The two driving forces for effective SEO are content and links. For a comprehensive SEO campaign, acquiring and earning backlinks is essential. Links signal to search engines that one website thinks another is trustworthy, authoritative, and provides valuable information. If your links come from relevant and high-authority websites, they will increase your brand and traffic awareness and directly impact your site’s visibility.
In the recent past, link building has been focused on acquiring high quantities of links disregarding the source of the links. That is why, before the Google Penguin Update, link building in mass was the legitimate route to get your website to rank well in search results successfully. However, in 2012, with the launch of the Google Penguin Update, results that marketers were manipulating were eliminated. Today, the professional SEO industry has adapted to suit Google’s preference for relevant and quality backlinks instead of several with little or no value. Without the appropriate professional assistance, link-building is a challenging task to maneuver.
What Are the Different Types of Backlinks?
Here are the different types of backlinks that can be sourced and that Google thinks can add value to your backlink profile.
1. Guest posts
Writing an article as a guest author on someone else’s website with a link back to your website is referred to as guest blogging. With a high-quality guest blogger, you will achieve content on blogs that are relevant and insightful.
Google allows the practice of guest blogging as long as the content is valuable and provides helpful information to the users. However, high-volume yet low-quality guest posting efforts for links have been publicly warned. Good guest post links create high-quality content offering insights and educating the readers.
2. Blog comments
This is where users leave comments on blog posts and direct keyword-rich anchor text to a landscaping page on a website. The link building was useful until Google created the nofollow link in 2005. Since the process of blog comment links was automated, blog comment spam became an immense frustration for many users. Although Google does not view blog commenting with links as violating webmaster guidelines, they consider it a practice that should be used in moderation.
However, it should not be exploited for the use of attaining links. This is because once the blog comments become spammy, they contribute to a link scheme, violating Google’s guidelines. Leaving organic and meaningful comments on a blog post is encouraged, as relevant, trustworthy and authoritative comments bring organic traffic to your website. However, when commenting on a blog, there are essential factors to consider to avoid using manipulative link schemes.
- Leave comments on sites that are high-quality and relevant to your industry
- Leave comments that readers will find useful
- Avoid masses of comments
- Avoid commenting on spammy sites
3. Editorial backlinks
They are obtained from a site that produces high-quality content and applies white-hat SEO. In addition, they are acquired organically by providing valuable content. Editorial links are awarded when the author of an article references another page or website to support the article’s findings.
Since they are organic, natural and based purely on the fact that the site is a reference point, keyword density for author text is typically not an issue. They are the connections Google want webmasters to build. Hence, google holds editorial links as great examples when advising on building a healthy and strong backlink. They are valued more by Google than any other type of backlinks. You can create editorial backlinks by creating unique, well-written, high-quality content that other websites want to reference and link to organically.
4. Social media backlinks
With many social media platforms, your profile can include a link to the platform’s external website or blog. When you have a profile link building, you can sign up for many social media accounts and have many profiles pointing to a site or a page.
If you have genuine social media links and profiles, your business will benefit in that they will solidify an online presence, enhancing your business’ trustworthiness. As a result, you can share your website content and extend your audience reach to those you wouldn’t normally encounter in search.
5. Testimonial and review backlinks
Two backlink reviews are used to link building a website. Firstly, you write a review for another, post it on their site as a testimonial, and it includes a link back to your site. Secondly is where a client reviews your product or services that will include a link back to your page.
Conclusion
It’s important to note that not all backlinks are created equal. Quality backlinks from authoritative and relevant sources hold more value than numerous low-quality or spammy backlinks. Building a natural and diverse backlink profile is crucial while following ethical SEO practices.
