Backlinks are inbound links of a website placed in another website and are usually considered as a token of trust by both visitors and Google Algorithm. However deliberate backlinks or manipulating the concept around backlinks, makes Google unhappy and the site is penalized or worse delisted, thereby hampering all scope of SEO and visibility of the site that misused backlinks.
Backlinks help users and search engines to track related content besides helping businesses to generate traffic and SEO credentials to their own websites. Backlinks are also known as hyperlinks or inbound links.
Genuine backlinks are tough to attain and are considered as a credential especially when obtained from a high authority domain. They especially play a prominent role in the growth of a brand new website and provide building blocks to generate slow but steady and sustainable traffic in a website and add to its popularity.
Why is this reference important? Suppose you wanted to purchase a kitchen gadget and ask four friends to help you with the purchase and three of your friends suggest one particular shop. The shop thus gains authority and that is exactly what backlinks do, when permitted in reliable sites. Such recommendations should not be injected but should be natural, which is what backlinks aim for.
When backlink of a site is found in another reputed website, it is an honour, as good as a citation. Search engines consider such backlinks as votes or references that support the authenticity of the home website. High numbers of backlinks have high organic SEO rankings.
However purchasing a backlink or employing a backlink generator are prohibited by Google Webmaster.
Links and rich content are few of the crucial variables that support SEO operations. Though quality content provides information, backlinks establish authority of the site.
Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines emphasize E-A-T concept in their functions. E-A-T stands for Expert, Authoritative and Trustworthy. Those websites which satisfy these criteria have a winning edge over those who don’t.
Are no follow links as good as follow links?
Yes. No follow links like those placed in Facebook profile, Twitter account and so on, do not count as trust votes for your website, but could still send valuable traffic towards your site.
Link Profile
Structure of links directing to your site is known as link profile. Links promote a website through viewers of another website. Profile linking is an important move that connects your website to social media platforms and forums. More authoritative links and zero spammy links spell good link profile.
Best backlinks that promote SEO
Editorial backlinks, guest blogs, business profile and webinar backlinks, acknowledgement backlinks, free tool backlinks, badge backlinks are recommended to be good backlink sources.
Editorial backlinks are those that support any particular information scribed in any other website, or mention of your website in interviews given by your officials. When such contents are engaging and shareable, they go viral, adding results to your SEO operations. Guest blogging or genuine comments in valuable sites enhances SEO Strategy of your own website.
Digital profiles posted in business listings, directories and review sites are also noteworthy backlinks that generate traffic to a website.
Embedding webinars in a website mentioning your own brand fetches result when such webinars are referred in guest posts.
Offering a free tool such as a cost calculator, website builder for instance, assists SEO operations in the long run. Free tools could be promoted within the website or in guest blogs.
Acknowledgement of donations and sponsorships in websites accompanied by links that mention your brand also fetches potential SEO opportunities.
Acknowledging the achievements of other brands, also known as badge backlinks are smart techniques to build links.
When backlinks from press releases are notable backlinks, the same can turn against your site, if the news is not worthy and considered spammy.
Domains and backlinks
The caliber of a domain is noted when authority of backlinks are calculated. Domain authority could be high or low. If you think that you are in good books of Google Analytics simply because all your backlinks are in high domain authority or High DA and none in low domain authority or Low DA, think again.
A healthy balance between backlinks in high DA and low DA is essential.
Referring domains and backlinks
The site from which a target website receives backlinks, is known as referring domains. If a site has 4 links from site A, 1 link from site B and 2 links from site C, it has three referring domains namely A, B and C with 7 backlinks in total.
Once again, one could not goof Google with trying to act smart tactics, because backlink checker is on duty to check how authentic the procedure to earn backlinks was.
The backlink checker studies the number of domains in ratio with number of backlinks, the pace at which such backlinks were acquired, the parts of link pointing the home page in comparison with those towards other pages and anchor text distribution.
The number of backlinks does not matter but number of domains is counted while ranking authenticity.
By now the reader would have understood that earning domains is more important than earning backlinks.
How to use Google Analytics?
Google Analytics helps one to track website performance in single dashboard information. Google Analytics displays dimensions (information about the page, landing page for instance and country of visitors) and metrics (no of visits).
A referrel (backlinks) report should be made from relevant report obtained from Google Analytics. In advanced Analytics, breakdown versions such as ‘new audience’ help assimilate detailed information. The performance of landing pages and their capacities in behavior, conversion, bounce rates could be studied through backlinks details. Relevant filters would assist in obtaining such metrics.
Website construction should be firm in its keyword and technical components so that Analytics depicts a desirable picture. Employ top keywords related to your industry to spot the top websites which have used them.
