Backlinks are a vital part of any SEO Campaign, whether you practice medicine or law, or any other means of making a living. The reason this is important to laypeople is that most may be unaware of its value, and thereby not pay attention to it when an SEO Specialist mentions it during a sales call. Hopefully this article will give you a brief introduction to backlinks that you can use as a starting point for assessing any future SEO Firms you may hire.
What the heck is a backlink?? A backlink is a link from one website to another. It is important because google considers these votes of confidence from other web users.It is one of google's highest ranking factors when it comes time for them to decide whewre to put your website in the search results.
There are several ways of getting backlinks, but for the purpose of this article, let's focus on the most popular; guest posting and directory listings. It is important to keep in mind that the higher the domain rating / authority of the origin of the backlink, the better it will be for your website. There are also dofollow and nofollow backlinks. Of the 2, it is said that Google gives more preference to dofollow backlinks.
Another great way to get backlinks is to sign up for HARO as an expert/ source. This is a place where reporters and other writing professionals go to find sources for quotes ans information, and when they use what you say, 99% of the time they will give you a backlink from their publication. Invaluable!
Nofollow backlinks should not be discounted because they can, in fact, be a wonderful source of traffic back to your website, which is another factor Google relies upon heavily when ranking your website. Most big social media platforms have profile backlinks to your website which are Nofollow. It goes without saying that asome of these may become valuable sources of traffic.
There are some SEO "Experts" who claim to do SEO Outreach, which means they find ways to contact owners of high domain authority websites and blogs and proposition them for backlinks. The problem with this method is that alot of people who own great websites are not the actual web developers, and they have no way to add your article without paying their web designer to add it for them. How motivated would they have to be, to go through all that trouble? You may as well climb Mt. Everest, you'll probably have better luck.
You could, of course write such an astounding article about one of your endeavors, or do a case study, that someone finds so remarkable they just have to link to it. It happens. Not often though. Best to find high domain authority web 2.0's which are essentially free websites you put up on your own and add your own content..like Strikingly, for example! The only thing you need to get a backlink is to write an article and post it. Done!
If you are a busy professional and you don't have time for all this madness, hire a good marketing firm to handle your SEO and marketing needs. In alot of cases, if your SEO lands you on page 1 of Google, you most likely won't have to spend money on Google Pay Per Click.
Here are some valuable links to other important SEO articles;
