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Link building is one of the oldest factors in the Google search engine's algorithm. There are more than 200 factors that determine your position in the Google search engine. Link building accounts for 50% of this. It's the heaviest-weighting SEO factor within the Google algorithm and therefore the most important component to focus on.
When you apply link building, you ensure a good balance of links to your own pages, links to external pages, and links from external pages. Correctly executed link building tells the search engines that the content on the website has a high informative value, is easy to consume, and that you are an authority in your field. There are 3 different types of concepts around backlinks. Below you will find the definitions:
Internal links: With internal links, you refer to other pages within your own website. The pages you link to with a so-called anchor give Google context about what a page is about. You can place these links yourself on your own website, but make sure you limit the amount. Too many internal links can potentially cause confusion for Google. As a rule of thumb, you can use 1 internal link per 100 words. The lower limit is 3 internal links, and the upper limit is 20.
External links: External links are links that refer from one website to another. On your own website, our advice is to include 1 external backlink per page. More external links are discouraged because you grant authority to another website with every external link. Therefore, link to a reputable source like Wikipedia, for example, and certainly not to your direct or indirect competitors. A link to an informative page from the government or Wikipedia is much better than three links to websites whose honesty and sincerity are in doubt. The Google search engine can, just like with internal links, get context about what the page you are linking from is about.
Backlinks: Backlinks are links from external websites that refer to your website and thus grant authority to your website. Google and many other search engines see backlinks as recommendations. Relevant & high-quality backlinks in the volume you need are almost impossible for entrepreneurs and marketing managers to achieve on their own, given the volume and the network that needs to be built. SEO agencies are often hired to take over the link building/backlinking. It's important to mention that many entrepreneurs who try it themselves later incur extra costs because the backlinks they've created are not the right ones.
Backlinks as a ranking factor are one of the oldest SEO factors within the Google search engine's algorithm. In the early days, they saw backlinks as the most important indicator of a website's value. The more relevant backlinks, the better the Google rating and the higher the position in the search engine. Backlinks not only indicate the value a website holds, but also its popularity and the quality of the information it contains.
Other sites are not going to refer to your site if your information doesn't add anything for their visitors. In the early years of Google, the main focus was on the quantity of backlinks. Since the Penguin update in 2013, the relevance and quality of the backlinks have become more important than the quantity of backlinks. Or at least, that's what Google indicates. In practice, it turns out to be a balance between quantity and quality, but the common denominator is relevance! If you can't manage to give one of these two characteristics to your backlinks, your website will not be prioritised in the search engine.
To collect strong backlinks, you must first know which ones are considered high-quality by search engines. And then there are a number of points that you must keep in mind.
A high-quality backlink is relevant: First of all, it's important that a backlink has relevance with regard to your niche. It doesn't have to be a one-to-one match. Suppose you are the owner of a raincoat shop. You can also create backlinks on websites in the fashion and weather niche that are in the semi-relevant niche. The Google search engine divides your niche into several semi-relevant niches. It's important to mention that a website from which you get a backlink doesn't necessarily have to have traffic. This is a big misconception. It does play a role, but it is not a leading factor in the value of the backlink.
A high-quality backlink is natural: Make sure your backlinks are natural and that you build a natural link profile with them. This means that different external pages refer to different pages of yours. Otherwise, the search engine may determine that you're abusing the backlinks. For example, if you have a furniture shop that is less than 6 months old, Google often sees it as unnatural if 500 websites are already referring to you. It's also unnatural if, in the example mentioned, backlinks come from the fashion, health, and toy niches.
A high-quality backlink has a relevant anchor: Vary your backlink anchor texts between anchors that contain your domain name and anchors that contain the keyword combination you want to rank for in the Google search engine. Again, it is important that you build a natural anchor text profile. This again means that the websites that refer to you do not all use the same anchor text, but that you use different anchors, such as 'click here', a keyword, a sentence with a keyword, a variant of the keyword, a brand, and a few URLs. Make sure these are in good proportion to each other. When you look at your link profile, make sure the keyword combinations and 'branded anchors' are the most used. You should only use naked anchors, which don't really describe anything, such as 'click here', a few times.
ANA Digital Media will perform an SEO scan for you, and if it turns out that your link building is not in order, you can consider outsourcing link building. As indicated, we advise against doing it yourself. Not for the reason that we, as a marketing agency, want to make money from you as a potential customer, but because we see in practice that it goes wrong more often than it goes right. At a later stage, if a rise in Google position fails to materialise, we still have to fix this, which entails extra costs instead of saving you money. If you are an advanced link builder, we have still listed 6 effective methods for you so that you can also start building backlinks for your website.
This option is particularly attractive for some people because it gives them the opportunity to write about something that interests them. Suppose you are a dentist and you want to attract more customers. Then you can write about preventing cavities by writing a guest blog for another website. Other websites are often in need of good content and are only too happy to accept this. Especially if it concerns a topic that interests the target group but is little known about.
