account.
- Use keywords where appropriate and encourage linkers to use relevant keywords.
Bad things to do
- Do not spam backlinks. Don’t make your own backlinks – Google may not be full blown Artificial Intelligence just yet, but it’s not stupid either.
- Do not use naked links on your site. Make sure every link has anchor text so that you’re telling Google what your link is all about.
Why you should link more
As you’ve probably realized by now, linking to other sites doesn’t hurt your site.
Most bloggers check their incoming links fairly regularly, and if they see that you’ve linked to them, they’ll likely check your post out and maybe they’ll even repay the favour.
0 Response to "new guide How to Build Backlinks in 2018"
Post a Comment