Backlinks are amongst the most important ranking factors in SEO. They are necessary because they aid search engines in discovering and crawling your website—additionally, your backlinks’ amount and quality signal authority in your respective industry.
Creating high-quality content is not enough – you need the help of backlinks to get all the organic traffic you can get. Once other websites deem yours trustworthy and authoritative, they can use your link on their content as a reference, thus passing their link juice or link equity.
Both website owners and providers of contractor marketing services know how tedious link building can be. They’d have to submit their websites to multiple web directories and article directories and practically beg for links from other sites.
However, few people understand how backlinks affect your website’s SEO and its ranking in the search results precisely. With that in mind, this article will show how backlinks affect your website’s rankings.
Number of Referring Domains
Did you know that 90.63% of Google’s indexed pages don’t receive any traffic? This statistic comes from Ahref’s search traffic study, which also tells us a direct correlation between organic traffic and the number of backlinks a page has. Numerous SEO case studies have even shown that the number of referring domains can directly affect website rank.
Before we proceed, it’s essential to distinguish the difference between backlinks and referring domains. To put it simply, backlinks are the external links embedded in anchor texts and are present on a web page. On the other hand, referring domains are websites containing multiple backlinks pointing to your website.
In Google’s algorithm, the number of referring domains linking to your website is an important ranking element. Web pages with many other sites linking to them indicate authority in Google’s eyes.
Think of it as a popular fine dining restaurant that receives many customers through word-of-mouth referrals. Previous customers who’ve had a great time in the place will let other people know of the restaurant’s existence, thus making it a popular spot for wine and dining. With this analogy, you can understand how your own website can leverage referring domains to boost your search engine ranking.
Authority of Referring Domains
The number of referring domains is indeed essential. However, Google also checks the authority of these domains to see if they’re qualified to express your website’s credibility. You see, backlinks represent the “vote of confidence” of a website owner. Keep in mind that before you can cast a vote, you must first be eligible to vote.
Relevant sites like Forbes, WebMD, and the Center for Disease and Control Prevention are seen as authorities in their field. The people who made their content are experts and have the credibility to back up their expertise. Their place in the SERPs is prominent, and for this reason, Google holds more weight on these websites than lesser-known ones.
Since these referring domains are highly reliable, linking them to your own website will significantly affect your place in the Google search results.
Quantity of Linking Pages
The number of referring domains is equally essential as the number of pages that link to your website. The more individual pages have a link pointing to your website, the better your search engine ranking will be. It’s important to understand that these websites must be unique, and you shouldn’t expect the same website to link to your website repeatedly.
According to Backlinko, multiple backlinks from the same website have diminishing returns. Many SEOs would find better value from a hundred links from different websites than a thousand links from the same website. It’s also critical to realize that individual pages don’t have the same impact as independent domains.
Backlink Quality
The quality of the backlink has significant implications on your search ranking too. It may not sound fair at first, but it’s one of Google’s ways to keep link juice properly flowing to where it deserves to be.
Remember: not all backlinks are created equal. Some links will appear to be valuable, but in reality, they can negatively affect your website rank and reputation.
What do we mean by this? When it comes to link building, there are low-quality links, and there are high-quality links.
How do you differentiate the two?
High-quality backlinks have perceived authority and relevance. Search engines hold more weight in inbound links coming from reputable sources. Additionally, they will value the links from other websites within your industry more than those unrelated to yours.
On the other hand, low-quality backlinks are the opposite of high-quality links. They are the backlinks from sketchy websites that are often unrelated to the website they’re linking to.
At best, these links may provide you with a minimal positive impact on your search rankings. But being the recipient of these referrals from random websites may put you on Google’s watchlist of websites that engage in manipulative linking schemes.
Links From Competitors
Getting backlinks from your competitors is one of the best ways to tell Google that you’re an authority in your industry. Search engines respect links from relevant websites more than links from unrelated sites that have nothing to do with your own. It also helps search engines understand your content better and, in turn, improve your rankings for specific topics and keywords.
Here’s a good example. Your company sells mechanical keyboards, and you link to other sites that offer desk setup accessories. Doing so will help Google understand that both of you are in the same industry, and you may potentially gain a boost in search ranking.
Alternatively, imagine if your mechanical keyboard business links to a site that sells laundry detergents. That doesn’t make sense, right? Such action will confuse Google, impairing its ability to know what to do with your company and, worse, how to rank it.
Referring Domain’s Age
Like how we value wisdom from the elderly, Google views old domains as more impactful than newer ones. This is because Google sees them as more trustworthy. For this reason, you should include obtaining backlinks from old domains in your link-building strategy.
But why does a referring domain’s age even matter?
Building an impressive backlink profile takes time, and gaining backlinks doesn’t happen overnight. A domain’s age can tell how long a website took to obtain its backlinks, making it more trustworthy than newer websites.
If a brand-new website suddenly has a lot of backlinks, then there’s something fishy happening behind the scenes. It’s not reasonable for new websites to establish a solid backlink profile in such a short period.
Quantity of Links From Class-C IPs
The number of backlinks will improve your search rankings, but the number of links from different class-C IP addresses matters the most. Google prefers diverse link profiles from various unique domains and IP addresses more than those pointing at the same location. Links from class-C IP addresses imply a broader range of sites linking to you, meaning Google will see your website more dependable and trustworthy.
The more trustworthy your website seems to Google, the higher your ranking will potentially be. It’s in your best interest to avoid receiving links from the same domain. Having several web pages with a large number of backlinks from a single page has the same effect.
Backlink Anchor Text
Anchor text may not sound necessary for link building, but it’s an essential consideration for Google. The text where you embed external links allows Google to comprehend your page and website. An anchor text is an accurate description of your page, and it can significantly impact your site rank because it helps Google get a rapid overview of your page’s content.
Learning to select the correct anchor text is one of the best offsite SEO skills you need to know as a digital marketer. If you do anchor text distribution right, you can find yourself on the first page of the SERPs, even if you have fewer links than your top competitors.
Alt Text
Learning how to use alt texts effectively can be a great way to improve your placement in the search results. The primary purpose of using alt texts is to enhance accessibility for site visitors who cannot see the images on your content. However, few people realize that alt texts can also help your site rank higher in the search results.
How does this happen?
Let’s approach this question using the perspective of backlinks. Crawlers can use backlinks to reach other pages for data collection. Once they arrive on your website and see your image’s alt texts, they can use them to understand your page better. Not only that, alt texts that provide accurate descriptions of images can help said images rank on the SERPs (more about this topic on Image SEO).
Link Location
The position where you place the location of your external links plays an underrated role when it comes to link building. Links placed within the content of a web page tend to be more impactful than links situated on your website’s footers or sidebars.
Google views the first link of the page as the most valuable, which means it’s an ideal position for your external links. Once you put this tip into practice, you’ll see that your SEO strategy will be more effective than when you put them at the bottom of the page, along with twenty other links.
Conclusion
Digital marketers must prioritize backlinks as one of the major ranking factors in search engine optimization. While creating outstanding content is vital, you should also consider employing sound link-building strategies to further advance your website’s search rankings.
