In the world of SEO, backlinks are a common thing to know and learn about. Backlinks have a fairly important role when making SEO efforts for your website. Looking at the perspective of search engines like Google, explaining backlinks is something that is considered as a way of verifying the relevance and authority of your website.
In SEO, content creation and website optimization are also important because a website is needed that can answer the wishes of the audience. However, this is not enough, quality content needs to be assisted with backlinks to validate the website that you have so that the level of trust is high.
Getting backlinks is like getting recommendations from other people, you will become increasingly recognized and trusted by someone.
So, what exactly are backlinks? What are the benefits of backlinks for your SEO efforts? What kinds of backlinks are there? How to get and implement it? And what things do we need to know to implement backlinks? All these questions will be answered and discussed in this article.
What are Backlinks?
Basically a backlink is a link on a web page that will lead to another site. When someone links a link on your site, it can be said that you have a backlink from them. And vice versa, when you link a link on their site, they have a backlink from you.
These are referred to as external links and inbound links, external links when you embed a link to go to another website and inbound links when someone else embeds a link to go to your website. Activities when you build backlinks can also be referred to as link building.
Currently, the need for backlinks is growing rapidly due to the increase in SEO-based campaigns for marketing activities. So, what exactly are the benefits of backlinks and why can backlinks play such an important role?
What are Backlinks and Why are they Important?
Doing backlinks can be likened to providing recommendations to other people, this will increase outsiders' trust in you. In addition, backlinks also have many other benefits so they can play an important role in SEO.
Here are some of the benefits of backlinks:
1. Increase Ranking On SERPs
Backlinks are basically like voting votes from other websites, search engines will take these votes into account as one of the considerations for increasing rankings. The more votes you get, the higher the ranking you get.
2. Speed Indexing
Search engines work by first crawling the website. Crawling finds out a collection of pages from the website which will then go to the next stage, namely indexing.
Indexing is the process of archiving the results of the data collected in the crawling process. The appropriate number of backlinks can function to speed up the indexing process. However, it should also be noted that not all backlinks can affect indexing and quality backlinks are needed for indexing.
3. Increase Page Authority and Domain Authority
Page authority or abbreviated PA is a matrix to measure the strength of URLs on website pages. PA is calculated using a score that ranges from 1 to 100. The higher the PA the website page has, the higher the ranking in search engine results. Backlinks can serve to increase the PA score.
Apart from PA, backlinks also play a role in increasing the DA score. In contrast to PA, DA or domain authority is a matrix used to measure the entire website, not just pages. PA and DA scores can be used as a consideration for assessing the quality of a website.
4. Building Relationships with Other Sites
In making backlink efforts there are interactions made with other websites. Backlinks allow you to build a mutually beneficial relationship with the website, especially if the two websites have similar goals.
5. Building a Website Reputation
For search engines, websites that have lots of backlinks can be said to be popular websites. Because backlinks indicate other websites recommending your website. Therefore, it is important to get as many quality backlinks as possible.
What is the best type of backlink?
After knowing what backlinks are, of course you also need to know the types. Previously there were only two types of backlinks for SEO, of course these are the only ones used by SEO services. But then Google launched two new types of backlinks in September 2019.
Now there are a total of 4 types of backlinks which are the goal of practitioners hunting for backlinks.
1. Dofollow Backlinks
These backlinks were born with the birth of Google. Do-follow backlinks are considered the most powerful weapon to rank on Google.
Do-follow backlinks are backlinks that show Google that the site providing the backlink has full trust in the site providing the backlink. This means that the site that takes the backlink is trustworthy and these backlinks should be given full attention.
The attributes of such backlinks are like this:
<a href=”https://yoursite.com”> Anchor Text </a>
2. Nofollow backlinks
If you provide do-backlinks to websites that violate the terms (e.g. spam sites, child pornography sites), then Google may penalize your site.
Now suppose if the condition is that for some reason you have to provide a link to the wrong site on your website, what will you do?
For this, Google launched a new type of backlink in 2005, which they named no-follow. This means that Google will not follow that link. In other words, any website's ranking will not be affected by those backlinks and Google will not attach much importance to them. That link will only serve to reach people to that website.
This type of backlink does not provide any link juice or flow to the site receiving the backlink and does not make much difference in its Google ranking.
The attribution of such backlinks is like this
<a rel=”nofollow” href=”https://yourwebsite.com”>your anchor text </a>
3. UGCBacklinks
This is a very new type of backlink launched by Google in September 2019. The abbreviation for UGC is User Generated Content, which is content that is created by users. Google's goal in creating these types of links is to separate users' social media content and links created by comments. This can be used by this attribute on its website
<a rel=”ugc” href=”https://yourwebsite.com”>Anchor Text </a>
4. Sponsored Backlinks
Often, big companies pay bloggers to promote their products, in return the bloggers promote their products on their blogs.
In this way, many times they provide do-backlinks to the company's website so that people can come and buy their products and at the same time the ranking of the company's website on Google also increases.
But now for this Google has given a new type of backlink named – Sponsored Backlinks. Now if you want to promote a company, then you should provide sponsored backlinks rather than do-follow. If you don't do this.
For this you can use this attribute in your html code
<a rel=”sponsored” href=”https://yourwebsite.com”> Anchor Text </a>
Addendum: Now you can use two types of backlinks simultaneously. Like-rel = “nofollow sponsored”
Backlinks have various types, here are some types of backlinks:
- Guest post backlinks, guest posting or guest blogging are attempts to write content on other websites. Through this you can also include backlinks in content to simultaneously increase the credibility of your website.