Of course, you place a link to your own page in your guest blog and use a good anchor for this. The blog website is happy with a new, high-quality text from a specialist, and you reach a completely new - but very targeted - group of potential customers. And you also have a backlink to improve your search engine optimisation.
There are several ways to find blogs that are relevant to your field. The aforementioned dentist, for example, will not write a blog on a travel website unless it is about dentists abroad. You can use Google Blogsearch, and by entering a keyword, several relevant websites will appear. There is also Twitter Search, with which you can find people who blog on your topic. By choosing the blog website carefully and by writing a good blog, you can collect several backlinks in a fairly easy way. Another great advantage is that this method also generates backlinks in the long term.
Note: Guest blogs have been used a lot recently to get backlinks, and search engines may see this as abuse. So do this in moderation and keep a close eye on the news about the parameters of Google and the other websites.
You can also attract backlinks, but you need some brand recognition for this. If you fill your website with interesting and link-worthy (linkable) content, other sites will start to use you as an authority. There are different types of link-worthy content, and the type or types you use are determined by your field. Think of checklists, a resource centre, or e-books, and add them to your website.
Informative: A lot of link-worthy content is informative and therefore provides information about, for example, the latest news, a new development in your field, or a certain specialism.
Educational: Good content is also educational and can teach someone something. On a blog for dentists, a text about how often you should brush your teeth is no longer educational, but a text about the outcome of a new study is.
Entertaining: If you write a text that is entertaining and therefore appeals to emotions, the chance of you getting backlinks is also greater. Many writers of texts on serious topics try to keep the attention of the readers with these types of backlinks.
Inspiring: An inspiring text that gives you a tingle and makes you want to start, for example, piano lessons as soon as you read it is also link-worthy. If your field lends itself to this, this is a good way to win customers and, at the same time, improve your link building.
Influencers have gained a negative reputation, but you can still use blog influencers to your advantage to create high-quality backlinks. Enter into a long-term working relationship with an authoritative blog influencer in your field, and you will both benefit from it. It's important to mention that if you get 2 backlinks from the same domain from a blog influencer, the Google search engine will note this as 1 recommendation since 1 domain refers to your website.
Therefore, make sure you use multiple blog influencers to collect multiple recommendations with which you can increase your Google position. If you have a good relationship with a blog influencer, it is wise to still use this.
This is because if you link from 2 different pages of the blog influencer to 2 different pages with 2 different anchors to a URL of your website, your page authority is increased. As a result, your Google position increases. The page authority is, as the name suggests, the authority of a page. The Google search engine looks at how many backlinks from different domains refer to 1 page, also called a URL.
Link building – we create relevant backlinks to help your website grow into an authority.
Content – we write the ultimate content that gets shared, gets links, and attracts traffic.
Technology – our specialists know exactly how to optimise your website for the Google search engine.
Not every industry benefits from it, but by writing and sending out press releases, you do a lot more than just improve your publicity. You can publish your press releases via websites such as onlinepersbericht.com and nieuwsbank.nl. If you then place several links to your website in it, you improve your backlinks. Here too, it is important that you do not add too many links and that the press release is primarily intended to inform.
The great advantage of this option is that you place the backlinks yourself and therefore check the quality yourself. Another great advantage is that if your press release is shared, your backlinks are multiplied. With this option, it is important to remember that the main purpose of the press release is not to gather backlinks, but to interest and inform readers. Your press release must therefore come across as professional and have something important to report.
A few companies do not have social media accounts, and you also use these to collect backlinks. In addition, social media is, of course, crucial in measuring the popularity you have. The more interaction, the more followers, and the more likes, the higher you get in the search engine results. That's why it's important that you regularly post something interesting on your social media channels, with a link to your website in it. Then your post will hopefully be shared. If you have a blog, ask the readers if they want to share it on their social media. How more your post is shared, liked, or retweeted, the better it is for your SEO and for your backlinks.
There are a large number of social media channels you can use. The most famous of these are, of course, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Instagram. It is also possible to choose a social media channel that suits your industry
Facebook & Instagram: These are two of the most popular social media platforms worldwide. With millions of active users, they provide excellent opportunities to engage with your audience and share links to your website. Regular posts, stories, and ads help you get more visibility, interaction, and potential backlinks as people share your content across the platform.
LinkedIn: If you have a professional website and you are focused on the business world, then LinkedIn is the social media channel par excellence. On this, you have a profile that is based on your work experience, and other users can approach you for a job. Furthermore, you can use it to put yourself forward in the business world, and you will find a lot of information about work, finding work, and other related topics. LinkedIn is a serious and professional media channel that offers many opportunities in the business world. And the possibility of gathering backlinks also falls under this.
