Networked in the net: what are backlinks?
Backlinks are one of the most important SEO factors. In other words: they are crucial for the placement of your B2B website on Google. But how do backlinks work? Read the answer and the best brain tip tools now!
Regardless of whether it is about SEO or SEA : everyone wants to go way up in Google search queries. But Google doesn’t make it so easy for us, especially for small business owners: More than 200 website requirements have to be met in search engine optimization before your own website is displayed in the top hits by the Californian Internet surge – one of them are backlinks .
1. Backlinks – what is it?
Backlinks are one of those ranking factors. A very important one for your B2B search engine optimization. Backlinks are part of offpage optimization : this includes all SEO activities that take place outside of your own website. So also the backlink building.
When backlink building to be it comes from as many other sites link. One also speaks of an external link structure on one’s own website. But why? To understand the meaning behind this for Google, a comparison helps: the more a book author is quoted by others, the more credible his content appears.
Google rankings work according to exactly this principle: the point behind the ranking factors is to filter out the best possible results. Because: Google wants to offer its users exactly what they are looking for. Links from other websites therefore signal to Google: “There’s good content here!” If you want to go up in the ranking, your keyword is: set backlinks!
2. How do I set backlinks?
Backlink building – the targeted building of backlinks – has many methods.
For natural link building , you can do the following:
- Link your website in social bookmark entries
- Look for business directories
- Use the linking potential of social media
- Link your website in on thematically relevant blogs !
- Create Youtube Videos – And Link Your URL Below It!
- Check the backlinks of the competitors !
Nevertheless, backlinks are not always backlinks. Even if a high number of backlinks improve the ranking, the motto is: natural!
Many methods rely on doubling and even tripling links in no time. However, Google’s algorithm is very mature – and recognizes whether links were set naturally or not. Too many links in a very short time signal to Google: something is wrong here! The consequence can be a penalty and thus a poorer ranking .
You can find more information on factors and consequences of unnatural links in the Google Support video.
You should consider the following factors for good backlinks when building links:
- Link diversity : place your links on different websites
- Natural follow-nofollow ratio : around 10% of your links should contain a nofollow attribute – read more about this below.
- Link texts with a keyword: it is optimal if the text linked to your website contains a keyword to which you want to rank
3. What is a nofollow link?
Dofollow and nofollow links are the two link types in backlink building . The difference is only visible in the html structure of the link : if a link contains a rel – attribute with the value “NoFollow”, it is called a nofollow link. DoFollow links are therefore simply all links that do not have a “NoFollow” attribute.
The background: The Google Bot does not follow any nofollow links . If a website is visited by Google (technical jargon: crawling), all no-follow links are ignored. Of course, this also means that these links are not included in the link and backlink profile. All links to your website that contain a nofollow attribute are therefore not counted.
By distinguishing between the links, Google mainly wants to prevent comment spamming. Therefore, WordPress automatically marks all comments with the attribute nofollow. However, you can determine and deactivate this function yourself.
However, do not part with all nofollow links: even if these are not rated by Google, backlinks with a nofollow attribute are still indirectly important for your search engine optimization. Google also rates a balanced backlink ratio: a ratio in percent of 90:10 between dofollow and nofollow links is considered the best guideline value according to the SEO analysis tool XOVI .
4. Backlink tools for your backlink building
Different backlink tools are suitable for you, depending on which factor you want to check. Xovi, Sistrix and Co. are fee-based tools that provide you with information on all possible on- and off-page factors.
However, there are also some free backlink tools that you can use to find out certain information without paying :
- Check your own backlinks
Use the backlinkchecker from backlinkgraph.de to see which external websites are linking to yours. Particularly practical: the graphic representation of the linked and linked pages.
- Competitor Backlink Check
With the free competition backlink checker from smallseotools.org you can check which backlinks your competitors are using. Perhaps you could also claim some of the link partners of the competition for yourself? - Check
anchor text Anchor texts or link texts are the words that link in the text to your own website. Anchor texts with a direct topic reference instead of “more” are rated better by Google. The anchor text tool from backlinksool.org shows you which words are linked to your page. - Easylink Tool
As you have already learned, natural link building is particularly important. With the Easylink Tool you can quickly and easily find potential, thematically similar link sources .
Professional backlink building is only part of the great SEO alphabet. Nevertheless, you should invest enough focus and care, because: many factors are decisive and just placing links on other pages is usually not enough.
