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How to evaluate the value of your backlinks for SEO
Rebecca Appleton • 26 August 2020
What makes a good link?
If you’re working on SEO, whether for your own site or on behalf of a client you’ve created a website for, you’ll need to ensure that you’re building a steady stream of links back to that domain. Links are after all one of the most important ranking factors out there but, not all links are created equal. To obtain strong Google rankings, you’ll need to ensure that you have the right kind of backlinks.
Here are the things you’ll need to look out when evaluating whether your links are helping you with ranking improvements are actually hindering your progress:
Do you have links from a variety of sources?
A strong link profile includes a large variety of referring domains – that means links from a varied selection of other sites. If you find that you’re constantly getting links back to your site from the same places, you likely won’t have enough variety in your link profile to truly smash your SEO goals. Look for new sources of links to bring in some diversity.
Are your links from relevant sources?
Relevance is important when it comes to links but it’s not just for the benefit of Google. Focusing on obtaining links from relevant third party websites is also good for your own site performance and can even help you to increase conversions. How? Think of a link as a road into your site. If that road comes from a site which is in a similar space, then it’s likely that the traffic coming your way is interested in your products and services. If it’s from a site that has nothing at all to do with your industry or solutions, how much of that traffic is really going to benefit you? Traffic alone isn’t enough to survive – you need the right kind of traffic. People who are actually interested in what you have to offer.
Do your links stem from authority sources?
An authority site is one which is recognised and respected within its niche. If that site links back to yours, it’s like a vote of approval. The more links you have from authority sources the better. Take note here that authority links are harder to get and it’s much more valuable to have one link from an authority domain than 10 links from a poor quality source.
Is your anchor text varied?
For the most part, it’s impossible to control the anchor text when a third party site links back to you but, you should aim for variety as much as you can. While you’ll naturally have a prevalence of links featuring your company name or URL, a good link profile will also include natural anchor text too such as links within quotes or citations.
If you can get into the habit of asking these questions for each backlink you build, you’ll quickly start to see where gaps exist. This allows you to put together a plan to plug those gaps and build an even stronger link profile to aid in your SEO efforts.
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