In this article, ONELINE explains how relevant building a strong backlink structure is nowadays and why an online marketing agency is an indispensable partner for this.
What are backlinks?
What a link is, every Internet user should know as a matter of course. The backlink is used as a term when the link points from an external website to your own website. They are also referred to as “inbound links” or “inbound links”. Search engines like Google consider backlinks as recommendations from other websites. Links from subpages of your website to each other do not count as backlinks. Neither do links you place yourself on other web properties.
When a website has many high-quality backlinks, it is considered more trustworthy and relevant to certain search queries. Search engines assume that websites with many high quality backlinks have a higher value and authority, that it is often “recommended”. You can think of it like asking your friends for restaurant recommendations for Zurich. If one restaurant is mentioned more often than others, it is more likely that you will choose that one.
Thus, you have no direct influence on backlinks, since you do not set them yourself on your website. So, you have to convince other website owners of your quality, form partnerships and much more. While it is possible to link to your site from various social media channels, this has little relevance for Google and your SEO strategy.
Thus, two questions arise:
- How important are backlinks at all in getting Google to rank better?
- How can other site owners be convinced to link to your own web offering?
Why a simple link exchange is no longer sufficient
The topic of SEO has become increasingly complex over the years. Google continuously adapts its search algorithm to ensure the greatest possible relevance and quality of the results displayed to its users. This has also had an impact on the area of backlinking.
In the early days of the search engine, it was possible to gain a large number of backlinks by simply exchanging links with many other site operators. Today, such an approach no longer has any influence. It is more important to establish a thematic relevance between both pages. The reputation of the website linking to one’s own website also plays a role. After all, if the link comes from a small, private website, this is less significant than if it is mentioned by a large company.
Number and quality as important factors
Even if the thematic relevance and the size of the linking website play a role, the factor mass is still important. This is shown, for example, by an extensive analysis from 2020 by the international SEO platform Backlinko, through which the number of referring links was still indicated as the most important influencing factor on the Google ranking.
The analysis also reveals the mentioned correlation between the “authority” of the linking website and higher rankings in Google search. Simply put: The bigger and more relevant a website is, the more the set links have an impact.
Can backlinks be used to achieve the top position in a Google search query? According to this analysis, links play a strong role as a factor. The top result of the search could have almost four times more backlinks than positions two to ten. One more reason to deal intensively with this aspect of SEO.
A website that has a large number of high-quality backlinks also receives traffic through them. If a relevant and well-established website links to yours, there is a chance that their visitors will click on the link and land on your website. This can attract new visitors and reach potential customers.
The quality of the backlinks should also not be overlooked. Backlinks from low-quality or spammy websites can have a negative impact on your SEO.
Why backlinks alone are not everything
We do not want to give the impression that a large number of links from important websites is sufficient for successful online marketing. There is one factor that every website operator should never disregard: What does one’s website actually have to offer?
Over the years, the quality of the content of websites has become increasingly important to Google. Even the most expensive SEO campaign is useless if the site visitor does not experience any added value. It is important that visitors find what they expect from the linked and visited website. This is another reason why ONELINE, as an experienced online marketing agency for Zug, Lucerne and Switzerland, advises you not to take the second step before the first.
Therefore, check the following aspects even before planning a backlinking strategy:
- Is your website professionally designed in terms of content and technology?
- Does your content offer added value for the reader?
- Does your website help to pick up and deepen content from other websites?
- Have you done a good onpage SEO for your pages?
If all of this is met, each subpage of your web presence will become a strong “product” that other sites will be happy to link to. An experienced SEO and web development agency can of course help you with these steps before effective backlinking can occur.
Find suitable link partners via a web agency
As addressed, a pure link exchange with random websites is not a success factor for your Google rankings. This does not mean that you should not actively look for partners and contacts for your external link building. This is where working with an experienced internet agency like ONELINE pays off.
With many years of experience in the industry, we have established contacts with countless website operators. Among them will also be sites that have thematic relevance around the own web offer. Through such a network and the linking of exciting content among each other, link building can be done that meets the specifications and quality requirements of Google and other search engines.
How should backlinks be integrated in concrete terms?
A good backlink has a link text that creates expectations for the target page. These should be fulfilled by the linked content. Unfortunately, you often have no direct influence on how you are linked by an external site operator. Here again an online marketing agency helps, which takes over the management of the backlink building and thus also influences the content level.
The linking should also not occur arbitrarily, but should illustrate a clear, thematic connection between the two pages. This is another reason why many companies operate their own company blog. This allows to link to partners and other websites in articles and vice versa to benefit from the links of other blogs. With thematic relevance and quality in the blog articles, the ranking of the website will move in the right direction.
Conclusion about backlinking to your website
Since the early days of Google, building a backlinking structure has been one of the most important factors in doing good SEO as it can improve the trust, authority and visibility of your website. As important as a variety of links are, quality and topical relevance should never fall by the wayside.
An online marketing agency like ONELINE can help you on both counts. Through professional programming and strong SEO on the website itself, you lay the foundation to present strong websites to Google. With the right backlinks, this is further strengthened and ensures the hoped-for top positions.
