Talking about website ranking and not mentioning backlinks is out of the question. Before we go on to be all elaborative about link-building strategies, let’s see what a backlink is and what the importance of quality backlinks in SEO is.

What Are Backlinks In SEO And Why Are They Important?

In simple terms, when one website links to another, a backlink is formed. Some other common names used in place of backlinks are inbound links and incoming links. Backlinks in digital marketing serve as a signal to search engines that your content is valuable and therefore worth of ranking. You can see these backlinks as a “vote of confidence,” which is a sign of how well-received your website is by the users.

Backlinks are actually among the most potent ranking variables. Google has time and again confirmed that backlinks are one of their top-ranking determinants.⁽¹⁾ The logic is simple, the more backlinks you have from multiple high-authority domains, your chances of getting surfaced on SERP increase. Now the question that pops up is what is a high-authority domain?

All websites have something called a domain authority- it is a search engine ranking score that indicates a website’s performance. It’s a score between 1 and 100, with a higher number indicating better performance. A domain authority of 50 to 60 must be considered good and those about 60 are considered excellent. Now obtaining backlinks from websites with high DA not only increases your own domain authority but helps you have a much more positive impact on your ranking.

Here’s how the importance of quality backlinks in SEO can be summed up:

• Backlinks can improve rankings
• Google finds new pages via backlinks
• Backlinks help you get referral traffic

Top Link Building Strategies You Can Opt For In 2023:

1. Promote Your Best Content Through Guest Blogging

Keep finding guest blogging opportunities as it is one of the best strategies to develop backlinks. It is the act of publishing an article on another person’s website. But why guest blogging in the first place?

You get target traffic, you get quality backlinks, and you develop social proof. To take advantage of guest blogging, find websites that are related to your industry and that welcome guest blogging (of course). And as we mentioned, don’t forget to check their domain authority!

2. Know Where All Your Business Is Mentioned

There are high chances that your business is mentioned somewhere and you might not be given due credit. For instance, you give a testimonial to someone and they publish it on their website but do not link it to your website.

In another scenario, you discover a company using your original research/ survey, but not giving you a backlink. To find webpages that mention your business, it is advisable to set up Google Alerts or any other similar tool.

3. Use Content Formats That Are Likely To Earn You More Backlinks

It might seem to be unreal but 94 percent of web content gets no links.⁽²⁾ It cannot be denied that some particular types of content help you earn more backlinks than others. “How to” and “what” posts are found to have performed better in many researches.

Further, you must have observed that infographics and videos are highly shareable. They can help you earn backlinks from social media and some popular infographics and video websites.

4. Leverage Influencers Of Your Niche

First, you need to find an influencer who is well-known in your industry and ask them to review your goods or services. Here you know that the users you are targeting are already qualified to engage with your business.

You will have to convey your value proposition to the influencer and might have to send them your products for free or let them avail of your service for free in exchange for a review.

Now, you will need to request a link from the content they create around your products/ services. If your budget allows, you can even get some high-end influencers to review your product in exchange for the price they quote.

5. Replicate Competitors’ Backlinks

The most obvious step here is to identify which competitors of yours have better backlinks than you. For this, you can google your primary keywords and find which websites are ranking on top. You can use any SEO tool to check your competitors’ links. Begin looking at the most popular pages on their website. Then analyse why are they being linked frequently- is it the content format, the type of content, the length of the content, the use of infographic or anything else?

You should then research which domains share your competitors’ backlinks most and how you might provide these domains the content that is better than your competitor’s. Begin curating some innovative content or leverage your existing one and then go out and offer those domains this EPIC piece of content! Remember not to get tempted to duplicate all the backlinks of your competitors. You ought to just duplicate links with high authority.

6. Get Yourself Listed In Niche-Specific Directories

Online directories, usually referred to as company listings, are a simple way for companies to create backlinks and drive traffic to their websites. They are often indexed by industry, region, or category.

The primary reason why you should consider yourself listing in them is that they can help you not only with targeted and relevant reach but can help with trusted backlinks, especially in the case of popular directories.

Make sure you are listing yourself on relevant directories, checking their domain authority and researching the features they offer. For instance, while one directory may offer only a simple listing with name, address, phone and website, the other might offer a listing with photos and ratings.

What Matters More: Backlink Quality or Quantity?

Let’s begin by defining each of the terms. As mentioned in the beginning, a quality backlink is a link from a website with a high domain authority that is seen favourably by both search engines and users. Quantity of links in a way means getting good traffic, even if the links you got are from spammy websites. Now, you must be curious to know which side you must go.

Well, both link-building techniques are effective in the online world. Quantity may be more efficient for some businesses while quality may be for others. In the end, you’ll probably want to err on the side of middle ground- the one where you get traffic that’s consistent and that has mid-level commitment.

Conclusion:

All the digital marketing tactics boil down to curating strategic and valuable content as it will benefit your SEO in ways more than one. Now that you know how important SEO backlinks are and how to create quality backlinks step by step, remember that SEO link-building takes time and effort. But everything’s worth the top SERP rankings!

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