Create backlinks: definition and tips

March 31, 2022 - Anaïs Sautarel
SEO
26047 views

11 minutes

“Publish.”

You have just published online an exhaustive, detailed, qualitative, and unique article you are proud of.

But it ranks very low on Google’s search results.

This unfavourable position may be due to an unpredictable or insignificant link building strategy to get effective results. Backlinks often grow naturally and may be an unstable SEO setting.

Fortunately, there are many effective and quality methods to create professional backlinks.

First, let’s go back to basics.

The backlinks (also called inbound links) of a website are the links leading to it.

The number of backlinks is an essential criterion if you want your professional website to rank high on search engines. Many quality backlinks on your website enable Google (the most popular search engine of the market) and company to consider it as popular and rank it high on search results.

According to Google, your digital reputation depends on the fact that we are talking about you (or your website) as well as the quality of the sources that talk about you.

According to search engines, if famous websites and blogs mention you, you are probably influential. It means that your quality contents convinced, and you deserve to become famous.

These backlinks build your authority as an expert on the subject, which is essential for your SEO.

backlinks

Backlinks are important for SEO.

Since 2004, Google has taken new data for website indexation, such as:

  • their dates of creation and publication

  • the date of the first link that leads to the website

  • the number of links depending on the date of creation…

Google analyses your links and uses this setting to draw perceptive conclusions from indexed websites. Here are some examples:

  • a decrease in the number of links may indicate that the page has turned obsolete or is no longer updated

  • loosing a link may show that the page has been deleted, or another content has replaced it

  • On the contrary, a boom in the number of links over a short period of time may signify that the page is the victim of its success or fraud attempt.  

But, how to proceed to rank high on Google and create backlinks?

Adding many free backlinks just for creating links isn’t enough.

You need to choose the referral websites that will talk about you. Choose the most famous, recommended and trustful websites. If Google notices that your link building strategy is relevant and quality, your website visibility and authority will be boosted.

What are the most effective methods for creating quality backlinks?

get backlinks

Draw inspiration from the experts of your sector

To create effective backlinks and learn from your competitors’ errors, you need to draw inspiration from the most influential competitors in your sector.

When it comes to marketing, curiosity never killed the cat…

It’s always interesting to observe your competitors, especially market leaders:

  • How did they establish their link building strategy?

  • How many links do they add to each article?

  • To which type of websites did they add backlinks? Are they dofollow or nofollow links?

  • What is their method to create anchors?

Of course, they will probably use famous methods for their link building strategy. However, a competitor’s error or great idea will help you save time.

Don’t hesitate to cross borders and draw inspiration from English-speaking blogs. Most blogs have an advanced strategy, especially Backlinko by Brian Dean. You will find much content to optimize your backlinks, among others.

Moreover, to make your job easier, it will be possible to use online SEO tools, such as:

  • Semrush

  • Majestic SEO

  • Ahrefs

Offer content to influential experts

Go back to basics in terms of backlink is one of the best quality and effective method to enhance your strategy.

To that end, you can:

  • suggest adding content

This old method consists in reading content about a topic in which you are an expert, and bringing added value to the writer.

That is to say, if you have an idea about their content after reading the article, you can get in touch with the writer to add your content and mention you.

However, all content creators don’t like this method, and it’s possible that most of them don’t reply to your email. But you can implement this method if you already know the blog writer with whom you would like to collaborate to enhance your strategy and strengthen your relation.

backlink strategy

  • collaborate

Publishing contents written by experts about a specific topic makes part of the most approved methods. These contents are more likely to be shared online later.

This is a win-win situation: you enjoy specific content for your blog, and this blog gets a link that leads to your website. In this way, you recommend a quality and specific resource for your community and show your expertise at the same time.

It is still the best strategy to get yourself talked about on the Internet.

  • do guest blogging

Guest blogging works in the same way as collaboration. A blog needs to accept your content to publish it on its website.    

To that end, you need to try hard to write a relevant, expert, and professional article that will be a perfect showcase for your blog. In this way, you get a link that leads to your website as well as quality content that will encourage the community of the partner blog to visit yours.

Create shareable content

The creation of quality content on your blog enables you to get more backlinks. However, to boost the creation of backlinks that lead to your website, some contents are easily shareable.

But what are shareable contents?backlinks and website

Infographics and videos are the most viral contents. Video indeed arouses commitment. They are shared a lot, and generate traffic, but creating a video takes time and is sometimes unprofitable for a small business.

Therefore, infographics are probably the most effective content. The Pinterest’s infographics are the visual contents most shared thanks to their design and readability.

If you aren’t a designer, you can choose specific contents, such as statistical articles. Writers and lectors like this type of articles, which often rank high on search engines results pages and are mentioned in most articles dealing with the same topics.

However, creating this type of content requires much rigour and needs to be regularly updated.

