June 28, 2018
In SEO, the strength of your backlink profile makes a huge impact on your site’s overall organic rankings. The problem is, gaining reputable and trustworthy backlinks can be a time-consuming and expensive project to put time into.
With that being said, it’s extremely important that your site is built in a way that makes the most out of each backlink. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s walk through a quick refresher.
What is a backlink?
A backlink is created when external sites include links back to your website within their own content. A backlink is an essential ranking factor for SEO, especially if the referring domains are reputable sources. Strong backlinks increase your domain’s value in the eyes of search engines, as well as drive referral traffic.
Of course, negative backlinks can also heavily impact your site’s authority as well. Receiving backlinks from untrustworthy or spammy sites can decrease your site’s value, in turn decreasing organic traffic. Luckily, it is possible for you to rid your site of these toxic links. Backlink cleanup can also be time-consuming but has been proven to positively affect your site’s authority.
How can I make the most of each backlink my site receives?
Prior to beginning your backlink outreach, you must ensure your site is optimized both in technical optimization and the actual content produced. The following factors must be considered:
1) Does my site have an overwhelming amount of technical errors?
Technical errors can hurt overall user experience, which in turn will hurt your site’s organic traffic growth. Your site should be free from:
-Status code errors (404s, 302 redirects, server errors)
-Redirect chains
-Canonical errors
-Incorrect signals (noindex tags, nofollow tags)
2) Does my site’s architecture make sense?
A strong site structure allows your site to need fewer backlinks, while still improving overall authority. Ensure your navigation enables users (and search engines) to understand how the homepage leads to category pages, blog posts, and more.
3) Am I creating valuable content?
The #1 most important thing to consider when working on your site’s backlink profile is whether you are creating content that matters. If your site is not focusing on high-quality content that is relevant and valuable, your backlink profile will suffer.
What tools should I use?
SEO tools make analyzing your backlink profile a lot easier. They allow you to deep dive the authority of all referring domains pointing to your site, find toxic sites that could be dragging your SEO efforts down, see which specific pages your site is receiving the most links from, and so much more. A few tools that we whole-heartedly believe in include:
While these tools all analyze backlinks in a similar fashion, it can be tough to decide which to choose for your business. Need a little more help in determining which direction to go in? Check out Digital Olympus’s article on Choosing the Best Tool for Backlink Analysis.
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Do you have any burning backlink questions? Tweet us at @Perfect_Search.
Manager, SEO & Content
Courtney Culligan is a DePaul University graduate, but she still loves cheering on her home state’s baseball team. (The Minnesota twins, obviously.) Her dream birthday present might include a German Shepard and a trip to Japan.