Do you know how many active blogs are there in the world?

Take a wild guess

600 Million and Counting (Source: Firstsiteguide.com)

Yes, jaw drop right!

It is estimated that by 2023, the number of blogs would be 7 times the entire population of the world.

That would increase the competition at insane levels.

This makes us wonder what can differentiate us from the rest and help us in building authority over others.

Well, the answer to this has been given clearly by Google.

It is a backlink.

What is a backlink?

In simplest terms, when Website A links to an article, post or image on Website B, Website B is said to receive a backlink from Website A.

How does a Backlink work?

A backlink is like an authority or certificate that verifies the quality of the content.

For Example: When Website A provides a link to Website B, it is verifying the context and quality of content on Website B.

 

Why are Backlinks Important?

Easily differentiate your blog from that of the competitor:

Consider this; all of your competitors have written a beautiful piece of content on the same topic with a similar user experience, what would be the one factor that could differentiate your blog.

That would be backlinks because it is not very easy to replicate this.

Vote of Credibility and Authority:

The backlinks are the single source to verify the context, relevancy and quality of your content through external sources.

The more backlinks you have from trusted and verified sites, the chances of getting ranked would be higher.

Increases Domain Authority and Ratings:

Getting backlinks from websites with higher domain authority increases the authority of your website.

Let us understand this with an example:

Say Domain authority of Website A is 80, and it links to content on Website B with Domain authority of 20, the chances of increasing the authority of Website B are much higher than its counterparts.

This directly affects the rankings.

Anchor Text

Anchor text is the piece of text which wraps your link.

It tells a lot about your page and content to the search engine.

Let us look at an example:

This anchor text tells us that the article to which it links is an article about SEO and a pretty good one at that.

You should always monitor your anchor text profile to make sure that it is not sending negative signals to search engines.

 

Characteristics of a Good Backlink Profile

1. Should have links from multiple root domains and not 100 links from a single domain

2. The links should come from relevant websites else there are high chances of it being categorized as spam

3. The websites which provide you backlinks should be of high authority else it may have a negative impact

4. There should be a healthy mix of dofollow and nofollow backlinks

5. There should be diversity in anchor texts that are linking to your website

 

How to Check the Backlink profile of A Website?

In order to start your journey towards building backlinks, first you need to know where you currently stand.

Let us look at the step by step process to find the backlink profile of any website:

1. Open Ahrefs Backlink Checker, which is a free tool by Ahrefs.

2. Enter the website you want to analyze and click check backlinks.

3. You will be able to see the domain rating of the website, the total number of backlinks, percentage of dofollow and nofollow backlinks, top backlinks, top anchor text, top pages and much more.

The above information will help you in assessing the current status of your website and the direction you need to take from here.

How to Build High-Quality Backlinks?

There are two ways to get backlinks:

1. To build them

2. To earn them.

In this section we will look at the top methods used by experts to build high-quality backlinks:

a. Create Links through social profiles

This is one of the fastest and easiest ways to build backlinks.

You need to create a profile on social media and mention your website name in the link section.

This sends traffic to your website as well.

b. Create link through Medium-like sites

You can create backlinks by posting your blogs on sites like Medium.

Make sure to add a note below the blog: “This content has been originally published on yoursite.com”

This method of creating backlinks is also known as content syndication.

 c. Answer questions on sites like Quora

You can create backlinks by answering questions on sites like Quora and mentioning the relevant links in the answers.

This is also a great way to bring in a relevant audience to your blog.

Make sure that you don`t spam the users else the platform might block you.

This method is also called content repurposing.

 d. Commenting on other blogs

You can build a backlink to your blog by leaving comments on websites in a similar niche.

Few points to keep in mind:

• ·         Always leave comments on blogs in similar niche to attract relevant audience

• ·         Leave thoughtful and detailed comments to increase chances of approval

• ·         Don`t spam

You can find the website that accepts comments through making below google search:

·         “keyword” + “leave a reply”

·         inurl:”keyword” + “leave a reply”

·         intitle:”keyword” + “leave a reply”

·         “keyword” + “your email will not be published”

·         “keyword” + “add a new comment”

·         “keyword” + “please login to post comments”

·         “keyword” + “Powered by WordPress”

The above methods to build backlinks can diversify your portfolio and also provide variety in anchor text.

 

How to Earn High-Quality Backlinks?

This is probably one of the toughest but most rewarding ways of getting backlinks.

A website with high domain authority usually differentiates itself by earning high-quality backlinks.

Let us look at some ways to earn high-quality backlinks:

1. Broken Links

You can identify the sites in a similar niche that have broken links and can reach out to the owner of the site to give you the link.

Let us look at it step-by-step:

a. Open the tool Ahrefs Broken Link Checker

b. Type in the domain name of your competitor or website in a similar niche.

c. You will see a window that shows you the number of broken links and websites it links to.

d. Reach out to the website with the details of the broken link and your link.

e. You can mention the reason to link as “Improving customer experience”

This is probably one of the easiest and most effective ways to earn a link.

But a lot of bloggers fail to leverage this.

 2. Creating Guest Post

You need to reach out to websites in a similar niche that accepts guest posts.

If they respond and agree to accept your post, you need to send them the content.

In an ideal scenario, they will post your content and give you a backlink.

You can find out the sites that accept guest posts using the below search terms:

“Keyword” + “guest post”

“Keyword” + “write for us”

“Keyword” + “guest article”

“Keyword” + “guest post opportunities”

“Keyword” + “this is a guest post by”

Make sure that the websites must have a domain rank of 60 or above else your efforts might go wasted.

 

3. Using Infographic or Images

You can send your original infographic or images to related websites and offer them to use it in exchange for a backlink.

This is a purely hit-and-trial method that might not produce immediate results.

You can create attractive infographics or images using tools such as easel.ly or canva.

 

4. Analyze Your Competitors

You can check out the backlinks of your competitors and reach out to the websites to give you backlinks.

There are high chances that these websites will agree to it.

You can use the Semrush Backlink tool to analyze the competition.

You will see the details of the website that gave backlinks to your competition.

You can filter it as per the latest backlinks and reach out to these sites with your proposal.

In conclusion, backlinks are important to your site’s SEO and need to be gained with caution.

If you want backlinks that will help your site with its SEO, then you should focus on high-quality ones.

Backlinks with low-quality content can hurt your website’s credibility, but high-quality ones with related content can help improve both search engine rankings and organic traffic.

Do let me know in the comments if I have missed out something.

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