We all have used the Google search engine. Where we just need to post our question and Google will point out all relevant information from its collection. The information received is in the form of multiple links given in a list form. Through which users can select anyone as per the criteria they want.
But have you ever wondered what can be the thing that divides the information in such a manner and ranks them? Which source has to be placed at the number one position and which information has to be given the next position.
For easy understanding, we can assume that all the process is based on a few different concepts such as SEO, Keywords, Backlinks, etc. In this article, we will be going through the concept of Backlink and its importance for SEO.
A backlink is a name given to those links that direct a user from one webpage to another. They can be the links of directing from one website to another also termed as external backlinks. Or they can be the links directing the user from one webpage to another webpage of the same website, also termed as Internal Backlink. The other common terms used for a backlink are an inbound link and an incoming link.
Backlink has many roles when we talk about a website and its Google ranking. Google was launched in 1998. From then till now there are many changes made in it at every possible angle to provide better service.
At the time of its initial launch, Google used to provide the results based on links attached with a web page. The original algorithm used for providing web page ranking was named “PageRank”.
After many years, all basic things have evolved into better options. But the idea of a ranking webpage with the help of a backlink has still stayed at the same place with a minor change.
Earlier pages were shown based on backlinks only. However now the results are based on multiple factors, with backlink considered as one of the key factors in determining the results. So with this theory, we can assume backlink is still a fundamental part of SEO.
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Backlink profile in simple words can be said as the collection of all links directed to the particular website. Backlink profile is not just a simple collection of links, it stores all the information and characteristics of links such as types of links, anchor text, domain quality, relevance, link quality, page performance, etc.
The prime work of backlink profiles is to enable easy and quick help in determining and achieving higher ranking, determining the tactics to increase traffic to the site, and many other similar services.
Backlink has a simple concept. But the work it does and the importance it carries for SEO is a lot to consider.
Backlinks Are the First Step for Ranking on Google
Each website is created with the purpose of the target to achieve the best Google rank. To fulfil the target, Backlink can be one of the key factors. When multiple websites provide the link of any single webpage, Google finds it trustworthy. Hence the results shown include the webpage in a good ranking position.
Backlinks Can Increase the Traffic of a Site
It is not a mystery of using backlinks for increasing the traffic of a site. The main purpose of a backlink is to direct a user from one site to another or from one page to another. So when there are multiple backlinks given, there are more chances of driving traffic to the site.
New Content Is Searched by the Means of Backlink
There is an abundance of content posted on Google each day. For the reason of finding new content, Google algorithm “spider” takes the help of backlinks provided by the trusted sites.
Backlink Helps to Create Trust
If the backlinks are given by trustworthy platforms, Google gets the idea of content as useful information. The same mechanism is applicable for users also. When a user gets some backlink from their trusted source, the content from the link will also have a similar impression on the user. Hence it creates a good impression and increases the trust between both the user and search engine.
Creates a Way for Initiating a Relationship Between Different Sites
Having good relations with authentic sites can provide beneficial support. This can be done by using backlink as a conversation method. It is a good practice to use authentic sites for the promotion of our products and sites by the means of someone else’s way.
Backlinks are an essential part of each website. They are responsible for ranking the site in Google and making an impression on Google. Good and authentic site backlink allows the site to be on a better side and having a backlink from spam creates the same impression as a spamming site.
It is one of the major things to look at and has many roles attached. Some of the essential information has been shared in the above article related to backlink and backlink profiles.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the backlink profile of a website?
A backlink profile is a collection of links that stores all the information such as anchor text, domain quality, relevance, link quality, page performance, etc.
How do you analyze a backlink profile?
Calculate the total number of links, Number of unique domains, Anchor text usage and variance, Fresh links, and Page performance.
How do backlinks help in SEO?
Backlinks create a good impression of your website. It also helps your website rank higher on Google.
Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Semrush.
