What are Backlinks?
A backlink occurs when one webpage links to another webpage located on a different website (domain name). The page that the link is pointed to is the page which has the backlink. To further illustrate, let’s take a look at the anatomy of a backlink.
How Backlinks Affect SEO:
Backlinks can significantly improve your search rankings, and many SEO experts feel that they are one of the most important tools for improving your search rankings. There are two main reasons why they are beneficial to your search rankings. One thing that makes them beneficial to your search rankings that they can increase your website’s traffic. In addition, Google scans the internet for backlinks to your website.
Types Of Backlinks:
There are many types of backlinks. Some of them are raw URLs, but many others are anchor links. In addition, there are many places where you can post backlinks. There also are different types of content that you can post along with your backlink. All of these things can affect the amount and type of traffic that your website gets. Here are examples of the different types of backlinks:
Blog/Article Contextual Backlink:
Image Backlinks:
Directory Backlinks:
Video Backlinks:
Resource Page Backlinks:
Purchased Backlinks:
Blog/Article Contextual Backlinks:
Blog and article contextual backlinks are extremely common, and they’re highly effective. The defining feature of these backlinks is that they are within the content of an article or blog post. In most cases, anchor text is used.
Image Backlinks:
Images can make it more likely that people will click on the backlink. You should choose an image that’s directly relevant to the product or service that your business provides. If possible, you always use high-quality photography.
Editorial Backlinks:
It’s easier to get editorial backlinks if you regularly comment on blogs. However, backlinks in blog comments aren’t editorial backlinks. The editor of a website adds editorial backlinks to a website. Therefore, you cannot directly control when or where editorial links will be posted.
Directory Backlinks:
Backlinks on a high-traffic web directory can bring a lot of visitors to your website. Furthermore, these backlinks might have an especially significant effect on your search rankings. Here are some examples of directories that are great places to put a backlink:
- Hotfrog: Hotfrog is one of the internet’s largest web directories.
- Jasmine Directory
- World Wide Web Virtual Library: This is the oldest web directory.
- Business.com
Video Backlinks:
Including a video along with a backlink is likely to attract an especially large amount of traffic. The best videos to include along with the backlink are short films and animations. It’s important to include written content with the video. In most cases, the video should describe a product or service that your business offers.
Resource Page Backlinks:
Resource page backlinks are an excellent way to boost your website’s search rankings. It’s easy to find resource pages, and they can bolster the credibility of your information. Here are some ways to find resource pages:
- Type the subject of the content that you’re writing into a search engine along with “helpful resources.
- Type the subject that you’re writing about into a search engine along with “inurl:links”.
- Type the subject that you’re writing about into a search engine along with “resources”.
How To Find Backlinks:
It’s important to know where your backlinks are located. If customers have posted backlinks on websites that aren’t reputable, Google Disavow can keep them from damaging your search rankings. Luckily, there are tools that can locate your backlinks.
Advanced Search Operators:
Search operators are responsible for determining what results show up in a search. These computer programs determine your search rankings, and all search engines use them. Advanced search operators examine your backlinks.
Guest Posts:
Guest posts are posted by third parties to post on a company’s blog. If you post backlinks in a guest post on a well-known website, you could attract a lot of traffic to your site. Always make sure that the content of your guest post fits in with the content that’s already on the site that you’re posting on. In some cases, it’s a good idea to add some information about your background in the guest post. Here are some other tips for writing guest posts:
- The backlinks that go along with guest posts should direct customers to product and/or service pages rather than home pages.
- If you can, include the names of well-known bloggers in the guest post.
- Your guest post should be followed by sister posts.
- Be aware that guest posts are always a long-term marketing strategy rather than a short-term one.
- Tailor the guest post to the needs of beginners.
Quality Lists:
One way to promote your backlinks is to include high-quality lists along with the backlink. These lists should include information about your company’s products and services. In some cases, every item on the list could include a backlink to one of your website’s pages. If you do this, you will be able to post multiple backlinks.
Point Blank SEO:
One great way to learn more about gathering backlinks is to take one of Point Blank SEO’s courses. Courses from the company are extremely informative and popular. Point Blank SEO is one of the best search engine optimization schools, and it has received excellent reviews.