To find links directed to top sites, use SEO profiler. To find sites directed to more top sites, use hub finder. To know quality of sites directed to top site, employ link profiler tool. Check link influence score, to find importance of linking site.
How to connect Google Analytics to SEMrush?
Before learning to connect Google Analytics to SEMRush, let us see how the latter improves backlinks statistics.
SEMRush helps to scrutinize all of website’s details in a single platform. Certain permissions (such as ‘Read & Access’ and ‘Owner or a Full User,)’ must be obtained at Google level. Users and Permissions section in Google Search Console would help in related activities.
SEMrush helps websites to study backlinks, remove negative links and optimizing on profitable ones. With such reports, one could study pro backlink content on competitor sites and pages which attract higher number of domains. Such observations would guide future backlink operations on a positive note.
SEMRush backlink gap tool would enable one to compare a website with five competitors at one go. Such an effort would highlight competitor strategies, guiding us to build our own unique approach.
The tool also highlights on opportunities that you have missed, such as domains where your competitor’s backlinks have been placed, but not yours.
A more detailed information on domains pointing only your competitors (best), less of you and more of your competitor (weak), domains that point you and not your competitors (strong), domains that point you and your competitors (shared) and domains that point one particular domain (unique).
How is Google analytics different from MOZ?
Moz is a tool which is used independently or in collaboration with Google Analytics to manage SEO activities. It assists the user in comprehending visitors.
Free version off Moz gives a clear insight in link metrics, page analysis and SERP analysis while the paid version provides keyword suggestions.
While Google Analytics provides details about a website’s traffic, traffic sources and tracks display advertising, PPC, measure sales and conversions, MOZ additionally shows what competitors are up to and provides suggestions for better performance.
How could I check backlinks manually without any tool?
Whether you are a new site or have been around for some time, checking link profile is important because it helps you know if you are on the right track or lost in a wrong route.
When it comes to links, quality is more important than quantity. A check is required to see if the page is blacklisted, weak domain, if the domain has faced a penalty, association with spam directory if any, if the page hosts more outgoing links or if it is a part of any link network. If the page falls in one of the despicable conditions, the link should be removed immediately.
Navigating to link explorer and mention competitor’s URL. Visit inbound link option and export the backlinks data in .csv file. Sort backlink data by page authority and review those sites for opportunities.
Decreasing backlinks are not desirable
Disvowing links or decreasing backlinks is the last resort in the list of suggestions to avert spammy links. Spotting broken backlinks and replacing them with updated URLs benefits both users and SEO.
Though such updates are beneficial to publishers, they are not desirable because it gives unpleasant user experience and settle in the bad books of SEO crawlers.
Since presence of excessive and suspicious backlinks is penalized, it is advisable to remove them so that they do not affect the site’s authority and search rankings.
Smart Ways to Earn or Build Backlinks to Your Website
Apparently Google Crawler is fussy about backlinks among other SEO components and conducts a detailed study on how pages are connected to one another.
Broken link building is a fruitful method to earn backlinks. Requesting webmaster to replace a link genuinely with no iota of greediness would keep you in an admirable position and add backlinks.
Infographics is another popular method to earn backlinks. Select a trending topic and build a unique story around it. Gather content, especially original visuals. Employ sites such as Dribble and Fiverr to spot designers and share visuals through Siege Media generator.
Study competitor’s approach to build backlinks and take a leaf from their book.
Backlink Analytics: Backlink Checker for Any Website
Backlink checker is an online tool which helps analyze one’s own or competitor’s websites in terms of trends, patterns and opportunities and do something beneficial for any website in this regard.
Backlink checker spots new backlinks, is informed when backlinks are removed, procures data of backlink for any specific period and gets information about lost domains and anchors.
The checker also informs how commendable a referring domain is, and its credentials. It also conducts research on single URLs.
Backlink checker also provides assistance in comparing with competitor’s backlink activities and provide good suggestions based on those findings.
Measuring Your Link Building ROI with Google Analytics
ROI or Return on Investments is analyzed by using ROI report and cost analysis report in Google Analytics. Different campaigns are calculated through different methods through Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS) method.
When one subtracts initial investment value from final net return, ROI value is obtained. This determines how result oriented the entire campaign was.
Link building ROI is measured using Domain Authority or DA as a metric. This is a search engine ranking score on the website’s performance in SERPs with a scale of 0 to 100 where 100 is the top score.
Ranking, traffic and social media are three variables with which link building ROI is evaluated. ROI of link building is intricate. Conversions are what anyone expects from ranking. Surprisingly a site on page 8 gets more conversions than those on page 2, thanks to an efficient snippet.