In the era where everything has become online, locating their product or site on top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) would always be a priority for any webmaster. However, in order to improve online visibility, one has to enhance their site for SEO, backlinks, and many other improvements.
The demand for SEO, keywords and competitor analysis was almost nil before Google’s arrival. Only after the mid-1990s, these concepts were born along with Google, the demand of which skyrocketed in a very short time. Today, the SEO industry has a whopping $80 Billion market valuation. Furthermore, it is expected to show a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 19.6% by 2025. Similarly, keyword research, competitor analysis, SMM, and various other marketing tools have also gained huge market demand in the past two decades.
This increase in demand has increased the number of SaaS tools to provide the relevant services that today’s market demands. Of all those available options, Semrush stands to be the crown of Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Established in 2008, Semrush helps its users to improve their website’s ranking by offering support in SEO, PPC, Keyword & Competitive research, SMM, and content marketing services.
Semrush is a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that provides solutions to SEO, Keyword Research, Competitor Analysis, PPC, Content, and Social Media Management. It is an all-in-one tool that helps the user to improve their website’s online visibility. Semrush also provides marketing insights on paid advertising and competitor analysis, as well as, extends its support to content management and marketing.
Oleg Shchegolev and Dmitry Melnikov established Semrush in 2008. This SaaS platform commenced its operations with 2 tools and a few friends as their initial customers. Today, Semrush has more than 50 tools that had served over 7 Million users in around 143 countries so far. The company went public on March 24, 2021, through Initial Public Offering (IPO). Semrush IPOs were listed and traded on New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
Semrush – Latest News
January 20, 2021 – Semrush acquires popular marketing and SEO training platform Backlinko. This acquisition would not just add 500K in monthly traffic but a wide array of trusted resources for training the world of digital marketers today in SEO and content marketing. The co-founder of Semrush is thrilled with this deal. Here’s what he shares through his Linkedin handle:
November 17, 2021 – Semrush filed a registration with the US Securities Exchange Commission, for Proposed Public Offering. It is said that the proceeds from the shares will be invested in the development of marketing and sales activities.
November 9, 2021 – Semrush announced its 3rd Quarter results as of September 30, 2021. It has reported a revenue of $49.3 Million and it has gone up 53% year on year.
Semrush – Industry
Semrush belongs to the industry of Search Engine Marketing (SEM), a subset of the broader industry of Digital Marketing. Search Engine Marketing is a kind of marketing that promotes the website’s online visibility on a Search Engine Results Page. It can be done through paid advertisements or by incorporating SEO. Search Engine Optimization is done by rewriting or fine-tuning the website’s content to promote them in SERP.
The SEM industry has been growing day by day since Google’s entry into the market in the mid-1990s. As of September 2021, the SEM market is mostly occupied by Google with a share of 86.64%. Other search engines like Bingand Yahoo have a market share of 7% and 2.75% respectively, as stated by Statista.
Oleg Shchegolev and Dmitry Melnikov are the founders of Semrush, who share a friendship of over 30 years. They started building SEO tools together in 2006. Later, Semrush revolutionized the market and are now on their way to conquering the industry.
Oleg Shchegolev
An alumnus of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, from where he completed his Bachelor’s degree in Computer and Information Systems Security/Information Assurance, Oleg started his career as an SEO Manager at Strider. He then served as the COCEO of tirnet.ru before co-founding efind.ru. After being aligned with the previous company for over 3 and a half years, Oleg joined SEOQuake, where he served as the Co-founder and CEO. He is presently serving as the Co-founder and CEO of SEOQuake and SEMRush.
Dmitry Melnikov
Dmitry Melnikov is another Co-founder of Semrush, who also serves as the COO of the company. After completing his Bachelor’s from SPBETU, LEEI, Dmitry started serving as a Board Member of efind.ru. He then served as a CEO at tirnet.ru. After leaving the job at tirnet, Melnikov joined as a co-founder of the SEOQuake Team and took the role of COO. He is currently serving the role at SEOQuake along with being a COO of SEMRush.