Tools:
There are many ways that you can use automation to gather backlinks. While there are many automation tools that you can use, these are some of the best ones on the market:
- Linkbird
- Pitchbox
- Whitespark
- Group High
GAP Analysis using AHREFS:
Gap analysis is the comparison of the performance that you wish to attain and the current performance of your backlink building strategy. Gap analysis involves comparing the number of backlinks that you want to get in a given time period with the number of backlinks that you want to be able to get within the same time period. While there are many ways to perform gap analysis, AHREFS is one of the most effective methods. It allows you to compare a significant number of strategies.
Pitching Content Using Buzzstream:
Buzzstream is a great tool for building backlinks, and it’s a great tool for the promotion of content. The software is easy to use and affordable. A free trial of Buzzstream is available, and Buzzstream is used by many highly successful companies.
Scrapebox:
Scrapebox is a great tool for search engine optimization, and it’s especially effective for the creation of backlinks. If you choose Scrapebox, you can be sure that your backlinks will show up on reputable websites.
Ninja Outreach:
Ninja Outreach is a Chrome extension. You can get a free trial of it, and the software is extremely powerful. Many people have found that they gathered an extremely large number of backlinks with this software. It’s also affordably priced.
Broken Link Builder by Citation Labs:
Broken links will not increase the amount of traffic to your website or improve your search rankings. They also can give prospective customers a negative impression of your business. Broken Link Builder by Citation Labs can fix broken links, and the price of the software is affordable.
Whitespark (Citations):
Whitespark is one of the best tools for gathering backlinks. Many highly successful companies use it, and customers have given it positive reviews. In addition, it is affordably priced.
How to Get Backlinks:
It’s important that you do not shy away from promoting yourself to website owners that have somewhat higher search rankings than yours. Always offer to post backlinks to their website in exchange for posting a backlink to your website.
Make It Easy To Link:
It’s important to ensure that it’s easy for customers to remember your domain name. One of the most important aspects of this is the length of your domain name. If your domain name is too long, your customers might not remember it correctly. The domain name should be the same is the name of your business.
Pitch Content:
These are some of the most important tips for creating an effective sales pitch to include along with your backlinks:
- Use grease slide phrases. Grease slide phrases tell the reader that there’s more information on the topic later on in the content.
- Break up the content.
- If you know what the keywords are on the website where your backlink is posted, make sure that the keyword density is between one and three percent.
- One way to distribute backlinks is email marketing.
- If you are not familiar with how to write high-quality content, hire a copywriter to write the content for you.
- Determine where you who you’ll market the content to.
- Create short pitches that are designed for social media.
Links From Friends:
Customers often send backlinks to their friends. While this will only bring in a small number of customers at first, some of the people who receive these backlinks will send backlinks to their friends as well. This is especially likely to occur if your customers share backlinks to your website on social media. Therefore, it’s important to have a strong presence on social media.
Links From Customers Or Vendors:
Links from vendors and customers can have a unique effect on your search rankings. In addition, if third-party vendors post links to your website, customers will be able to learn more about the product that you are selling. Furthermore, customers might post links to your business in order to recommend your products or services to other people. It’s possible to encourage customers to post links. Referral programs are exceptionally effective for this. It’s essential to offer your customers something of value in exchange for attracting new customers. Some businesses pay customers a portion of the sale of a product that they encouraged a new customer to buy, but other businesses offer one of their products for free or at a reduced cost.
Produce Awesome & Resourceful Content:
Always create content that provides the reader with useful information. This encourages people to spend more time on your page.
How to Create A Backlink To Your Site:
There are different ways to create a backlink for your website. One of the most common methods is posting backlinks on forums and the comments sections of blogs. You also can contact websites that have web content that is similar to yours. It’s also important to ensure that the content on the websites that you are placing backlinks on are as well-written as possible. This will ensure that the backlink will be beneficial to your search rankings rather than damaging to them.
Furthermore, it’s important to follow these tips to ensure that you create high-quality content along with the link:
- Make sure that the content is well-organized.
- Ensure that it contains catchy wording. This will help to ensure that people click on the link, and it also will increase sales.
- Include phrases that people are likely to search for.
How Anchor Text Works:
Anchor text helps to ensure that links fit into the content naturally. It also makes the backlinks much more visible. As a result, people are more likely to click on anchor text than a raw URL.