Moreover, it will be eventually useful for the creation of your backlinks to promote your website on social media and specific platforms. For example, organizing a contest might boost your visibility.

It’s a time-consuming and profitable method: replace link rots on some blogs with your links.

Once again, you need to know the blog owner a bit. It’s possible that backlinks are no more available and show a 404 error on some content.

If these contents deal with your privileged topics and if you have written an article on this topic, you can suggest it to the blog writer so that they replace their link. It enables them to fix link rots, which penalize their SEO, and you get a new backlink.

backlinks

The original page is the page where you will add your link. As we have mentioned, you don’t choose this page randomly.

It will need to:

  • have a good reputation

  • have a good Page Rank; that is to say, ranking as high as possible on Google’s search results

  • be popular on social media, have a good Alexa rank and/or SEO…

  • deal with a topic related to the landing page

  • have a few backlinks

If you don’t comply with these requirements, your backlinks are likely to be more harmful than good for your website.

There are many methods to create backlinks and build your strategy, but they are challenging.

That’s why it’s better to know all the traps related to backlink creation to be effective, high-ranked, and according to the rules.

Backlinks now seem to be the best solution for your SEO, but this isn’t the case.

Such as all the SEO methods, you need to use them to optimize your website. The quality of your content have to take priority over the rest.

Therefore, it’s better to know the trips to avoid before creating backlinks.

Here they are.

The anchor link is essential for your SEO. For example, the generic and meaningless terms such as Link or Click here will be less effective for your SEO.

However, specific and precise terms related to the topic of the landing page will be more valorized. Moreover, add your anchor link to the sentence if possible.

create backlinks

For the same reasons, it’s better to add links to text rather than to images.

For links added to images, you need to indicate an Alt attribute to optimize the link at best. These Alt attributes are for Google so that it can better understand your content.

Moreover, use different anchors for your links. If you use the same anchor, Google will suspect it and penalize you. Choose precise and relevant words to add links that will lead users to other pages.

To go further
Info stepup
Use different synonymous keywords that will enable you to exploit the long tail.

And now, you no longer understand anything.

Here are definitions to help you understand:

  • a do follow link is a basic link that uses the URL of the page it leads to

  • search engines don’t take a no follow link into account and won’t show Page Rank

Well, what’s that got to do with our backlinks?

Your backlinks need to be do follow links (they mustn’t go through redirect), not no follow links. No follow links indeed enable the websites that offer to visitors the possibility to participate in the content (forum, comments, social media…) to protect from backlink stuffing (spam).

Watch out
Info warning
This doesn’t mean that you need to ignore these no follow links.

No follow links enhance your website traffic, which is your main objective, but they’ll have favourable indirect effects for your SEO. Therefore, it’s possible to use this no follow attribute to control the quality of your SEO and backlinks.

However, don’t use too many no follow links: Google is intransigent on such excessive practice of this method.

Penguin algorithm rules

From Penguin algorithm, backlinks aren’t a joke.

penguin algorithm

Google’s algorithm update penalizes and reduces the visibility of websites that implement too many abusive practices to optimize SEO.

These abusive practices may be:

  • the use of hidden links

  • the massive registration for link farms

It refers to the artificial creation of websites with links that lead to each other to dupe search engines. Search engines ignore these links, but they can also ban your website.

Moreover, Penguin algorithm condemns key stuffing as well as voluntary duplicate content.

As seen above, several additional trails may be used to get backlinks.

But be careful! Google pays attention to what happens on the internet.

Your links need to be natural and appear progressively. Search engines don’t like the sudden display of many untimely links. If you collaborate with another website, come to an agreement on the number of links you’ll place on the website to keep a certain equity while creating natural content.

Don’t forget to favour the creation of natural links. To that end, your website needs to bring added value that will encourage other websites to create links. There is no secret: adding exclusive content and updating your content regularly will enable you to increase your number of backlinks and enhance your natural SEO and website reputation.

create backlinks

It’s possible that you already have many backlinks without knowing it.

Websites may have shared one of your contents without mentioning the source. If you notice them, you can get in touch with the website owners to get credit for your content.

In this way, don’t hesitate to contact with webmasters who use your images without permission. It may be a great opportunity to get a backlink in exchange for your illustrations.

Additional tip: it’s possible to use Google Alerts to know if an internet user speaks about you. For each alert, you can check what they’re saying about you, as well as the presence of a link to your bog. If not, ask them to add a link that leads to your website.

As seen above, SEO is an essential element you need to improve constantly. The creation of backlinks makes part of SEO and may be a difficult task.

Now, you know good and bas practices to optimize your SEO.

Prepare your backlinks!

Anaïs Sautarel
Translator
As confident in the mountains as with foreign languages, our contents and tool travel around English-speaking and Spanish-speaking countries with me. 🌍

Last update: March 31, 2022

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