Backlinks are one of the most effective ways to improve your search engine ranking. Gaining more backlinks can have a positive impact on where you lie on Google results. But, it’s not that easy. If only things were that simple. Not all backlinks are valued equally. Specific backlinks could even hurt your rankings.
Even just a handful of really high-quality backlinks can massively improve your SEO progress. Yep, that’s right. You don’t need to gain hundreds of links to see an effect. Just get one from Amazon, and you’re sorted. Yeah…it’s not that easy either. Gaining links can be difficult; having loads of low-quality links makes no real difference to your ranking. Too many low-quality links can even have a negative effect!
So, how do you work out whether a link is worth earning or should it be avoided at all costs? Well, let’s begin to scratch the surface. There are three core elements to think about. What are they, and how do you find the balance?
What Makes A Backlink High-Quality?
It’s subjective. It depends. Speak to a bunch of different SEO professionals, and they’ll likely give different opinions on what makes a backlink high-quality. Truth be told, nobody understands how search engines make their mind up on this either (well, Mr Google might). Something most people will agree on is that the highest-quality backlinks consist of three core elements. Got a backlink that ticks all three boxes? You’re on to a total winner.
You need to keep in mind that it’s not realistic to expect every backlink in your profile to be completely perfect. Each link does not have to consist of all three elements. Got it? Let’s move into more detail.
The Three Elements of A Good Backlink
Relevant
There are different ways that a backlink can be relevant- the domain site, the linking page, and the content directly surrounding the link. All three of these factors are relevant to your site? Then this is the ultimate site for a link. This kind of site can be hard to find, though, especially if your site is pretty niche. It can be even harder to gain this kind of backlink. It’s nothing to worry about, though. Even a link in a highly relevant article (but from a not so relevant site) can be a positive achievement!
Ultimately, search engines aim to provide the user with relevant content. So, it’s no surprise that Google uses relevance as a factor for rating backlinks. Having a high number of backlinks from websites entirely irrelevant for yours won’t benefit your site. Too many of these can act as a red flag to Google. It could even harm your rankings! Be careful!
Natural
One of the best kinds of links? One that another website owner chooses to add. They’ve chosen to add it for no reason other than they wanted to. You earned it! Well done. You should avoid paying for backlinks and never use third-party sites to pay for links. It’s dodgy and manipulative; Google agrees!
Sometimes, asking for links is needed, and it’s not always bad. But, a natural approach means you simply earned a backlink. If you are going to outreach for links, target people who genuinely enjoy your site/product and link to your site without too much persuasion.
Unnatural backlinks from dodgy sites are technically fooling search engines. They make a site look better than it actually is. If Google picks up on a backlink which it believes to be unnatural, you may be lucky, and it could be ignored. But, if you’re a re-offender, then your site could be penalised. The result? Your rankings can suffer.
Reputable
And finally, here is the last of the three core elements. Search engines want to find pages they can trust; it’s how they decide who gets a prized position on the first page. A good site reputation brings reliable search results. Google uses something called PageRank, here’s their definition-
“PageRank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is. The underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites.”
So, even Google themselves say it comes down to both the number of backlinks a site has and the quality of these backlinks. The higher both of these factors are, the higher the chance of your site ranking highly on Google. Unfortunately, Google no longer provides this metric. This is because spammers were abusing it- going against guidelines by using the metric to purchase backlinks.
Marketing tools such as SEMRush provide their ranking version, allowing SEO specialists to determine how reputable a site is! And therefore, whether a site is a good backlink source.
Finding The Balance
Remember what was mentioned earlier; your backlink profile will never be perfect. Every single link won’t meet the three core elements; it’s all about balance. Having a few lower-quality links will not harm your site. You just need to make sure dodgy links don’t get out of hand.
Here’s An Example
For argument’s sake, let’s say you’ve just started a clothing store online. A newspaper’s website has posted an article titled “5 New Online Clothing Stores You Need to Know About”. A link has to your website has been included; ta-dah! But, you’re not sure whether this link is harmful to your site because the newspaper isn’t relevant to your business at all. Here’s the thing, the link is still worth keeping! Let’s discuss why.
So, the domain of the newspaper site isn’t particularly relevant, that’s correct. But, it is a natural link- you didn’t pay for it through a third-party site, and you didn’t do anything dodgy to gain the link! Oh, and it turns out the newspaper is really popular. The site receives thousands of views away, and the viewers tend to stick around for a decent amount of time. This means the site is highly reputable!
Because of the reasons mentioned, even though the linking site isn’t massively relevant, the link is still good and can stay. It could bring some beneficial traffic to your site because the rest of the article is relevant too. The readers are clearly interested in what you have to offer! In fact, this is a link you should be pleased about gaining.
Fancy Some Help Gaining High-Quality Backlinks?
At Breakout Media, we’ve got a team that can help build your backlink profile. We know what kind of links your industry should target and how you can earn these links. We can do the hard work for you. All you have to do is sit back and watch your site climb to the top of Google.
Give us a call on 01642 955370 or send an e-mail for more information.