Displays on the SERPs are not uniform though, when two people sitting in the same room browse for the same keyword, the result pages are not identical owing to site redesign, content quality, social signals to name a few.
Parameters of tracking traffic are also tricky. A visit might convert immediately or in a short while or later. Page views, people visits and time periods of visits are few entities that are tracked.
Tracking traffic conversion from link sources are noteworthy. Studying source of traffic and role of link building in those sources will help study ecommerce tracking. Google’s URL builder tool would help track referral sites.
Linking from social media is difficult to measure. One might respond to your link in a social media site ‘immediately or not immediately’ and it is a conversion which is confirmed or not yet.
Google Analytics does track the visitors from social media. Besides these, there are platform specific tools with which social media performance could be tracked.
ROI of links is indeed slow and complicated yet steady and sustainable.
Cold Emailing Can Help Generate Backlinks
Cold email is a first time email send as a business proposal or that which requests any favour. Cold email is capable of generating leads and coverting them to sales, when drafted appropriately.
In such cold emails, besides introducing yourself, you could send a link to your blog post, suggest how your website would help the recipient of the mail and be professional.
Cold email templates are available to enable link building proposals. One could request a website owner to permit guest posts and explain why you would like to respond to their posts and your stand in the same. Tell them that you appreciate their topic and would like to add value to it. Speak about your won social audience and how it would help them.
How to Use Email to Get Backlinks Without Being Spammy
Using emails to get backlinks without being spammy is a time consuming laborious task. Any recklessness and impatience in this regard not only fails the purpose but also turns to be dangerous for the entire existence of the site.
Apparently, links are an important source of organic traffic in local SEO optimization. Lack of etiquette and zero consideration of the recipient’s space make a genuine proposal sound spammy.
Even if one is using a cold email template, it gets deleted when it is annoying. Patience, research and execution are keywords to earn backlinks without being spammy.
Though long hours of work may fetch three or four backlinks, the slow growth is but sustainable. To assure even one backlink, one has to research and strategize activities on the website in which you seek backlink favour.
Individual efforts on different types of content and various link building strategies are required so that you could choose one of them to earn backlinks.
The tough endeavour with meager results fetches high quality backlinks, appears natural and keeps off-site SEO in control, thus averting black hat labels.
Choose a content which is interesting and worth to be shared and write a concise or elaborate article on it. Create a excel sheet data on the SERPs and focus on their keywords. Find out the relevant person in the company and send proposal to them, instead of choosing a general employee or who is not in the deciding department.
Entertain opportunities of making friends with someone in the chosen website while commenting on their published article. Appreciate their website in detail and be honest in your comments. Mention what was new to you. Now send your content and ask them if it would be helpful to them. Learn to wait and make a phone call as one of your last resorts.
Personalize the link building email template
Since link building emails are marketing weapons, they ought to be carefully chiseled so that they are result oriented. Since backlinks are organic SEO strategy that should not sound deliberate, emails soliciting the same face enormous pressure to sound equally natural and genuine.
While mailing to a website for the first time, mention the synopsis of your comments and provide a preview option of your content. Send updates on the content that you read from the website.
If you are writing to a popular person, with a flooded inbox, write your intent in the subject box. Address the recipient by their name with no spelling mistakes whatsoever. Mention their latest articles and make comments on the same.
Ask them if you could contribute articles to them and share their work load. Ask them if you could work on an unexplored perspective of the topic that they have written about.
If you have a remarkable social presence, mention that in your mail while asking for backlinks. Handle humour carefully and keep it polite and inoffensive.
Respond to any advice that you received from them and apply them in your work.
How to get a high volume of backlinks?
The perspective of backlinks has changed in the past decade. From trying to act smart with Google algorithm with high number of backlinks with a good number of low domain authority, websites have started moving to low numbers yet high domain authority.
While insisting quality in sites that link back to us, we cannot afford to abhor quantity and staying satisfied with low numbers of backlinks is unaffordable to our SEO strategy.
Instead of screening each and every site for bad backlinks, we could use tools such as Google Search Console and disavow bad links and remove them in a massive scale and protect our site from their harmful influence.
Besides generating quality content and backlinks, one should also take care of internal link structure which not only facilitates user’s browsing experience but also creates a positive impression to Google crawler.
When internal links are comprehensive, users would engage themselves and inquire about your services, thus pampering crawler’s positive opinion about your site.
Besides these, employ ‘Help a Reporter Out’ or ‘HARO’ to earn backlinks. Reporters use HARO tool to track information they need to research about. When a website signs up with HARO, it receives emails when reporters need information that is found in the website. Responding to this request leads to a backlink opportunity.
When you get such a backlink opportunity from a reputed global or national or local news sources, what more could you ask for? The backlinks are solicited.