The key people of Semrush are:
Oleg Shchegolev – Chief Executive Officer (CEO)
Dmitry Melnikov – Chief Operating Officer (COO)
Evgeny E Fetisov – Chief Financial Officer (CFO)
Eugene Levin – Chief Strategy Officer (CSO)
The employee strength of SEMRush was last reported to be 979 in April 2021.
Semrush- Startup Story
Oleg Shchegolev and Dmitry Melnikov, in 2006, developed a tool for personal use, to look out for SEOs and other online strategies. The tool was initially named Seodigger. Later, in 2007, it was renamed to SEOquake. Shchegolev and Melnikov shared their tool with friends, friends of friends and this went on to build a good network for SEOquake. Meanwhile, they kept adding new features and tools to their platform, which further increased their popularity.
Owing to the reception, both the co-founders decided to take the business further to the market. With a brand image already built, they founded the company in 2008, with a new name Semrush. They further focussed on product development and expansion. Today Semrush has grown to serve users with more than 50 tools and leads the SEM market around the world.
Semrush – Mission and Vision
Semrush’s mission is to give a better and transparent online competition for users. They wanted to help their users in developing and improving their website in every possible way.
Their vision is to create time for professionals and creators to concentrate on their business and creativity. The work of improving the user’s online visibility will be taken care of by Semrush is what the company aims at. Semrush operates with such a mission and vision that helps them grow along with its users.
Semrush – Name and Logo
Semrush Logo
Semrush revealed its new logo on December 11, 2020, along with a new visual identity. The company stuck to its core fireball element in the new logo, like their old one. But they have made it look simple and more attractive. Semrush reasoned their logo as “the creative spark that ignites the engine of marketing”.
Semrush has always used hot orange and dark indigo as its primary color. Now it has included a few more vibrant colors to improve the visual experience for users. The name of the company was also changed from SEMrush to Semrush in December 2020.
Semrush – Business Model
Semrush contains a business model that offers its services for advertising, social media, SEO, content marketing, and market research, all integrated into one tool. Here are the in-depth activities provided under each category of services:
Advertising – Semrush offers the best keyword choices, manages the cost of advertising, and analyses the ad copies of competitors.
Social Media – It helps the users in scheduling and automatically posting content, analyzing one’s performance and that of competitors, and managing social ads.
SEO – Potential keyword research can be done along with SEO audits, analyzing backlinks, and tracking SERP.
Content Marketing – You can find the best topics for your content that might attract your audience. Semrush audits your content and helps it improve for SEO.
Market Research – Analysis and give ideas to increase traffic for your website and provides reports regarding competitors’ promotion strategy.
Semrush – Revenue Model
Semrush has reported overall revenue of $124.88 Million in the year 2020. Their 3rd quarter revenue for 2021 has increased 53% year on year. Semrush raises its revenue by offering its tools and services for a price that is charged from users. Semrush has a free plan available that comes with limited functionality.
Semrush revenue model consists of three plans out of which, the first two plans come with a free trial for 7 days. With an annual commitment, a discount of up to 17% is offered on the monthly plans listed below:
Pro – $119.95/month
Guru – $229.95/month
Business – $449.95/month
Semrush – Challenges Faced
Though Semrush provides a better service than their competitors, they have faced a few challenges in the past and are expecting more in the future.
Semrush has been facing continuous net losses since 2016. They have incurred a net loss of $10.2 Million in 2019 and $7 Million in 2020. The company accumulated a deficit of $ 35.8 Million. Semrush is further uncertain about its profitability in the future.
The Covid-19 pandemic has pushed the company into a new challenge. It has increased the growth of Semrush rapidly and this pushed them to increase the employee count to manage the growth. But the travel restrictions have made it difficult for them to provide training and other facilities for the new employees. Thus Semrush faces a challenge in managing its growth effectively.
