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In the ever-changing world of SEO and rollercoaster algorithms, many of us are tempted to keep up with the latest techniques. As long as you stay informed, you can keep up.
However, there are some proven strategies that can help you build an established practice of increasing authority through SEO.
SEO backlinks are one strategy that plays a vital role in a robust digital marketing strategy.
Let’s get down to business: The secret sauce of link building
We'll get into the nitty-gritty of link building and its importance later. But for those who may already have that basic knowledge, I'd like to share the secret to successful link building: the golden rule.
The golden rules of link building include…
- Focus on people who are ranking highly for the keyword phrases you want your business to score for.
- See what authoritative pages are linking to your website
- Try to imitate it yourself
In other words, it does the same thing that search leaders do.
But how do you do it?
If you're targeting a national keyword phrase, use a tool like Majestic to examine the link profiles of the top five search results for your target keyword phrase. Majestic lets you export a spreadsheet for each ranking website you evaluate. Once you have exported all five spreadsheets, you can combine them to see the most powerful and authoritative pages linking to the top five ranked sites.
By taking this approach, you can essentially learn what the top companies are doing and emulate their link profiles to achieve higher rankings.
If you're targeting local keyword phrases (such as “Denver marketing agency” or “Chicago marketing agency”), take a similar approach. All you have to do is spread your research to several different cities. Use our tools to find out what the top people in 50 cities are doing. If you combine these 50 spreadsheets and sort them in descending order based on domain authority, you'll see the top 20 strongest pages you can get to link to your site.
Let's take a look at why backlinks are important and how they can enhance your SEO and lead generation efforts.
What are backlinks and how do they work?
Backlinks are web links that form a bridge between your website and another website. Backlinks, also known as “inbound” links, bring traffic to your website.
Backlinks are great for increasing your online influence for a few main reasons.
- First, you can acquire interested, like-minded users from other sites and different audiences, and turn them into hot leads for your products or services.
- Second, backlinks make your content more easily discoverable by search engine crawlers and bots, increasing your page's chances of appearing on results pages.
- Third, a site with a good network of backlinks signals competitiveness in an environment crowded with potential thought leaders.
Why is quality more important than quantity when it comes to backlinks?
It may be tempting to fill your text with SEO backlinks to get more backlink benefits from your content, but that strategy can be more trouble than it's worth and can actually reduce your reputation in search results. may be damaged.
By focusing on a small number of high-quality, relevant backlinks, you can give your site the authority and credibility it needs. Therefore, it is essential that you take the time to understand the difference between good and bad backlinks.
- high quality backlinks Links are from trusted sources and are relevant to the content. They are usually not exchanged for money or benefits. They arise organically and are thoughtfully and selectively requested. It features diverse anchor text that takes users where they expect to go based on the information they're reading.
- low quality backlinks Links are not usually gained by merit. That is, what you get from an exchange of money or what you get from a large-scale link exchange scheme. Bad links are connected to sites that spam or insert hidden links on their pages. Inappropriate links may also be repetitive or overly specific.
High-quality backlinks over time can increase your website's authority, but low-quality backlinks can jeopardize that progress.
It's worth knowing that Google actively calls out bad backlinking practices in its Webmaster Guidelines and can impose significant penalties on websites that rely on these tactics.
How to establish an evergreen, high-quality backlink strategy
Now you know what backlinks are and their importance in building authority and trust. The remaining questions are: How can you create a set of backlink best practices that changes over time but remains firmly grounded in high-quality backlinks?
Increase your domain authority with backlinks
Thoughtful, strategically selected, relevant links strengthen your site's domain authority.
Highly authoritative backlinks will improve your search rankings. This doesn't mean Google explicitly ranks “domain authority”, but this metric is often used in its SEO tools to identify ways you can improve your strategy by comparing it to your competitors. Because it is used. These improvements will help you rank higher on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Get leads with backlink campaigns
As part of an evergreen backlink strategy, you need to actively and intentionally use high-quality backlinks to generate new leads. After all, a solid backlink strategy plays a key role in driving focused and targeted traffic to your website.
When you secure backlinks from high-quality, relevant sites, leads that find you through those links will be more relevant to your business and therefore more qualified.
Build relationships with authority figures
Good backlinks aren't just for achieving higher rankings in the SERPs. It also brings you closer to attracting the attention of authoritative sources and individuals.
For example, let's say an industry leader with a large following related to your field finds a backlink to your website in a great article they're reading. From that starting point, they will want to learn more about your company and maybe even form a collaboration or consumer relationship with you.
Enrich your content with backlinks
In a noisy, oversaturated online world, you know that your content is your voice. Content can inspire, entertain, and educate, but only if you can find like-minded people in the crowd and willing and engaged ears. You can
A high-quality backlink strategy requires amplifying each piece of content you put out, expanding your reach, sharing it across different channels, and ultimately driving more traffic to your site.
One way to do this is to create multiple types of content (blog posts, guest posts, etc.) around similar topics and link them together to build a web of useful content and further educate your audience. and maintain the audience's interest. with your company.
Monitor your backlinks to develop a better strategy over time
Many teams scatter backlinks around the web and then forget about them, allowing them to work unsupervised. But an important part of your backlink SEO strategy is to check how your backlinks are performing over time, evaluate their changing value, and continue to hone your strategy.
Thankfully, there is an easy way to check how your backlinks are performing. You can add your site to Google Search Console, a tool that generates free backlink reports, or use tools like Moz Pro or Majestic to gather insights.
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While SEO practices and trends will certainly change and algorithms will continue to tell us what to prioritize, the logic of building authority with good backlinks remains the same.
By understanding the core principles of link building, you can set up your website for success and sustainability. SEO will reward you if you focus on gradually building authority, credibility, relevance, and relationships through backlink campaigns.
More resources on backlink strategies in SEO
The big SEO question: Are backlinks dead? [Infographic]
Effective link building for B2B marketers
Top 4 reasons why companies can't get backlinks
Complete guide to anchor text optimization in 4 steps