What are Backlinks? 7 Steps to Optimize SEO and Improve Website Ranking!

Backlinks are key to SEO optimization! After your website goes live, if you continuously update content, you may start to gain some website traffic and backlinks. This article will teach you how to review and optimize existing backlinks to improve your website's ranking in search engines.

Importance of Backlinks?

Backlinks can be said to be one of the three major ranking factors, and some people believe it is the most important element among ranking factors. The most correct approach to obtaining backlinks should be to slowly build good content first, attract visitors, and encourage sharing. To some extent, backlinks are actually not controlled by website owners.

One of Google's important ranking factors is the number of backlinks. Many people think that creating a link from another website to their own website constitutes a backlink, but building links is not necessarily something you can control yourself. Link quality is far more important than quantity - one link from a high-authority website is usually more valuable than links from many low-quality websites.

What are Backlinks?

Backlinks, also known as "inbound links" or "external links," refer to links from other websites to your website. In search engine optimization (SEO), backlinks are very important because they are viewed as indicators of trust and quality. When one website links to another, it is essentially saying: "I trust this website; it has valuable content." Search engines use backlinks as part of their ranking algorithms to evaluate a website's relevance and authority. Google's logic is that when many websites are willing to place links to your website, it indicates that your website content is worth recommending, so they assign website weight (PageRank) based on link quality.

To get other websites to create high-quality links related to you, the best approach is to create unique, relevant content that can quickly gain popularity in the internet community. Creating quality content will definitely pay off: links are like spontaneous votes - the more useful your content, the easier it is for other websites to discover that the content is valuable to their readers, leading them to link to your content.

Types of Backlinks: dofollow and nofollow

When discussing types of backlinks, dofollow and nofollow are two very important attributes that tell search engines how to handle specific links. These attributes are crucial for a website's search engine optimization (SEO) strategy:

1. Dofollow Links:
   • Description: Dofollow links are the default link type. If a link is not explicitly specified as nofollow, then it is a dofollow link. This type of link allows search engine crawlers to follow the link and pass the link's weight or "link juice" to the target webpage.
   • SEO Impact: Dofollow links help improve the ranking of the receiving page because they signal to search engines that the target webpage is trustworthy and relevant. This type of link is the most valuable because they directly contribute to a website's authority and ranking.
2. Nofollow Links:
   • Description: Nofollow links are created by using the rel="nofollow" attribute in the a tag. This type of link tells search engines not to follow the link or pass any weight to the target URL. This is typically used to prevent spam, paid links, or links that website owners don't particularly want to endorse.
   • SEO Impact: Although nofollow links do not directly pass weight, they still have indirect benefits for SEO in certain situations. For example, they can help create natural link profiles (avoiding over-optimization), and may bring actual traffic and increase brand visibility.

Strategic Application:

• When building a backlink strategy, attention should be paid to the natural diversity of links, appropriately mixing dofollow and nofollow links.
• For links from user-generated content or paid advertisements, using the nofollow attribute is good practice to inform search engines that these links should not affect the target website's ranking.
• Dofollow links should be used for high-quality, highly relevant sources, which will help improve the website's SEO performance and authority.

Anchor Text of Backlinks is Also Important

Anchor text plays a key role in backlink SEO strategy. Anchor text refers to the clickable text used as a hyperlink, which not only provides users with hints about the content they will see after clicking but also provides search engines with important signals about the content of the linked target page. The selection and use of this text are crucial for a website's search engine optimization. Here are several key aspects:

1. Keyword-rich Anchor Text: Using anchor text that contains target keywords can help improve the ranking of those keywords. This anchor text tells search engines that the target page of the link is highly relevant to this keyword, thereby increasing the weight of that page in specific queries.
2. Brand Anchor Text: Using company or brand names as anchor text. This helps enhance brand awareness and strengthen its authority in search results.
3. Generic Anchor Text: Using generic text such as "click here" or "learn more." While this type of anchor text has little impact on SEO, it helps provide a more natural link profile and avoids suspicion of over-optimization.
4. Long-tail Anchor Text: Long-tail anchor text is usually more descriptive, covering specific questions or topics, such as "how to create a WordPress website." This helps improve SEO performance for specific long-tail keywords.
5. Exact Match and Partial Match: Exact match anchor text refers to situations that completely match the target keyword. Partial match includes the target keyword and other words. This diversity helps avoid penalties from search engines.

Properly using these different types of anchor text can effectively improve a website's SEO performance, but it's important to avoid over-optimization, as this may lead to negative impacts from search engines. Properly balancing these techniques is as important as creating high-quality content.

How to Increase High-Quality Backlinks?

Increasing backlinks is one of the important strategies to improve a website's search engine ranking. Effective backlinks can not only enhance a website's authority but also attract more visitors. Here are some effective methods to increase high-quality backlinks:

1. Create High-Quality Content: Produce valuable, educational, or entertaining content that makes other websites or users willing to naturally link to your website. This includes original research, in-depth guides, tutorials, or engaging videos.
2. Guest Blogging: Publish articles on other relevant blogs or websites. By including links to your own website in these articles, you can attract readers of those websites to visit your website.
3. Participate in Online Discussions and Forums: Actively participate in industry-related discussion boards, forums, and Q&A websites. By providing valuable answers and insights, and including links to your website when appropriate.
4. Social Media Promotion: Use social media platforms to promote your content and links. Although social media links are usually nofollow, they can increase the exposure of your content, thereby indirectly promoting backlinks from other sources.
5. Collaborate with Other Websites: Establish cooperative relationships with other websites in related fields. This can include co-creating content, exchanging blog posts, or other forms of collaboration.
6. Submit Website to Directories and Resource Lists: Submit your website to industry-related website directories and resource lists. Choose authoritative and highly relevant directories to ensure link quality.
7. Press Releases and News Reports: If your company has news worth reporting, you can issue a press release. This may be adopted by news websites, professional blogs, or other publications, and link back to your website.
8. Competitor Link Analysis: Analyze your competitors' backlink strategies. Check which websites link to them and see if you can also obtain links from these sources.

The process of increasing backlinks requires patience and continuous effort. The key is to create valuable content and build truly beneficial relationships. Doing so ensures that the links you obtain are not only numerous but also high-quality.

Although backlinks are very important for SEO, not all links are beneficial. Links from low-quality websites or quickly obtaining large numbers of links in an unnatural way (called link farms) may negatively impact your website's ranking. Therefore, focusing on link quality rather than just quantity, and adopting natural and ethical methods to build links, is key.

Can You Buy Backlinks?

Buying backlinks is a common but high-risk practice, especially in the context of search engine optimization (SEO). Although buying links may seem like a shortcut to quickly improve website authority and search engine ranking, this practice usually violates search engine guidelines, particularly Google's Webmaster Guidelines.

Risks include:

1. Penalties: Google and other major search engines explicitly prohibit buying links for PageRank transfer. If discovered, your website may be penalized, including lowered rankings or complete removal from search results.
2. Quality Issues: Purchased links often come from low-quality websites and spam link farms. These links may negatively impact your website's credibility rather than enhance it.
3. Ineffectiveness: Search engines are becoming increasingly smart at identifying and ignoring worthless or artificially manipulated links, meaning your money may be completely wasted.

Although buying backlinks may be tempting, the risks and potential long-term negative consequences far outweigh the possible short-term benefits. Focusing on building genuine, valuable links and relationships is a more sustainable and guideline-compliant strategy.