Semrush – Funding and Investors
Semrush has raised a fund of $40 Million through a Venture round on April 24, 2018. It was the only fundraising activity, other than its IPO, carried out by Semrush. This round was led by 3 investors namely, Headline, Greycroft, and Siguler Guff & Company.
Semrush – Acquisitions
Semrush acquired two companies to date. It acquired the famous Marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) training app Backlinko on January 20, 2022. The popular training platform boasts of pulling in 500K visits a month, as per the reports of December 2021, which it will be adding to the leading online visibility management Saas platform along with its prized resources that are elementary for training purposes for the world of digital marketers of today. This acquisition would be a great help towards building the marketing education that Semrush is currently focussing on. The Co-founder of Semrush and CEO at Exploding Topics, Brian Dean is thrilled with this acquisition and stated that he would continue to be associated with Backlinko on a part-time basis, as part of the agreement with Semrush.
Semrush previously acquired Prowly PR Software, a public and media relations SaaS company on September 16, 2020. The price of this acquisition remains undisclosed by both companies. Semrush has made no acquisitions other than Prowly PR Software, over the years so far.
Acquiree Name
Acquired Date
Price
Backlinko
January 20, 2022
–
Prowly PR Software
September 16, 2020
–
Semrush – Online and Social Media Presence
Semrush has an active profile on all social platforms. Particularly, their Twitter handle is extremely active. The team responds to every query and grievance raised on Semrush, by people on social media. Their tweets and posts are quite interactive and interesting. In addition to responding to users, they make posts on their achievements, new products and updates, and simplified guidelines. Semrush’s followers count:
Semrush has been awarded as the Best SEO Software by various continents. The following are the international awards that recognized Semrush over the years:
European Search Awards, 2017 &2020
Global Search Awards, 2021
MENA Search Awards, 2019
US Search Awards, 2019
UK Search Awards, 2019, 2021
Interactive Marketing Awards, 2019
Dutch Marketing Awards, 2018
SEMY, 2018
Semrush – Competitors
Though Semrush is a supreme tool, it has few notable competitors along the track to race with. Moz and Ahrefs prove to be worthy competitors in terms of SEO, Keyword Research, Backlinks, and Competitor Analysis. Here are some of the top competitors of Semrush:
Moz
Ahrefs
Serpstat
SpyFu
SE Ranking
KWFinder
Semrush – Growth
Semrush is a startup that commenced in 2008, has grown to hold the crown of the SEO market, and is trusted by popular brands like Tesla, Apple, Amazon, IBM, etc. The company has run its business without raising funds since its formation, except for the $40 Million raised in 2018. This exhibits the level of hard work, achievements, and quality, their products and services have for the customers.
With 79,000 paid customers across 143 countries in the world, Semrush had hit a revenue of $49.3 Million in 2021(quarterly resultsup to the third quarter in September). The Semrush revenue tops the table when compared to its competitors. The rapid growth in recent years has encouraged Semrush to go public. The company listed its IPO in NYSE on 24th March 2021 and managed to raise $140 Million on the first day.
In addition to its financial growth, Semrush has developed and upgraded its tools and services. They’ve grown to be the fastest Backlink Crawler, crawling 25 Billion URLs per day. Furthermore, Semrush also enlarged its data warehouse with 808 Million Domains, 43 Trillion Backlinks, and 20 Billion Keywords so far.
Semrush had more than 20% growth in both free and paid users using the platform, between 2019 and 2020. Their revenue for the 3rd quarter of 2021 was $49.3 million which is up by 53% year on year. This growing customer base results in increased revenue, which further implies the growth of the company.
Semrush – FAQs
What is Semrush?
Semrush is a SaaS platform that provides solutions to SEO, Keyword Research, Competitor Analysis, PPC, Content, and Social Media Management.
How many employees does Semrush have?
Semrush has more than 980 employees working in their 7 offices across the world.
Who are the founders of Semrush?
Oleg Shchegolev and Dmitry Melnikovare the founders of Semrush.