Adding testimonials could also earn backlinks, provided the numbers of testimonials are limited and contents are true.
How can one identify the quality of a backlink?
There is no single metric to evaluate the quality of backlinks. It is a set of skills acquired by time and practice.
Generate backlinks from SE Ranking’s Backlink Checker and collect details including social signals and indexation and evaluate the site.
Besides Alexa, Majestic is another tool used to measure citation or the strength of a site and number of other sites linking to it, the site’s trustworthiness, the citation and trust ratio of the site.
When a site entertains a lot of spammy backlinks, the penalty might affect you, if your website has a backlink there.
Location of backlinks in a page, determines its importance. In simple words, backlinks that appear in the footer or side, SEO holds little reverence for it much against the prominence of backlinks found in the article or on the top of the page.
Anchor text distribution which is natural with balanced distribution of parameters such as brand mentions, naked links, generic anchors and keyword reach anchors, evaluates backlink quality.
How Blog Traffic can be increased?
Before pasting backlinks in quality websites, one must keep the home website prepared with rich content to satisfy visitors. Design the content with the purpose to answer queries and lead them to the sales funnel and convert them.
Content should be lengthy, comprehensive and with a good distribution of keywords. Additionally it must contain a concise and content rich meta data, with high quality images and links.
The content should be equipped with social media sharing buttons and call for action buttons. The intervals of posts must be consistent.
Shareable contents generate more visitors. The structure of these contents include lists, videos, ‘how to’ posts, ‘what’ articles and infographics.
Optimized keywords not only generate traffic and ROI but also accentuate the number of email subscribers.
How many links do you need in SEO?
After Penguin Update, Google has changed its way of assessing backlinks and misuse of anchor texts in keyword linking context. It is also a myth that increased number of inbound links or backlinks increase the credentials of your site. It does not.
Building hundreds of links in the first month of a brand new site, need not be commendable. It might tarnish the reputation of the site. Remember that Google Algorithm notes velocity of backlinks.
May be this plan could help a site in its backlink building speed. Starting with less than 10 backlinks in the first month, the website could add 5 backlinks each month for six months and march steady and sustainable.
How to use UTM parameters for SEO?
UTM or Urchin Tracking Module is a parameter when clicked with a link and sent to Google Analytics, displays visitor information of the particular URL. It also identifies different relevance or uses of one particular URL or web page.
What appears to be a simple tagging system helps to gain information about site traffic, user behavior and market value of the particular URL.
Why are we not getting backlinks from Twitter?
Twitter is one of the social media platforms with umpteen opportunities of backlinks. A tweet accompanied by a hashtag and a link to your website is all you need to do.
Interestingly links placed in Twitter are all nofollow links. In Twitter, you do not request for a backlink and despite being nofollow, it creates brand awareness and spells exposure.
Brilliant uses for Google Alerts in backlinks promotion
Google Alerts is rapidly being acknowledged for its ability in promoting backlinks. Google Alerts observes keywords that you have targeted and sends mails when those keywords are being used in internet. The results are mailed in frequency you wish to receive them, daily, weekly or monthly, for instance.
One could use brand names, product calibre, keywords as Google Alerts. Thereby you get informed about sites relevant to yours and get leads to where your backlinks can be probably posted.
What is the best method for backlink crawling?
It is not advisable to deliberately crawl a backlink. Google naturally indexes the backlink. Submit backlinks to Google Webmaster and ping URLs besides employing social networking services for the purpose or try 2.0 web building methods.
You can add backlink data and crawl data in CSV format in DeepCrawl platform and monitor their performance. Backlink data can also be exported for such purposes through Majestic and Ahrefs with no need to reformat.
Crawl data also provides information about broken links, related issues and identifies backlinks associated with pages that cannot be indexed, redirected URL with backlinks, orphaned pages with backlinks, disallowed URL and Meta nofollow pages with backlinks.
With such information obtained through backlink crawling, issues could be identified and corrected.
Conclusion
Countless strategies help a website to create and manage backlinks. Despite being an intricate strategy which is susceptible to become a penalty, backlinks when carefully handled could offer loads of traffic and SEO ranking benefits to a website.
The wide spectrum of information associated with how to build backlinks provides huge conversion rates and business to a website and helps it serve the commercial purpose. As observed in the information found above, backlink is a science by itself with multiple approaches and has a thin and sensitive line between black hat and white hat strategies.
One of the components of SEO, backlink management has a prominent role in generating traffic to the website, without which content is of less use.
Though earning and managing backlinks are cumbersome process, the rewards are indeed attractive and worth the sweat. One could employ SEO service to handle backlinks and generate traffic to a website and yield conversions.