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Backlink checklist: How to determine the quality of a backlink

Backlink building is one of the most important aspects of having a search engine optimization (SEO) strategy today. It’s the process of acquiring links from other high-quality websites — when this happens, Google takes it as a vote of confidence in your authority and will give you a boost on the search engine results pages (SERPs).

But all links aren’t created equal and, in order to maximize the value from your backlinks, you need to ensure that you’re working hard to secure ones that are high-quality. In this article, we’re going to outline how you can determine the quality of a backlink.

Look at the domain rating and authority of your target site

The first thing you need to do when determining the quality of a site you’re thinking about building a link on is to check its domain authority (DA) and domain rating (DR).

Domain authority is a ranking score developed by Moz, a digital marketing company, that can help predict how likely a website is to rank well on the SERPs. Essentially, the higher the authority of a website, the more likely it is to do well on Google. DR, on the other hand, is a ranking metric developed by Ahrefs that shows the strength of a website’s backlink profile.

Two trillion and over: That’s the number of searches conducted by people on Google. These are people who search with intent. This includes the intent to buy products or services and also others gain information on specific areas related to those products or services.

Naturally, many of these searches are going to be related to the industry that you are present in – are you tapping into them?

Google Search Statistics

Personally, when I started my startup, making my website search-friendly wasn’t my first priority. Fast forward a couple of years and it is one of my top goals for the year. I realized one important but obvious truth the hard way: people don’t like being sold.

Of course, sales continue to be a very important part of my organization as it is for most. But making the sale to a customer who has come to you vs. you going to them, has very different dynamics.

In this context, I would like to explore one of the most critical parameters that can help you adjudge how you will perform in search: Domain Authority.

If you’re into SEO, you probably already know the value of a good ol’ backlink. After all, backlinks are an important ranking signal used by search engines to determine the authority of your website—and building more backlinks will most likely result in higher rankings.

So, it’s time to scale your outreach and build XXX backlinks, right?!

Well, not really. Links are no longer equal, especially because Google constantly innovating the PageRank algorithm with multiple ranking factors being added every single day.

You can longer ‘game’ the system ( Psst… PBN links) as Google can tell a fake backlink profile from a mile away —

PBN Website

What’s more, unethical backlinks can potentially harm your website—and most likely result in penalties that take months to overcome.

But what about ‘good’ links, aren’t all of them valuable?

Again, no. As mentioned, Google has multiple ranking factors, so they allocate different values to different types of ‘good’ links. In this post, I’ll walk you through techniques to maximize the value from your backlinks as reported by industry experts:

Did you know that only 4% of people believe that backlinks can barely influence your rankings?

That means a whopping 96% disagrees with them. These people believe that link building is one of the best ways of making a mark on the top of the SERPs.

But if you think that acquiring just any type of link can get you there, you’ve got another thing coming.

While some links can catapult you to the summit, others go the opposite direction. So, rather than pursue every backlink opportunity that comes your way, you need to distinguish the good from the bad.

In this post, let’s look at this one SEO factor that can make or break your rankings: the quality of your link profile.

Let’s get the ball rolling.

What are the links?

Links can either be internal or external. First, let’s cover internal links. These are links that connect to internal pages of the same domain.

Here’s an example from Mondovo’s blog post on SEO content writing.

Content Writing

When you click the link, you’ll be sent to another page on the same blog.

Simple, right?

Internal links matter because it passes on traffic and PageRank to other pages in your site. Search engine crawlers will also have an easier time discovering them.

If you have a high number of internal links that point to a specific page, you’re sending Google a signal. You’re telling them that your page is important.

As long as you created this link naturally, Google will give that page a nod. Meanwhile, external links are links that point you to a place outside a domain.

If these links point you outside of your site, you can refer to them as outbound links. And if they are pointing to you from another site, you can refer to them as inbound links or backlinks.

Improve Your Local SEO Ranking

We all know that a strong SEO strategy is imperative to a growing business in today’s digital climate. Interestingly enough, Hubspot’s report found that 61% of marketers agree that SEO growth is their number one priority, but 61% also agreed that generating traffic through content marketing was their greatest challenge.

It is no surprise that lots of content writers struggle with SEO strategies. Things change quite quickly, and most of your efforts will not bring results right away.