YouTube: Finally, YouTube, the world's largest video network, is also a social media channel that is often overlooked. But vloggers have just as much influence as other influencers, if not more. Videos are posted on all kinds of topics, from children's films to instructions for replacing a car tire. That's why you will also find videos on a topic from your field, and you can also post them yourself. The videos from YouTube travel all over the world via various social media channels and therefore have a large reach.
Just as there are websites specifically for press releases, there are also sites that collect articles. If you write a high-quality article and have it placed on different websites, you can increase the number of backlinks you get by placing a link in it. This option is similar to placing a press release or writing a guest blog.
Websites such as artikelplanner.nl and KennisDelen.com are both examples of places where you can place your article. Don't do this too often, because otherwise, the search engines will again classify your backlink profile as unnatural. If you use this option well, other users will start to share or copy your articles, causing your link to appear again in a variety of places.
As you have been able to read from the information above, gathering backlinks is not easy. In addition, it is also very time-consuming, and you run the risk of getting a negative backlink profile from the search engines. If you have managed to collect high-quality backlinks, it is also important to maintain them well.
You do not always have control over the links you get from external websites, and someone may link to you without you being aware of it. If this is a toxic backlink, it can negatively affect your profile. That's why it's a good idea to occasionally go through all the links you get. You do this with specially developed and free programs called backlink checkers. Well-known examples of these tools are SEO Spyglass, Moz Open Site Explorer, SEMrush, and Ahrefs. With this, you can not only go through your own backlinks but also those of your competitors.
There are a number of points you should be aware of if you want to start working on your link building.
Links can be lost: Don't forget that if you change the structure of your website, you will also lose a large number of links. It is, therefore most convenient if you just keep the URLs the same but change the content, should you want to. If you cannot do this, you email the websites that use your link with the new website address and ask them to adjust this. A backlink for you is an external link for them, so you both benefit from this.
Buying backlinks is not a good idea: There are options to buy backlinks to improve your search engine optimisation. However, this is in no way a good idea and is a very dangerous activity. The backlinks you get are rarely of sufficient quality and will therefore not be counted by the search engines. For example, you can often buy 1000 backlinks for very little money, but search engines have not fallen for that for a long time.
Exchanging links: Exchanging links is also almost always discouraged. Sometimes special partner pages are set up for this. The most common way is that you make contact with another page and place a link for each other. It's then better to do this with 3 or more websites. If you want to try this, make sure that it concerns high-quality websites and that this website does not do too much link exchange. A website with too many external links will be seen as not serious by the search engines.
Link building is only one method with which you can improve your search engine optimisation. Since many people outsource their SEO, link building is also something you can leave to the specialists. It is then addressed as part of a complete SEO package. First of all, a scan will be made of your website - ANA Digital Media uses, among other things, SEO Surfer for this - and based on that, it is determined how your website can be improved.
The technical SEO is addressed (including the security, speed, and structure of your website), the density of the keywords and the content of your texts are examined, as is your use of social media and the way in which you respond to local searches. Link building can also be added to this. With a complete package, your website is sure to end up within the top 5 of the search engine results.
Link building – we create relevant backlinks to help your website grow into an authority.
Content – we write the ultimate content that gets shared, gets links, and attracts traffic.
Technology – our specialists know exactly how to optimise your website for the Google search engine.
Collecting SEO backlinks is called link building. And link building is possibly the part of SEO that gives you the best results. At the same time, collecting and maintaining backlinks also takes a lot of time. A backlink tells the search engines (read: Google) that your website has authority. Every backlink is seen as a vote for you, and the more votes, the more successful you are. The election for the first place in the search engine results depends, among other things, on the number of high-quality backlinks you have. So, it's time to get actively involved in this.
Google distinguishes between good and bad backlinks. They look at your backlinks by analysing three criteria: 1) how many backlinks you have, 2) how relevant these backlinks are to your website, and 3) the quality of the website from which they come. By writing guest blogs and placing a link to your page there, you have control over where your SEO backlinks come from. Make sure you offer unique, interesting, and up-to-date information on your website that others in your field want to link to. Link building is difficult, but if you do it well, the position of your pages will quickly rise.
At ANA Digital Media, we can take your link building off your hands. We have the knowledge and experience to ensure high-quality backlinks and to fully update and maintain your website. That saves you a lot of time and effort and gives you the certainty that you not only achieve your top position in the search results but also maintain it.
In addition to link building, you can also contact us for other services. Our specialists investigate your website for more than 200 SEO factors and then adjust them. We also go through your texts, perform a keyword analysis, perform a competitor analysis, and rewrite your texts. In addition, you get advice from us and you can use our SEO tips to perform your search engine optimisation yourself.
Whatever your SEO wishes, at ANA Digital Media, a team of specialists is ready to get your website in the top 5 search results.
Let our experts turn your goals into real results.
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