Google wants to make sure that the websites they offer to their customers answer their questions and fulfill their needs.
NB: This is an article from Milestone
They seek highly authoritative sites that demonstrate expertise and provide helpful information. In an effort to sort through the wealth of information available online, therefore, the search engine has to use a variety of signals that help them uncover the best websites that deserve to rank highly on the SERPs.
One of their strategies to understand website authority is backlinks. The idea is that if other websites view your website as authoritative enough to link to, then it helps to boost your credibility. Building links, therefore, can be a great way to help your website claim its spot within the industry and increase rankings on the SERP.
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Here is what you need to know about how your website can build its backlinks and boost its profile online.
Some important terms related to link building
Before we get started, there are a few important terms related to link building that site owners should familiarize themselves with so they fully understand the strategy at hand.
- Link quantity: Try and get as many relevant links possible for the website
- Link quality: This is determined by the authority of the link. Authority sites are ones which rank well and known well within your niche. They have strong inbound links which are well insulated against algorithm fluctuations.
- Anchor text: Anchor text is the clickable part of the link you see. Anchor text tells search engines what a link (website) is about.
- Note: Use most important keywords in your anchor text for maximum ranking effect
- Link relevance: It helps establish where your links belong. Search engines read text around links. Linking out and being linked to establish connections. Build links within your neighborhood. Links to and from contextually relevant or “thematically related” sites convey more authority.
- External links, or backlinks: Links coming from other domains back to your site.
- Internal links: Links from pages within your site to other pages within your website.
- Follow/NoFollow: This is an HTML command that gives a suggestion to the search engine about the nature of the link. Paid links to other sites should be marked NoFollow. Most social platforms make user generated links NoFollow to prevent link spamming as a way to build link authority.
Focus on linking efforts that secure as many solid, quality and authority links as possible, using keywords rich anchors from thematically related sites/pages as possible.
Strategies for building your backlinks
Link Tactics: These are the time tested tactics to improve your inbound links.
- Article writing
- Original research
- Guest writing/ reviews
- Press release optimization
We will now dive into each of these strategies individually.
Article writing
Producing highly engaging and informative articles can attract backlinks. Other websites appreciate finding thought leadership within particular industries. When your content consistently fulfills that need, it will naturally encourage people to link back to your site.
