Why Having a Strong Backlink Strategy is Critical for Optimal SEO
Quality backlinks remain a vital Google ranking factor- understand how to gain them!
When thinking about your search engine optimization strategy, it’s a good idea to look at all the different tactics that make up a successful strategy- content, keywords, meta tags, and backlinks. While backlinks may sound straightforward, there are many ways to obtain them and they’re essential for SEO.
What are Backlinks?
Backlinks are links from an outside website to yours. The number of high-quality sites that link to your website is a high-ranking factor for search algorithms. The more quality links that point to a particular page, the better you will rank within search results. If you want to successfully implement SEO for your website and obtain relevant organic traffic, creating a backlink strategy is something you should be spending time on.
Why are Backlinks Important?
A backlink strategy may not be the most important tactic for your SEO campaign, but they are definitely one of the best SEO strategies out there. This is because backlinks tell Google that your website is an authoritative source. When Google Bots crawl web pages, they will identify various links in the content. The more your content has links, the higher your web pages will appear on the search engine results page. This will help improve both your domain and page authority.
The domain authority is your website’s relevance for the search engines, specifically in certain topics or niches. Page authority is how well a specific web page ranks on the SERPs. Backlinks not only improve the linked page’s authority but can also increase your overall domain authority.
Backlinks also can help increase website traffic. If someone is reading a blog on your page and is linked with an interesting article, the reader might click on your website’s link and browse through your website- giving you more exposure.
Backlink Strategies and SEO Tools
You can build strong backlinks by using smart techniques without spamming others. Let’s dive into some of those strategies and SEO tools that will make this easier for you.
Resource Link Building
One of the most effective ways to build links is with resource link building. You will want to identify where your business can add value to your audience. After that, you will need to create a great resource page so you can earn quality backlinks from relevant authorities.
Common examples of where resource pages exist online include the following:
– Your Local Chamber of Commerce
– Local Library’s
– Travel and tourism boards
– Universities
– Local governments
By using the SEMrush Backlink Analytics Tool, you will be able to easily identify resources that link to your competitor’s site. This way, you can work on a content strategy that may generate their attention, and they will want to link to your site instead.
Broken Link Building
Broken link building is when you find informative web pages with external links that lead to a dead page. If you can identify broken links that direct you to a 404 page and present the owner of that website with an alternative piece of content that is as good, or even better, than the original link, you can quickly build some excellent links.
You will want to make sure that you have a piece of similar content to what was initially linked. This tactic can drive a reasonable level of success since neither users nor the website you want a link from will benefit from linking to a page that 404s. You will be helping the owner of that webpage reduce broken links on their site while suggesting an alternative replacement, so they don’t have to go looking for one themselves.
Supplier Links
If your business sells products, you could be sitting on an excellent opportunity to earn a bunch of quality links to your site. Many manufacturers and suppliers include a ‘where to buy’ page on their website to incorporate this tactic. A manufacturer simply points users to the places where they can buy their products. And if you are a seller of a manufacturer’s products, you should be listed and linked.
First, you will want to put together a list of all your suppliers and their websites and work through them one by one to look for a page that lists their stockists. If you find a page and notice you are not listed, you can reach out to whomever your contact is at the company, share the page, and ask what the process is to get your website listed and linked.
Business Association Links
Is your business a member of any type of business association? Chamber of Commerce or a specialist industry body? If so, these are great opportunities to earn quality links to your site. In many ways, this is similar to supplier links. You will want to compile a list of all the associations that you are a member of and their website. Then look for a ‘members’ page or a similar page on their site. If you are a member of an association but do not see yourself listed, reach out to your content, and ask how to be added.
You can take this tactic one step further and proactively go out and look for organizations in your local community or industry that offer links to their members as part of their membership. If you are not a member reach out and chase that link!
Link Gap Analysis
Another quick way to find link-building opportunities is to conduct a link gap analysis and find sites that link to your competitors but do not link to your site. If a website has linked to multiple of your competitors, there is a great chance that they will also link to your site- as long as you can justify why they should do so.
You can use the Backlink Gap tool in SEMrush to streamline this process. You can enter up to five domains and see the domains (and pages) that are linking out to multiple competitors. Then it is time to understand why they are linked and how you can grab these yourself.
Here we’ve highlighted just five tactics to obtain quality backlinks. There are so many others out there depending on how you have approached link building in the past, which industry you operate in, and what your competitors are doing. Putting together a solid link-building strategy, you can identify the tactics that are best suited to your website and resources and plan out exactly how you are going to earn your competitive advantage.
Spectrum Net Designs Can Help with Your Backlink Strategy!
If you are looking to incorporate a backlink strategy into your SEO plan we can help! We offer monthly SEO services that include a variety of important SEO strategies to help increase your website traffic, rank higher on the SERPs, and continue to write content to keep your website fresh and relevant. Contact our marketing department today for a free SEO analysis!