Beware of Backlink Services:
Some backlink services don’t post your backlinks on reputable website, and this can cause your search rankings to suffer. If you hire a backlink service, it’s essential to investigate the company before you hire them. Not only do some backlink services post backlinks on disreputable websites, but there are even backlink services that are outright scams. Here are some ways that you can ensure that you are working with a legitimate backlink service:
- Check to see if they are certified by the Better Business Bureau.
- Avoid free backlink services.
Anatomy of a Hyperlink
A backlinks is simply a hyperlinks on someone’s website. A hyperlink is an html element structured like this:
Joshua Belland
What I have created is a link to my home page using the anchor text, Joshua Belland. Anchor text is just a contextual mask or label used to make a webpage prettier. The words that are used in this anchor text also sends relevancy signals to Google which can help rank the website that it is linking to.
How Backlinks Work
If you look at the diagram below, imagine the pink box is your website. The three yellow boxes are other websites that are linking to your site. This is what we call a backlink. Not all backlinks are created equal though. For instance, the chamber of commerce website is a directory link which provides more ranking influence local search that you see listed in the map results. This is still a highly sought after link especially if it is a chamber of commerce, which Google views as a reputable organization.
Are All Backlinks Good for SEO?
The short answer is no. Now, Google’s algorithm is built to prevent spam from prevailing in it’s search engines. So, not all backlinks are good backlinks. If you come across a website that offers to submit your website to 30 directories for $5, be skeptical. These links are in many cases considered spam to Google and they will de-rank you if those links get flagged as spam.
Which Backlinks Are Best for SEO?
The best backlinks for SEO are the ones that you earn. These are typically the kind you might find in a blog. These links are harder to get and are often earned from developing high quality, non-promotional content.
Bloggers will rarely link to promotional pages because they provide little use to their users. They are trying to keep their readers coming back; not scare them away with cheesy ads all of the time. This is why it is important to have a content strategy that incorporates resources that are helpful to your customers or others in your industry.
Who Backlinks to My Site?
A good example of a resource such as this would be a an instructional article accompanied by a step by step video teaching me how to build a bench. You see this type of content on youtube all of the time.This is one of the key reasons
How Do Get Backlinks for SEO
Now that we know what a backlink is, how to do we get a backlink? Let’s start by linking to one of my favorite link building tactic resources by Jon Cooper of Pointblank SEO. John’s resource is a perfect example of how to acquire links. Over the years, he’s continually added to this list, and updated the functionality to be better and better for his users. When he first started, it was merely a long list of tactics and has developed quite a bit since then. Maintaining and keeping your resources up to date in this manner is critical if you want to continue to attract links because there is always someone else who’s going to try to one-up. Remember, Good content will not earn you backlinks; Better content earns you backlinks.
Where Can I Start Getting Backlinks?
Here are a few examples of some easy backlinks you can start building today!
- Your social media pages all have areas that will allow you to place one link to your website. Some of these include:
- twitter.com
- facebook.com
- instagram.com
- pinterest.com
- Google+
- Stumbleupon
- Tumbler
- You want a diverse set of backlinks so once you have social links start building some local directory links. These are often referred to as citations:
Name | Citation Type |
---|---|
Yelp.com | Local Business Review |
MerchantCircle.com | Local Business Review |
Yellowpages.com | IYP |
Citysearch.com | Local Business Review |
Factual.com | Aggregator |
Localeze | Aggregator |
Pubcrawler.com | Niche Local Directory |
- After you have acquired those links, start diversifying your content by converting on of your articles into a powerpoint. Then, convert that into a video, then to an infographic, etc… all of these content types have special directories that you can use to submit your content.
- Now once you have exhausted all of the submission based links, it is time for you to start thinking about earning links. To do this you are going to need to work hard for it:
- The key requirement is that you need a blog for your website. This is a must.
- Come up with unique and intriguing content ideas. Make sure the titles capture attention.
- After you have built quality content, start reaching out to relevant bloggers that may link to it. Some tools that can help you do this more efficiently include:
- Buzzstream
- Buzzsumo
- Ninja Outreach
- AHREFS
- Majetic SEO
- Here is a bigger list of tools that may be able to help you.