Backlinks: The Competition for quality traffic to your website

Published by Algorithmic Global on May 4, 2020May 4, 2020

How and why to backlink for the most traffic.

A big part of the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) process is gaining website backlinks. Backlinks are links from one website to a page on another website. The goal is for the links to direct traffic from one website to another. Gaining continuous backlinks is important because they allow more options for new potential customers as well as letting Google know how strong a website is in comparison to the websites of the competition. One of the ways Google ranks a website is by the quality and quantity of backlinks. 

Two things to consider when gaining backlinks: 

1. Not all backlinks carry the same weight. 
2. Quality backlinks over quantity.

Some backlinks are easier to get than others. The low hanging fruit of backlinks are sites where you can post your business listing. Websites like this include Google Business page, Yellow Pages, Yelp, and Manta. To get links from these sites, fill out a business listing, and your listing and your website link will show. Although these are backlinks, they are not the highest quality backlinks. 

Where to get quality backlinks

There are three main ways:

1. From press request service sites.
   One way to gain quality links is from press request services sites. Press request services allow journalists and business professionals to give their two cents on expertise in their particular field. These requests have categories for all different business types. Websites like HARO will send out requests giving individuals their chance to respond to a specific question. If the response qualifies, the hope is to provide the linking website more leverage, especially if the site that is looking for the response has a strong web presence.  
2. Guest Blogging
   Another way to get quality links to your website is by guest blogging. Being a guest blogger on another website and asking for guest bloggers on your page will allow you to communicate with the industry that you serve. Guest bloggers can work with businesses that surround your area of expertise helping google utilize the target location of where your business is serving. Being a guest blogger allows you to be an industry contributor because of the ability to serve quality relatable content in hopes of gaining traffic to both websites.
3. Research the competition.
   The last way to get quality links to your website is by using the competition for inspiration. There are several free services like MOZ that offer you details on where your competitors are gaining their backlinks. The idea here is to be able to grab hold of who the competition is gaining their most links from and target that source for backlinks of your own.  

Happy Backlinking 🙂 

SEO involves many moving parts to increase traffic to a website. Everyone is looking to make their websites more relatable and more reliable for Google’s ever-changing algorithm. Backlinking is important in how Google ranks a website but, don’t forget the other foundational SEO tactics also found on this blog. My hope is that you can use this post as a guide to increasing your web presence.