Backlinks: What are they? How can you manage them?

As the second installment of our guide, we are going to take a closer look at backlinks. These little blue links play a major part in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and managing them properly is key to being visible on the internet. In the following article, we will quickly go through a basic description of backlinks and a few great methods you can use to build your backlink network.

What are Backlinks

To paraphrase MOZ, a backlink is an incoming hyperlink from one website to another. This process can occur either naturally, or you can choose to put in some effort to hasten it. Moreover, by receiving backlinks from a different website, you are granted “credibility” in the eyes of search engines. Likewise, that means by referencing a site in your content, you are giving it a token of trust.

If you pride yourself in publishing enticing and original content, chances are you have been organically mentioned a few times on someone else´s website already. Given the circumstances of the past year, it should come as no surprise people spend more time behind the screen than before and online presence has become of paramount importance for small businesses and large enterprises alike.

How to Manage Your Backlink Strategy

Now that you have been familiarized with backlinks, you can probably see how important they are for the long-term success of your website. But how do you ensure your content is getting the attention it deserves? From paid adverts and mentions to guest posting, there are a plethora of opportunities (and constraints alike) that may affect the amount of exposure your website gets. Start turning things around today with these neat strategies!

Guest Posting

If you are confident your content is polished and clean, yet it still doesn´t reach your target audience, guest postingWhat is Guest Posting? Guest posting, in the context of the cybersecurity industry, refers to the practice where an individual or organization contributes a blog post or article to another's... might be the cure for what ails you. With this approach, you reach out to websites where recognition would be valuable in your field of business and offer to submit a guest article in which your site will be mentioned. This way, both sides profit; your digital visibility is increased, and the website you approach has a piece of quality content which they did not have to spend resources on. You can also build a positive relationship with peers from your industry!

Broken Links

Another strategy that leverages the win-win principle is a little more tedious, but if you just try it once, you will see it is worth the effort. Much like it is with guest posting, your goal is to address websites relevant to your business. Instead of asking for a post, though, you make the effort and find any broken links on the given website. Then you reach out to the owner of the website and inform them of these mistakes.

But don´t stop there, while you are engaged with the owner, you can offer to replace the broken links with some of your links. As opposed to guest posting, you really need to hit the niche in which you operate, as you are not supposed to be offering a new product, but rather one similar to what was previously mentioned on that website.

Freshness of Backlinks

Another way to get ahead of your competition is through the novelty of your article. If you have a topic you would like to write about and you notice most of the content at your disposal is either older or completely outdated, don´t waste time and get to work!

Skyscraper Technique

This approach is nowadays commonly found on marketplaces, where every vendor you are unfortunate to make eye contact with promises you lavish goods which are “better, fresher, and cheaper” than their competition’s. The internet equivalent of this approach is called “The Skyscraper technique”, and if you are a dedicated author who doesn´t shy away from a bit of hard work, this just might be what you’re looking for.

So what is this method all about? Much like at the market, beating the competition! If you wish to make your content more relevant, compare it to what the current offer is and find ways to improve over them. There are several ways of improving content and not all are always applicable, but here is a quick rundown of the most popular qualities to compete in:

Quantity of Backlinks

Albeit the most time-consuming quality to overcome, reaching the amount of useful information and exceeding it is a basis on which a major part of the content on the internet exists. If everything has been said before, make sure you say it better!

Design

An average reader on the internet has a lower attention span than a goldfish. That is, generally 8 seconds in which you need to captivate them. So don´t bother writing exhaustingly precise and helpful articles if you don´t brighten up the text a little with proper spacing and a picture or two! Your content is not worth anything if you don´t entice the readers.

What next?

The third instalment of the beginner’s guide to SEO is behind us, and it is time to quickly practise what we learned in this article with an eye towards what more we can learn! By now, you hopefully better understand what backlinks are and how they affect your SEO ranking. With a bit of effort, you can take action and make use of the methods above to easily boost your digital visibility.

In the next article, we will discuss Black Hat SEO and how to use it to your advantage.