Everything You Need to Know About Backlink Location
What Are Backlinks?
Backlinks are links from one website that lead to another. You probably click on backlinks every day without even noticing it! Every time you click a link on a social media post to an external website, you check out the listing page for the new product your favorite blogger recommended, or you investigate the source that an online news article includes in its story, you’re using backlinks. Each time, you’re leaving one website to visit a different one.
Backlinks are a huge deal for your website’s SEO (search engine optimization) because they tell search engines that your website is credible enough to reference within their own content. In turn, this establishes your page as a source of authority and relevancy. More people will discover your site and will be more likely to inherently trust you so long as your backlink comes from a reputable location.
How SEO and Backlinks Work Together
Backlinks are just one of the many factors that search engines use to decide how your website stacks up against the rest. Other SEO factors that you may be familiar with are your page speed, mobile optimization, user-friendliness, and meta descriptions. Google uses all of these elements and more to place you where it believes you are the most relevant. Say that your site has more user-friendly features than a competitor’s. Google may likely rank you higher.
When it comes to backlinks, each link from a well-regarded source is a signal to Google that your content is just that much better than your competitor’s. No one would want to share someone else’s content if they didn’t think it added value! Think of each backlink as a signal of confidence in the content you produce.
What’s More Important: Quantity or Quality?
In the early days of backlinks, quantity was just as important (if not more important) than quality. The more backlinks you had, the stronger your website appeared. Companies took advantage of this and began employing disingenuous tactics like buying backlinks from bot websites. But Google soon caught on and released updates that would only improve the search engine rankings of sites with legitimate backlinks.
Google’s June 2021 update targeted spammy links, marking the end of the shady backlink era. Now, one backlink from a trusted website is worth much more to Google than five from websites that no one’s ever heard of. This is why it’s key to work with companies like SteadyContent. We already have established relationships with trustworthy websites, so you can be confident that backlinks from these sites will be much more successful at generating results.
How Do I Know If My Backlink Location Is Good?
As we’ve mentioned, not all backlinks will help you. A backlink placed on a scammy website or in a poor backlink location can actually hurt you. That’s why it’s a good idea to check out any website that includes a backlink to your site to ensure that it’s helping your online presence.
Website Authority and Relevance
The most important location for your backlink is the domain (the domain is just the name of the website). You can have a perfectly placed backlink on a website that’s irrelevant to your company, and it’s unlikely that you’ll see a boost in traffic or Google rankings. Pretend that you’re a customer looking for an SEO agency. Who would you trust more: a recommendation from a trusted online marketing blog or a trusted physical fitness blog?
A link from an irrelevant site won’t hurt your rankings. But why target a site that has nothing to do with your company when you could get a link from one that will make you look like an important name in the industry? Speaking of important names, the authority of a website will give a backlink much more power. If Google thinks the site that referenced you has a lot of authority in search engine rankings, by association, it will give your site more authority, too!
Number of Other Backlinks
Like with anything else, backlinks can be too much of a good thing. Backlinks work when there are only a few on a page because they signal both to the reader and to search engines that each reference to an external site is one worth checking out. When a website embeds too many backlinks within its content, these links lose their value. It makes sense to us. Do you want to read a paragraph with every other word highlighted and linked to some random website?
Google gives the most weight to the first link on a page. So if the backlink to your site is the first one that people see, you’re in good shape. If readers see your link next to six other links, far at the bottom of a webpage, you’re not going to benefit much.
Anchor Text
Anchor text is the highlighted text that people click to access the backlink. You’ll recognize it as the words that are underlined or a different color than the surrounding text. Believe it or not, these words that a site uses for your backlink can affect how valuable the backlink is. It all comes down to keywords, which are one of the factors that Google uses to determine relevant content.
When Google sees anchor text with phrases that are directly relevant to your content, it will view the backlink as more relevant than an artless “Click here.” Here’s where backlink location becomes important. It can be challenging to include anchor text with relevant keywords if there’s no natural place to put it. A great backlink will be put in a location where the anchor text just makes sense. See what we did there?
Building High-Quality Backlinks
Knowing what goes into a good backlink is just the first step. Now it’s time to focus on how you can build backlinks in a reputable way. We’ll explain five effective ways to build strong backlinks with great backlink locations using legitimate strategies:
Write Guest Blog Posts
When we say you should write guest blog posts, we’re saying it with some caveats. We don’t recommend teaming up with just any website that will publish your content. Look for ones that already have a solid reputation for publishing content that’s in your industry. Search engines will see that your content fits into the site’s existing niche and therefore adds value.
Another thing to keep in mind is that you should never write one piece of content and send it out to a dozen websites for it to be published. Google hates duplicate content, and websites that feature your posts want something original! Always create unique content for each website that features you as a guest blogger. When in doubt, hire services like SteadyContent that can manage the content creation process and let you spend your time elsewhere.
Distribute Infographics
Infographics have become one of the most effective ways to convey visual information in an engaging way. They help to break up text and build on existing concepts. And once you have a few high-quality infographics, they can generate huge returns. One of the best examples of how infographics can be a great source of website traffic is Pinterest.
Pinterest lets users scroll through ideas based on their interests. While many posts are user-generated, businesses also use the platform to sell their products and post appealing visuals that direct viewers to their websites. Users will click on an image that looks interesting, see the link, and want to check it out! Other websites and social media accounts looking to spice up their content may also want to republish your infographic and link back to your website as the source.
Create Great Content
Without a doubt, the most important thing you can do to lay the foundation for a strong backlink strategy is to consistently post great content. When you post about topics that people are seeking out, they’ll come to your website. And if your content is informative, interesting, and written well, people will stay on your website. Google keeps track of all these interactions and will rank you higher if people actively engage in your content when they click on it.
One of the hardest parts of maintaining a solid content strategy is setting aside time. You need to find a talented writing team, do research on keywords and topics, and then actually sit down and write the content. SteadyContent is the content management solution that will let you focus on running your business while we take care of the content creation. You can relax knowing that our team of experienced writers and researchers will deliver results!
Build Business Relationships
Here’s a helpful reminder: You’re not the only company out there that’s trying to build its online presence. And you’re not the only one that would benefit from a prime backlink location on someone else’s website. Why not look for ways that you could build your presence in your community? Start by scouting out local business directory websites or attending chamber of commerce meetings. You’ll discover other websites and resources that may be open to featuring you.
Getting backlinks on local websites may not be the most glamorous, but it’s a solid place to start. You can first establish your website in your community and focus on expanding to a broader SEO reach over time. This is especially beneficial if you’re a service-based business that relies on referrals and positive interactions from people in your area. Local SEO is a game-changer!
Step Up Your Social Media Game
If you’re not on social media, it’s time to get started. Social media can add a huge boost to your link-building strategies! First, you can directly reference your website within your social media posts. While this isn’t going to be as effective as, say, an industry leader publishing a link to your website within their content, it’s still going to get your name out there. The stronger your social media presence becomes, the more people will organically share your content.
Without directly advertising yourself, you’ll expand your reach to thousands more people who could include links to your website or other posts. Remember that it only takes one post to go viral! Luckily, it’s easy to get started with social media. You can begin by engaging with other accounts’ posts. Create a social media strategy of your own to share posts, new products, and updates about your brand. A little consistency goes a long way.
Backlinks can make a huge difference in how your website is ranked, but not all backlinks are effective. To see results, you’ll need proper backlink placement, a strong content strategy, and writers who can produce results that will get you noticed. Contact our team at SteadyContent to see how we can help you build brand awareness and boost leads through our time-tested content creation approach. You’ll be surprised at what blog posting can do!