What makes a good backlink? This is a question we all think about whenever we talk about them and we talk about them quite often. Naturally, we all want high-quality backlinks. There are whole professions dedicated to that purpose nowadays. Making good backlinks is not an easy thing remember that. But with enough research, dedication, and some trial and error you will learn how to do this like a pro and improve your SEO. All that so you can rank high on Google. That is the new game and it’s called how high you can go. The really successful ones are on the first page. That is your goal too and backlinks can help you on that road. But you obviously need to have good ones. But before we talk about the good ones we need to mention the bad ones obviously.
The good, the bad, the ugly
We are not talking about the movie at all. It’s important to know that not all backlinks are good. Some of them are bad. We call them toxic backlinks. They can hurt your SEO, and you can even get a penalty from Google for them. Don’t start spiraling just yet. Maybe you don’t have them. Even if you do, we will show you how to get rid of toxic backlinks before Google notices them. Relax, we got your back. But before you go and read all about removing toxic backlinks you need to know that they are those spammy links and you don’t want to be associated with them ever. Google is getting smarter and wiser each year. The time of the SEO schemes is over. Now you need to play by the rules if you want to succeed.
So, what makes a good backlink?
A high-quality backlink is one that is organic, highly reputable, and highly relevant. That sounds simple enough, right? Well, it is in fact but it’s not so easy to achieve your goals right away and avoid toxic backlinks. You also have medium-quality backlinks. They are also good and you can get some decent results with them as well. As long as it’s not a toxic backlink they are ok.
Key factors
If there is anything that you don’t understand about the key factor there is a place where you can find your answers. Head out to the Link Department website and check out their blog. You will find texts about each of those factors mentioned below. Link Departments blog can be a great place for you to continue your research and get all new information about backlinks, link building, and SEO in general.
- Relevance
- Trustworthy
- Number of incoming links
- Natural placement
- Naturally earned and not bought (buying backlinks is bad for you)
- Variety
- Domain saturation
- Link attributes
- Number of outgoing backlinks
- Quality of outbound links
- Reciprocality
- Previous penalties from Google
- Anchor text
- Indexability
The making of a good backlink
Think about a good backlink as an endorsement from another website. As you can see above there are many factors that go into making a good backlink but there are three characteristics that you will always notice when you see a good backlink :
- the link text will occur naturally within the context of the website’s page
- you will notice that the referring domain is reputable
- and lastly referring page is topically relevant to the link destination – always stick to your niche – this is the key to having a good backlink as well as earning authority
So, as you can see the universal rule called “stick to what you know” is applicable here as well.
The term “natural”
The term natural backlinks is often used with the term backlink and many find it a bit confusing so let’s try to clear this one up as well. When using this term people are often referring to an editorially placed link you earn. You can earn it by publishing high-quality content on your website obviously. It doesn’t really matter if you acquired the link through some outreach efforts or you were crafty with your link building – if your link has natural characteristics chances are they will carry more weight in your search ranking. But what are those natural characteristics?
Natural characteristics
Being unique is the key here. A backlink from a site with just a few outbound links is naturally more natural than one from a website that has hundreds of links to other websites. As you can see the unique link is much harder to earn simply because not everybody gets one and that’s why it’s more valuable. This is just one of those characteristics that will show others that your link is natural. If you want to know other characteristics we suggest you continue your research starting with the texts we left you and of course Link Departments blog.
If it starts getting to be too much work
It’s ok if this is too much work for you. You can always outsource this part of your business. After all the bigger your business and your website gets the more you will have to outsource as long as you do it properly you can prosper.
Outsourcing SEO
This is a very common thing and many successful businesses are outsourcing SEO. This is a great way to easily get the best results. You can leave backlinks and link-building to experts and enjoy the benefits. After all, you are just one person, and it’s impossible to do everything on your own. You will be needing some help from time to time. Hopefully, we helped you to understand what makes a good backlink and now you can continue your research. Good luck!