- Editorial backlinks are natural backlinks from one website to another. This form of backlinks can be in the form of reference citations and information sources. The way to get editorial backlinks is to increase the content of the website so that it is as attractive as possible.
- Comment backlink, is a backlink that is included when posting in a comment column on another website. Comment backlinks are generally done on websites that have high quality. Comment backlinks have drawbacks where if done excessively it can affect reputation.
- Relationship-based backlinks, backlinks created when there is a close relationship with other webmasters or journalists. Other webmasters will have a tendency to provide backlinks when you create content.
- Free backlink tool, is a backlink effort by promoting a tool that can be useful in helping problems with related businesses.
- Acknowledgment backlinks, backlinks that are published when you make donations, sponsorships, or other efforts so that you get recognition from the websites you help.
- Do-follow backlinks, are backlinks where other websites ask search engines to pay attention to our website to be included in the SEO score. Here is an example of a do-follow backlink:
- No-follow backlinks, are backlinks where other websites ask search engines not to pay attention to the website and are not included in the SEO score. However, links are still provided, here is an example of a no-follow link:
How to Get Backlinks for Free?
You learn about the meaning of backlinks, then find out the benefits of the types. However, how do you actually get backlinks? Here are some methods that can be used to get backlinks, these methods include the following:
1. Add
Add is a method of getting backlinks by manually adding a link on a website. This method is easy to do because you can do it directly. There are several parts of the website that you can directly add links to. There are several techniques in carrying out this method, namely:
- Blog comments,
- Create a social profile,
- Posting on forums, communities, and Q&A websites,
- Create job search listings.
2. Ask
The method is carried out by reaching out to other website owners to directly ask them to add links to related websites. The thing that needs to be considered in doing this method is knowing what you can offer on the website that you are targeting.
There are several ways that can be done, namely:
- Guest blogging, creating useful content for the target website,
- Skyscrapper technique, showing a better source than the source previously used by the target,
- Broken link building, helping targets to fix "dead" links on their website,
- Image link building, asking for rewards for using images from your website.
3. Buy
Get backlinks for a fee. This method is not fully recommended because you shouldn't pay to get a link. This method is also quite dangerous because it can cause penalties on the website.
4. Earn
Getting organic links from website visitors, earn is meant when other websites link to your website without any outreach directly from you. This is done by improving the quality of content on personal websites so that they can reach other websites by themselves.
What is Important for Backlinks?
So, from all the previous discussions, we already know the basic theories regarding backlinks and how to get them. However, you cannot arbitrarily make backlink attempts. This is because Google does not value backlinks only in terms of quantity, but evaluates the quality as well.
Unqualified backlinks are also dangerous because they can harm you. Therefore, it is important to select appropriate backlinks and not suitable for use. Here are some criteria for quality backlinks:
1. Relevance
When you embed a backlink, you need to make sure the website where you place the backlink is a website that is relevant to the content you publish. Generally, the way to ensure this is to make a priority scale, which websites have the potential to embed backlinks, sorted from very, moderate, to irrelevant.
An example of a relevant backlink is for example if you create a blog review that discusses food, then the best place to embed the backlink is a blog that discusses similar things. You can embed backlinks on irrelevant websites, for example if the website discusses various content such as news portals.
2. Traffic
Furthermore, besides relevance you also need to consider the traffic generated from where you embed the link. You need to make sure the website where you embed the link has high traffic. This can be measured using backlink checker tools such as Ahrefs.
3. Authority
Another thing that needs to be considered is the authority or level of credibility of the website where you embed the link. Just like traffic, this level of credibility can also be checked using Ahrefs. Ahrefs will measure how many quality backlinks there are on a website and the higher the score you get, the more potential it is to embed backlinks.
4. Content Editorial
The right website content to embed backlinks is usually content that is well editorialized. Websites like news portals in general, have high editorial quality and are appropriate for embedding backlinks.
As one of the SEO efforts, backlinks are one of the important points in the development of a website. With this, we already know the details about backlinks, starting from the basic understanding, the reasons why we should use them, to how to apply them. The only thing left now is to apply the knowledge gained to your website.
What is the Difference between Dofollow and Nofollow Links?
Always remember that no link is worthless. Many people feel that no-follow links don't benefit our website, so they don't create them. Even though this shouldn't happen.
Each link is created for a specific purpose. dofollow for websites we trust and Nofollow for websites we can't follow that we don't know much about or can't trust. It's true that dofollow links are very important for ranking on Google, but that doesn't mean we have to focus only on creating dofollow links.
In fact, Google places more emphasis on searching sites that have a good backlink profile. This means that the four types (dofollow, nofollow, ugc and sponsored) are in very good harmony, all created in a natural way.
So, don't give too much importance to certain types of backlinks, focus on creating all types of links. So that your website's backlink profile remains natural. To easily find out if a blog is nofollow or dofollow, you can use the moz.com extension tool.
Which link is better DoFollow or NoFollow?
Quality backlinks are essential for the organic growth of a website. But when you start, focus on strengthening your content beyond just backlinks. It would be better if you think about creating links to your website when a large number of visitors start coming to your site. Because currently content on Google is more important than links.
That's an explanation of what backlinks are, the types of backlinks and how to get them. Always remember that SEO is practice, not just material, with frequent practice you will get your own experience of good SEO.