By Candice Georgiadis, social media influencer and founder of Digital Day Inc, a social media and marketing agency in California.
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The SEO process is a kind of marketing conundrum. Google changes its algorithm frequently, and what worked so well suddenly doesn’t have any impact on rankings when SEO experts thought they figured out the trick to success. One thing, however, will remain a hallmark of any SEO strategy in 2022. High-quality, authoritative and relevant backlinks. Yes, that’s why backlinks are the backbone of your business’s SEO strategy.
What is a backlink? backlink is an incoming link from another webpage to your webpage. Backlinks are also called hyperlinks or inbound links and are a cornerstone of search engine optimization. The more backlinks you have pointing to your site, the more Google will see you as an authority and give you a better ranking on search result pages. In addition, backlinks increase your overall traffic, which can be great for building brand awareness and getting new customers in the door.
There are two types of backlinks:
• Do-follow links: These are the preferred type of backlinks because they pass PageRank and other ranking signals to a website. They tend to be more powerful because they help build credibility within the search engines themselves rather than just lead visitors directly there.
• Nofollow links: Nofollow links direct visitors to another site without any SEO benefit. Nofollow links are not counted by search engines, so there’s no need to worry about them when building an SEO strategy or doing keyword research.
How do backlinks work?A backlink consists of:
1. Clicking the link that will direct you to the URL. An example might be a PDF file or another web page.
2. Anchor text, which is the text you click on. Anchor text is used when a link is created with an image.
Backlinks serve as a sign of trust. Google and other search engines use backlink metrics as a measure of popularity and relevance. When someone links to a website, it means they trust them to send readers there too. It is like a peer-review for a webpage; a sign that a scientific article contains valuable information is when it’s cited many times by different authoritative and relevant sources. It’s always a smart move to gather as many high-quality backlinks as possible—but don’t just go around asking people for them—you need a strategy in place first!
How do you get backlinks?There are a few different ways to get backlinks. Let’s look at some to find out which fits your business best.
• Create high-value content that is link-worthy, since high-quality content serves as a foundation. As Damon Burton mentions, “Quality content that satisfies a searcher’s need can have an equal or greater impact on your search engine rankings than backlinks upon backlinks upon backlinks.”
• Create an infographic that explains how something works. It’s much easier for people to understand things visually than through text alone.
• Create a resource hub on your website where visitors can find links to quality resources related to their areas of interest.
• You can find backlink opportunities for your website by using the Google Search Console. Google’s free tool provides amazing data that can help you rank higher.
• You can get an idea of valuable backlinks by keeping an eye on your competitors. It’s important to know what others are doing in order to stay informed.
• Leverage the power of guest posts. Backlinks from guest posts are a proven strategy for getting backlinks to websites. It is possible to write a guest blog for different sites that accept guest bloggers.
• Use HARO: You can get high-authority backlinks from news sites by using HARO (Help a Reporter Out).
Conclusion
The ultimate goal of your SEO strategy is to create a digital footprint that makes it easier for the user to find you online. To achieve this goal, backlinks are one of the most important factors when it comes to your website’s ranking in search engine result pages. Although they are not easy to get and some people even argue that they are out-of-date, the reality is that even though Google algorithms keep updating, backlinks will remain the backbone of your SEO strategy.
