A backlink or inbound link from an external website to your website. The backlink is one of the factors for the SEO of your website because the number of backlinks can determine how popular your page or website is. This simple rule resulted in creating an enormous amount of websites for years with only links to other websites, so-called link farms. And these were, of course, sites that were completely uninteresting for visitors.
Google saw that too, so in recent years there have been quite a few changes in Google’s backlink policy. Through the Google Penguin updates in recent years, websites with only bad backlinks have been severely punished. Good SEO scores are lost and very hard to get back.
Authority and relevance
What is important then? Not only the amount of backlinks but also the authority of the site from which the link comes is important and also buy permanent backlinks. So if you’ve made it to the press and you come across a link to your site from a busy news site, that’s very valuable. A link from another website within your field also counts as a good incoming link; then you have a relevant link.
social media
A good gauge to measure the popularity of your site for Google is the number of times a link from your site is shared on social media. If you have written a blog post or knowledge base post, make sure your visitors can easily share it. Make sure the share buttons are visible with your post and ask your audience to share. Often a minimal effort!
Value of a backlink for SEO
Backlinks are and remain an important SEO factor, but only if it concerns a relevant backlink. Don’t ask strangers for a link anymore; there’s no chance. Provide valuable content, which is useful to your environment and which you want to refer to. And make it easy for everyone to share your posts on social media!
‘link building’ is done, but this is handled in an incorrect way by, for example, not introducing diversity in the types of sites where links are placed.
Important Link Building Websites
As mentioned, the site where a link is located gives a certain value with the link to the website. Several factors determine this value. The website’s popularity, how old the website is, how many backlinks that website has, and of course, what the website is about. As in an earlier example, the painting company. A link from a website about baby food has hardly any value, but a link from, for example, a paint supplier has appreciated.
Outsource link building
Outsourcing link building is the best option if you choose to engage in (qualitative) link building. If you outsource it to a good online marketing agency, then many links will not suddenly be placed on websites. But precisely by using several hours of high-quality SEO optimization and link building, there will be a growth in findability in Google, so that relevant visitors increase and you can therefore realize extra turnover. When outsourcing link building, you should ensure that you do not purchase a fixed number of links. After all, it’s not about the number of links; it’s about their quality. A good online marketing agency will first start with a keyword research. This involves searching for relevant keywords for your website and the search volume associated with it. An initial ‘analysis’ is also carried out here to see if you are already being found for these words and who your possible competitors are.
If it is known who the competitors are, a ‘competition analysis can be performed. This involves looking at the websites and the link profile of the competitors. Together with the 0-measurement, which looks at the current position of your website, a strategy and a schedule are drawn up in which it is described what the steps are and the possible results that can be expected.