Since Backlinks are Essential to SEO, you Cannot go in Blindly

Link building is crucial to increase your website’s ranking on search results pages. It’s an essential SEO tool. If you want a concise explanation, link building is when other websites share your website link on their page, and someone clicks the link. The link can be anywhere on the website, be it in articles or on other web pages. 

However, getting your link posted or shared on other websites is not as easy as it sounds. It is true that you can pay for a space to post your link, but that is not enough. Not every website that provides you with a backlink will be doing you a favour. In this article, we will explain the details of link building and creating backlinks. But if you want to understand the word backlink, take a look at this article first. 

Why Backlinks are Essential  

Google is the biggest and most popular search engine worldwide. There are millions of websites all around the world, but not every website is high quality. That’s why Google has to send their robots to search for new websites via links, and that is why they have complicated and strict standards and criteria. They also adjust their algorithm from time to time, which makes doing SEO more complicated as there are various factors affecting whether or not a website can climb up the ranking to the first results page. This is the reason backlinks have become one of the most important factors when doing SEO.  

When Google gives out their points (as their criteria to determine the quality of the website, which also affects the page’s ranking), they will consider whether the website has links to other internal pages with similar or related content, whether there are links to external websites with related content, and whether there are links to your website from external websites (backlinks). If you have all these factors, your website can rise up the rankings naturally. 

However, it does not mean that we can simply link build to get backlinks from every website. Because not every website is of good quality, which is something you need to consider when link building. 

What Should a Quality Website Look Like?

In order to get backlinks we must rely on other websites to share our link, this can be through onsite content or references in articles. However, such websites should be of high quality and comply with Google’s criteria. This will result in you getting a quality backlink. There are many factors which determine a website’s quality, which include:

1. Having a systematic sitemap which makes the website easy to access
2. Having practical UX & UI designs that are responsive (accessible on computer screens and on mobile screens). The website must be running smoothly and quickly, too.
3. The content on the website has to be comprehensible, useful and up-to-date
4. Link flow rate; the website should be referred by other websites and, likewise, referring other websites as well
5. The website is SEO friendly and has a good level of domain authority

What Elements Do You Need to Know About Link Building?

The elements involved in link building are actually not complicated at all. But first, you must understand their mechanism; how they work. The most important factor in link building is, of course, the link. But what links should we have for SEO?

Internal Links

An internal link from one page to another subject to the restriction that the content on both pages must be related. For example, the content on your website’s homepage talks about a healthcare routine, but part of the content mentions gym clothes too, so you can insert a link in that part (an anchor link) and when someone clicks the link, they will be redirected to the page which talks about working out, gym clothes etc. This is an example of a proper internal link.

There are, however, some details which you still have to manage. Basically, you need to create a smooth flow for the website, linking the content from one page to another, redirecting to other pages and coming back to the previous page. You should plan it during the sitemap process, because you want your website to run smoothly and be functional. The more interesting it gets and the more people spend time on your website, the more Google will see that the content on your website is good quality. 

Backlinks

Links clicked from other websites, which can be created in various ways e.g. writing an article and posting it on other websites and inserting an anchor link in that article to redirect back to your website, or another example is where other websites use part of your information on their website and post your link as a reference. All of these examples are on the condition that the information must be related. 

In addition, from time to time, backlinks may come from comments posted on a website that include a link to your website (naked URL), or a link inserted in the words (an anchor link) on website forums. Backlinks from this method, however, will not be as valuable as the backlinks from the links posted in articles, since most of them are encrypted with No Follows (blocking Google bots from clicking the link we inserted deliberately).  

Outbound Link

Other than backlinks you receive from other websites, you should also have links taking your visitors to other websites as well. Google’s criteria for determining whether a website is high-quality or not consists of many factors. Building a network of websites, with links taking people in and out is one of the factors to increase the credibility of your website naturally.

How to Deal With a Backlink That Turns out to be Spam?

It is normal in business to have competitors, however there might be cases where competitors create spam links to attack your business. They will post a link on a low-quality website e.g. websites which use different languages to your website, with incomprehensible writing or websites that post too many links. When you receive many backlinks from such low-quality websites, Google will also see your website as low-quality, or even worse, they may even ban or downgrade your website’s ranking. 

If you encounter this, the first thing you must understand is that you cannot prove who did it and you cannot prevent it. But don’t worry too much about it. What you can do is notify Google through Search Console that these links are spam, and that you are not involved. The system will keep a record and you will not face a penalty. 

SEO relies on many factors which must be done correctly and effectively. Because if you take a shortcut to create backlinks without considering the quality of the content on the referring website, even though your website would rise up the ranking at first, it may cost you a penalty and a ban from Google later on. Link building effectively may take time, but it will result in your website rising up the rankings, which will ultimately be worth it!