Why High Quality Backlinks Are Important

What is a backlink?  A backlink is a link from someone else’s website to your website.  Think of a backlink as a vote of confidence that someone thinks that you and your website are relevant and can be trusted.  This is good.

What is a high quality backlink? Such a backlink comes from a high quality, trustworthy site that is relevant to your website.

A few good high quality backlinks can mean the difference between being on page one or not being found at all in search engine results. They’re that powerful. Quality backlinks are a key trust and authority factor used by search engines to value your website. 

And just as importantly low quality backlinks, especially large numbers of them can severely harm your rankings.  Some characteristics of low quality backlinks include: links from websites not indexed by Google, links from websites with very little trust or authority, links from websites that are part of a link network, and so on.

There is a correct way of obtaining links, called “white hat link building”, and an incorrect way (black hat link building, which is unethical and can get your website banned from search engines).

Contact us to learn more about our white hat link building services.

Good Links, Bad Links

In the old days, it was easy.  The more links your SEO guy could “buy”, the better.  You could link to anyone, anywhere.  Only a few years ago, cheap link building was the basis for most SEO companies.

Google recognized that this technique was essentially just a way for a bad website to manipulate it’s way to the top of rankings, and has completely changed the rules of link building.

So what is a “good” organic link? 

A good organic back link is:

1. Relevant to your website, preferably in a field related to your own, one that would know and appreciate the quality of the content of your website.  For example, a good link for a construction company would be from a site that sells homes, construction materials, or appliances.

2. High “page rank”, or a website that Google places high value in because it is deemed trustworthy and authoritative. This is why a link from say, a .gov or .edu site (government or educational institution) is more valuable than a link from your buddy who owns the pizza parlor next door and linked because you asked him.

How to get a Good Organic Link

Good links take a lot of work to obtain.  They involve several elements, all of which take time and effort to complete. Here is some steps from our link building process:

• Create great content – without something interesting to link to, not many sites today would be interested in giving you a backlink
• Research possible target sites – this process involves evaluating the links of your competitors with SEO tools and selecting those that might also work for you. Or, seek and evaluate high authority sites related to your field and consider approaching them.
• Make contact and build relationships – most website owners do not want to be bothered with requests for links. What’s needed is to build a relationship first through an exchange of information and ideas, and providing content of value.
• Social Media – social media is a great tool for getting links, but it requires a lot of work to keep the topic front and center to make sure that the content you are marketing is picked up and results in a good, permanent or long-term link.

Link building is no longer done through blog comments, or buying links or accumulating junk links.  It takes persistent effort and creativity to be successful.  But good link building is an important component of a successful SEO campaign.

If you are interested in finding out more about our white hat link building services, please contact us.