An effective optimization plan must include three main components: onsite SEO, social media marketing and backlinks. 1und1 website This article will focus on the main topic of backlinks and how they can be used to propel your website up the search engine rankings and widen your exposure.
What is a backlink?
A backlink is really a hyperlink from an external source which points right to your website or webpage. To greatly help me explain this further I possibly could add a link to Wikipedia from this article. In the event that you were to follow this link you’d be directed to Wikipedia and away from my website. In doing this I have provided Wikipedia with a backlink. Similarly, if Wikipedia was to include a web link to my website on one of their webpages they might be providing me with a backlink. Backlinks will come from a variety of sources and we will explore probably the most commonly used techniques later in this article.
Why are backlinks important?
Backlinks provide two main benefits for your website: firstly they help to improve your search engine ranking positions, and secondly they provide additional exposure and usage of your site from external sources. Let’s look at each of these benefits in more detail.
Backlinks act like votes in that they indicate to the various search engines that the link provided must result in something of value and interest. A backlink is actually a way for other folks to say they like everything you have to offer. If you wrote an article that I felt would benefit my website readers I might decide to link to your site. If other webmasters read your article and in addition link to it you’ll soon have multiple websites all linking to exactly the same page on your website. If this happened again and again from many different websites it could indicate to the search engines that the associated with page on your own website must contain something that a great many other websites consider to be of value.
The more votes (backlinks) you have the favorite your website will appear to be in the eyes of the various search engines. However, it is not just the amount of backlinks that is important it is also the quality of the foundation it is coming from. Just as they would be in other voting situations, probably the most authoritative, powerful, influential and credible the voter is the more beneficial the vote will be to the recipient. One backlink from the well respected source can often be more valuable than many from poorly respected sources.
Backlinks are always considered regarding search engine optimization however they also have another important benefit which is often overlooked and the relevance which can be typically underestimated. If you can create various backlinks from various external sources which are pointing directly to your website you have much more potential for being found.
If I were to browse Facebook I may come across a page I love and in turn I might check out their website. I could be discussing something on a forum and read an interesting comment from anyone who has a link with their website within the written text. As their comment seems interesting I might check out their website. Therefore, backlinks not merely improve your search engine rankings by also let you promote and emphasize the significance and quality of your website to a much wider and far reaching audience.
What factors influence the quality of a backlink?
As previously stated the standard of the backlinks you aim to achieve should be a top consideration when implementing your backlink strategy. In the nice days of the past of poorly functioning search engines, that were far too an easy task to bamboozle, the more backlinks you’d the higher you ranked. It was pretty much as simple as that. However, with the search engines’ ever evolving in their ability to sniff out this sort of behavior there are now several things to consider when adding a fresh backlink to your internet site. Ultimately all of the backlinks you add should be from high quality websites and become varied in their source and link location. Additionally it is important your backlinks look natural in their source, anchor text, link location and frequency they’re added.
Authority
Ultimately you should be aiming for backlinks from authority websites. These are unfortunately much harder to encounter especially if you have a brand new site (which explains why they hold more value). In the end, why would a favorite and powerful website link to your tiny little blog? But so long as the website you are linking back from is more authoritative than yours you’ll benefit from their superior power. The authority of a website can be crudely measured by assessing its PR (PR) and domain age. Any website with a higher PR and domain age than you will be a suitable candidate for a backlink. However, if your website has a PR of just one 1 and you get yourself a backlink from the website with a PR of 3 you will benefit but over time your PR will hopefully increased rendering backlinks from these sites less effective. Therefore, the higher the PR, the older domain age and the more authoritative the web site is the better.
Theme
The theme of the web site is also a significant factor to consider. Assuming you have blog about gardening and several other gardening websites connect to your blog it will indicate to the various search engines that your blog is popular in this theme or niche. This will enhance your rankings as your site can look highly relevant when keywords associated with this theme are searched for. Having links to your gardening blog from a great many other websites within this niche will also provide people with a pastime in your niche direct access to your blog.
You may also want to consider related niches as these will also be of great benefit. For a gardening blog you might want to target backlinks from websites that concentrate on home improvements, bird watching, sheds, ponds or any other possibly related topics. These provides a varied backlink pattern that will appear natural without losing the focus of one’s theme.
Anchor text
The text that you utilize for you link is called the anchor text and it is used to add links inside a webpage without breaking the flow of this content. When a search engine comes across a web link it reads the anchor text and when you use related keywords inside your anchor text it will inform the search engines of the subject the link is related to. You should use keyword rich anchor text that’s highly relevant to the destination of the hyperlink or the keyword you’re hoping to improve your ratings for. If I was developing a backlink for this article my anchor text could be ‘backlink strategies’ or ‘why backlinks are important’ as these terms are highly relevant to the content of this webpage.
When links first started to appear within written content terms were used such as ‘click here’ or a naked web address displaying a raw URL. These were used as a ‘call to action’ to make it clear to readers that a link was embedded within what. But as people have become more familiar with links in text this proactive approach is not really required. A lot of people recognize a link if they see one and there is no longer a have to use ‘click here’ as your anchor text. The only real time this would be relevant is if you’re directing someone to a webpage about the term ‘click here’. Otherwise you should almost always use keyword rich anchor text as this is more relevant to the search engines and also allows your articles to flow more freely.