When it comes to SEO strategies, a lot of people seem to have their own “secret formula” or set of tips that promise incredible results. Unfortunately, things are just not that simple when it comes to optimizing your website content for higher rankings and traffic optimization. Google is notoriously hush-hush about their processes.

Moreover, their algorithms seem to be constantly changing, making new strategies almost instantly irrelevant once a new update rolls out.

However, some strategies are better than others, but the only way to be sure that SEO advice is truly sound as if it is backed up by reputable data.

Let’s breakdown six of the best SEO approaches that you can start using today that have statistical proof to back them up.

SEO remains one of the most pressing digital marketing strategies for any business.

Google receives over 68,000 searches per second on any given day. (Source)

Search engine optimization is no child’s play, and most SEO practitioners know it for a fact. Gone are the days when stuffing a bunch of keywords was equal to hitting the jackpot.

Search algorithms continue to evolve, and it’s vital to keep pace with the latest which an expert like Damon Burton can help you give the digital marketing strategies you may need for your business. Before understanding how to apply what’s new, let’s first delve into the core objectives of SEO.

Search engine algorithms continuously get better by dictating the best SEO practices and punishing the wrong ones. But there are few practices that are never outmoded. Quality backlinks are one of them. If you are running an eCommerce website with the ambition of getting on top of the search ranks, backlinks will be irreplaceable. E-commerce sites that need to target Google search rank for more traffic and sales, find backlinks even more crucial for their SEO strategy.

But only backlinks cannot make a substantial effect on your search rank. It is the quality and relevance of those links that matter most. So the real concern will be about finding quality backlinks for your e-commerce site. Before explaining this let us see what backlinks are and how to differentiate good links from the bad ones.

What Precisely are Backlinks?

Backlinks are nothing but the websites that allow your website link to get published and remain accessible so that anyone by clicking on them can navigate to your website. Such links are published by the websites to enhance relevancy and make the user experience better. This also shows that other quality websites consider your website to be relevant and important for a certain context.

Let us explain how backlinks work really. For example, when a reader reading on Turkish lamps on a website can come across your website link and by clicking on that he can come to your store selling Turkish lamps. If your e-commerce store is found to be relevant and useful for certain products and related contexts, other websites can give you backlinks from their web pages.

Multi-Location SEO

From managing multiple landing pages to building relevant local links, optimizing a franchise business for search engines is not easy. Your goal is to build a local SEO strategy for each business location and, at the same time, maintain brand consistency. Most importantly, you need to use your business data across multiple landing pages without duplicating it.

Here are some basics of franchise SEO you need to know when starting off.

Organizing Website Architecture

There are numerous practices franchisors use when building multi-location websites. For example, some decide to create individual domains for each location. Even though this strategy may help you rank higher for local searches, managing multiple assets simultaneously can be tedious. Moreover, searchers may be confused about seeing a bunch of domains for one brand.

RankBrain

To provide its users with relevant search results, Google is constantly getting smarter. Look closer at its algorithm change history and you will see that its search algorithm gets changed 500-600 times a year.

While some of them almost go unnoticed, some algorithms come with massive shake-ups of the SEO landscape.

One of them is Google’s RankBrain, a machine learning system, rolled out in 2015.

So, what is RankBrain and why should you care?

Let’s find out!

E-Commerce SEO Strategy

According to Statista, global e-commerce sales reached $2.3 trillion in 2017 and they’re expected to jump to astounding $4.88 trillion by 2021. Given these facts, we can conclude that the e-commerce sphere is expanding impressively fast. And, with it, the number of your competitors also grows.

As most of your customers never scroll past the first page of Google’s search results, just having a nice e-commerce site is not enough for you to increase sales. To grab your target audience’s attention, you need to optimize it for search engines and boost your rankings.

Here is how to build an SEO strategy that will skyrocket your sales.

Backlink checklist: How to determine the quality of a backlink

Look at the domain rating and authority of your target site

What is Domain Authority and How Should You Build It?

12 Techniques to Maximize the Value from Your Backlinks

The One SEO Factor That Can Make or Break Your Rankings

What are the links?

6 Data-Backed Strategies to Improve Your Local SEO Ranking Factors for Google

A Complete Guide to Multi-Location SEO for Franchises

Organizing Website Architecture

What is RankBrain and Does It Change the Way We Do SEO?

How to Set an E-Commerce SEO Strategy to Explode Your Sales