Developing high-quality content, that answers common questions Google users ask and are sought after, does not mean the content will rank. One thing that you must do to ensure that your content outranks others is to establish authority with it. The best way to do this is by getting backlinks from other authoritative websites, and nurture your audience to amplify your content.
Building backlinks with quality content rank very high in factors that are important for SEO. Trustworthy sites will always link back to other reliable sites. But how does link building actually work?
What Are Backlinks?
Inbound links (which can be external links or backlinks) are HTML hyperlinks, pointing website users to another website. The reputation that your site can build on the internet is similar to the status in real life. Inbound links are like internet currency. The more website that links to you, the more confident the search engine is about the quality of your website.
Internal links also work in the same way for your website. Having a large number of internal links to a page on your website highlights the importance of the page to Google. You just have to ensure that you add all the links naturally, so they do not appear spammy. The way that search engines rank these links is through the E-A-T.
The E-A-T Concept
The E-A-T concept is Google’s guidelines for rating search quality. The full meaning of the acronym is:
- E- expert
- A- authority
- T- trustworthy
Websites that do not have all of these characteristics are viewed as low-quality websites by the search engine. But sites with these attributes are rewarded by the search engine. As the search engine continues to evolve, the E-A-T concept will even be more important for websites.
Creating a website with the E-A-T is a significant factor for your SEO ratings. It is future-proof and helps to improve your website. This allows your website to provide value to internet users, which is Google’s aim.
The popularity and importance of a site will determine the weight of the link. In order to earn authority and trust with Google, your website has to be linked by websites with E-A-T attributes. It doesn’t have to be websites as popular as Wikipedia, but they should be trustworthy and credible.
Link Profile
The link profile of your website is the overall assessment of your website’s inbound links. This assesses the whole amount of links, the spamminess or quality of the links, the diversity (are there a hundred websites linking to you, or is it just one website linking your website hundred times), etc.
The link profile assessment helps the search engine to understand your website with other websites on the web. There are several SEO tools that you can use to analyze your website’s link profile.
How to Know a Good Link Profile?
Some websites learned to manipulate the use of links to their benefit instead of going through the right long road. They used artificial links and other dubious means to increase their ranking in search engines. Although these tactics might work sometimes, it is against the terms of service for Google and can lead to your website getting deindexed. You have to ensure that your link profile is healthy and you’re getting backlinks with quality content.
If your link profile is healthy, it means that you earned your website authority and links fairly. The old-fashioned way is the best way for you to create a good link profile. A good profile will have specific qualities. Some of these qualities are listed by assignment helper in their website content and are as follows:
- The links must be earned and placed editorially.
- A link has to be relevant from topically similar websites.
- Anchor text has to be relevant and descriptive.
- Links should send relevant traffic to your website.
The Don’ts of Backlink building
There are practices in building backlinks that you have to avoid. The principle to follow is not to get involved in manipulating your website for a better search engine ranking to guide your link building efforts. Engaging in shady blackhat practices is dangerous to your website and can affect all the hard work that you have put into building your website. Google can get to penalize you if they find out you are involved in blackhat SEO strategies.
Obviously, the goal of SEO is to increase your website rank but not the wrong way. Some practices that you should avoid are:
- Using purchased links
- Reciprocal linking or link exchanges
- Low-quality directory links
Qualities of a good link
There are several qualities of a link that makes it high quality. Some of these are:
- A good link has to be earned or placed editorially.
- It has to come from a page with authority.
- It should increase with time.
- The link comes from a source that’s relevant to the topic.
- The anchor text should be natural and relevant.
- It should be earned naturally or targeted strategically.
- Bring traffic to your website.
How to Build High-Quality Links
There are different ways that link building can come in. However, it should be in line with your goals. So, there are some ways in which you can build high-quality links to your website.
- Publish a blog
Publishing a blog is the most conventional way to get links to your website. The fresh and consistent content that you post on your blog makes it ideal for link building.
- Find partner and customer links
- Create unique content
- Build resource pages
- Be involved with your local community
- Refurbish top content
- Be newsworthy
- Be genuine and personal
Conclusion
Link building is a very integral step to take for SEO. If you want your website to be easily visible online, then you have to be worth is. Search engines want to show the best sites for their users first. This will include authoritative websites with high-quality content. For your website to receive that “authoritative” status, link building is essential.
Author’s Bio
Ashley Simmons is a professional journalist, essay writer, and editor. She has been working in a newspaper in Salt Lake for 4 years. She is also a content writing expert is such topics as psychology, modern education, business, and marketing innovations. She is a master in her craft.