Backlinks are links from other websites to your website.
There’s little question that obtaining quality backlinks will boost the visibility of your content in search engine results. This will, in turn, drive more traffic to your website.
If you have a relatively new domain and website, you may have yet to establish trust with Google and other search engines. You will not be able to develop much trust with search engines until multiple websites they already trust link to your site.
While Google has indicated the strength of backlinks as an authority signal will drop, backlinks are still essential for ranking.
Characteristics of quality backlinks
Quality backlinks have the following characteristics:
The links are from high-authority websites
Several SEO tools offer a measure of domain authority. We like Ahrefs.com’s measure, Domain Rating, which is based on a logarithmic scale from 0 to 100.
A brand-new domain starts with a rating of 0. Generally, the higher the rating of domains that link to your website, the higher the SEO value. But the rating is no longer everything.
They’re from relevant websites
Google uses content categories to determine the relevance of backlinks.
If you have a blog about CRM, one of your posts may fall into the category “/Business & Industrial.” You’re better off getting a backlink from a page in the same category rather than one in the category “/Beauty & Fitness,” for example.
They have the dofollow attribute
The default attribute of a link is dofollow. These links pass value from one website to another.
Links with the nofollow attribute have some value, but not nearly as much as dofollow links.
They are from pages with rich content
Generally, a contextually relevant backlink within well-written content is better than a link from a business listing page.
When obtaining backlinks, what activities are a questionable use of your time (and money)? What activities are a good use of your time?
Questionable uses of your time
I’m not saying, “Don’t do any of these.” However, it is worth questioning the value of the following approaches.
Purchasing backlinks
Paid backlinks were once an effective form of backlink.
However, in 2020, John Mueller of Google told Search Engine Journal that Google ignores paid backlinks.
Paid links that Google can easily detect may even be toxic to your website.
Exchanging backlinks
This is another technique that may have worked at one point. The idea was that you added a link to a website in exchange for a link from that site to yours.
The clue that Google probably doesn’t like this is that it’s too easy. Webmasters would exchange links all day long if it were an effective form of backlink building.
Adding links to your website in comments and forums
In general, anywhere you can easily add a link to your content, that backlink will have the nofollow attribute.
The owners of those sites and apps realize that if any added link were dofollow, their properties would become a giant magnet for irrelevant links. Therefore, the nofollow attribute is commonly added to any posted link.
We have seen a few exceptions to the nofollow attribute. For example, the owner of an online community site with generally responsible audience members who add helpful, relevant links may want to reward those members.
Cold outreach for backlinks with mass email
Many people used to do cold outreach for links using a persuasive email format.
The technique starts with flattery. It then casts some doubt as to the freshness of your content. By linking to them, you will “enhance” your content. Then, sharing your content on social media channels is promised.
Someone who has just started receiving these emails may think they would benefit from giving someone a backlink, but they don’t.
Most recipients of this type of email have reached a saturation point. They ignore or block the senders.
Better uses of your time
What ways of getting backlinks are worth the time and effort? Remember that the quality of backlinks is more important than the quantity.
Warm outreach for backlinks
Start by asking some of those with whom you’re friendly for backlinks.
If your company is a partner of a software company or is a distributor for a manufacturer, you may (or should) have content that casts that vendor in a favorable light. If so, why not contact someone you know at the partner company and ask them for a link?
If a partner or customer website has only a “logo link” to your homepage, you could ask them for an anchor text link to one of your interior pages, such as a blog post that you want to rank higher. This can provide more SEO value to both the post and your site.
If you work with complementary businesses in your industry or market area, you could ask one of your peers for a backlink. You could sweeten the pot by offering to write a guest post.
Ask your SEO or your marketing agency for a link
Your marketing agency likely has a medium to high Domain Rating since agencies are usually strong content producers.
If your agency includes a link to one of your blog posts from a quality piece of content on their site, this will be a more valuable backlink from an SEO perspective than just an image of your company logo with a link to your homepage.
Write link-worthy content
A tactic that can work well is intentionally writing content that baits bloggers and journalists (in a good way).
This includes statistics, survey results, and niche price calculators, which may be more likely to attract links than text-oriented content.
Brian Dean of Backlinko published a post about what he calls Reverse Outreach. This post takes the concept of link-worthy content to the next level. Of course, Brian has the advantage of having one of the most authoritative domains on the web.
The catch is that writing linkable content usually requires considerably more effort than a text-based article.
For example, creating this CRM Cost Calculator took hours of internal time and required paying and project managing a WordPress developer.
However, the post has organic dofollow backlinks from eight domains, including links from domains with ratings of 93 (HubSpot) and 51.
Write a lot of quality content
Consistently publish helpful, quality, well-optimized content. Over time, other content creators will find your content, and some will find a post or posts to be link-worthy.
However, this is a long game. It could take years for your Domain Rating to break 40. We know this from experience.
Work on focused relationship-building
If you have a low domain rating (0 – 5) and start writing a lot of new content, there is only one way to rapidly build up your Domain Rating compared to simply waiting for other content creators to link to your site.
And that is targeted outreach outside your warm audience. But it’s not blasting out emails to large lists.
The process involves meticulous research to find highly rated, relevant domains for which you can contribute guest posts.
You’ll need to find the right contacts and develop a relationship with them. Once you have developed trust, you’ll be much better positioned to ask to write a guest post.
Add platform backlinks
Specific platforms will get you a backlink just by subscribing to their service.
For example, if you subscribe to ChatGPT and create one or more GPTs, you can add links to your website from your GPTs.
Platform links are often nofollow, but sometimes they are dofollow. Nofollow platform backlinks include directories, social profiles, and link-in-bios.
Even though there are many good ways to get links, a general recommendation is to steer clear of anything that Google considers a link scheme.