What is the Market Valuation of Semrush?
The market value of Semrush is approximately $3.3 Billion.
What is Semrush widely used for?
Semrush is an all-in-one SaaS tool widely used for improving online visibility. Semrush services include:
Internet and business now go hand in hand. It is an integral part of a business in today’s world. If your business is not on the internet, then you are missing out on a lot of amazing opportunities.
A website of a business helps in marketing them online and at a time where almost everyone is a part of the virtual world, it helps in connecting with your customers and proving you’re the reliability of your business.
Now in the digital world, to increase sales and to make the business known to the audience, one needs to have their website visible on the internet. The website will be visible only if it is ranked at the top of the search engine of Google and others. To do that one needs to use some search engine optimization (SEO) techniques.
SEO is a process of making the content rank higher than others in search engines like Google, Yahoo, and others, in these ways, the content will get more visibility if anyone searches for something related to that.
“For people to discover your website, you need to build pathways and big, flashing signs that lead them there. In digital marketing terms, this means you need links, links, and more links.”
— Luisito Batongbakal
Link building is one of the search engine optimization techniques, in this article we will crack down if a business should hire an agency for link building. So let’s get started.
Link building here means is a process that will lead the business website to get hyperlinks from other websites. During this process number of backlinks are provided to a webpage in terms of increasing the ranking of that page or website by making the brand more visible in front of its audience.
How Link Building Helps Businesses And Websites?
The main aim of link building is to increase the website’s ranking, during that time, link building can also help in other procedures as well. Some of them are:
While building links for the website, other websites owners are contacted and information is shared and hyperlinks are built. This way not only deals with just link building but also benefited in building good long-term relationships with other businesses.
With the help of link building, traffic for the website also increases apart from the ranking, these lead to the repeated visits of the consumers, which in turn becomes regular ones. Thus, the sale of that business keeps growing.
The links if built in such a way that it goes perfectly with relevant content; this can actually be a positive point as it gives out the notion that experts have used their talent in building these links. This way, link building helps the business/website in constructing their brand in the competitive world.
Communication skills are very significant in this matter; it helps in creating relationships with other site owners and bloggers. In return, it strengthens the relationship between them for the future as well.
The link builder needs to be good at researching, and be familiar with the recent trends. During the process of link building over 50% of the time is dedicated to research.
Strong knowledge of SEO is needed, like the creation of websites, adding links, their domain, using the tools that are needed, and everything. These techniques will help them in selecting a link that will be beneficial to the website/business.
Adaptability is another skill that is very much appreciated, Google algorithm changes from time to time. One needs to be quick to change the strategy for link building as soon as there is a change in the Google algorithms.
Analytical skills are a major part that is required for link building as well. The link builder must have an idea of how many links are required for the website.
Advantages of Hiring Agency For Link Building
Hiring a reputable agency for link building can be the turning point for your website/business and can bring them to the, literally.
The first and foremost reason for link building is to get a high ranking in the search results. Taking an expert’s help will guarantee more success as the agencies have people that are specialized in this domain.
The professional link builders will help in drawing organic traffic to your business through backlinking, this way the connection made during the process will remain strong even in the future. Therefore, it will result in more and more visitors to your website.
Link building agencies are aware of different strategies, so whenever there is a change in the Google algorithm, they will use their different techniques to keep the website on the top.
Having experts deal with the part of link building saves your time and you can use that time on concentrating on the thing that needs attention for the success of that website.
The connections are built through agencies, so they have all the sources of the contacts. The website owner doesn’t own any information, so after parting ways from the agency, getting the same contacts again becomes trickier.
Sometimes link building agencies charge an extreme amounts for their services.
Top Link Building Agencies
Some of the most famous link building agencies are:
UPLERS
IndeedSeo
SEOValley Solutions
Webmaxed
WebSpero Solutions
Conclusion
The competition in today’s world is in peak. If you want to be on top, you need to get noticed. For that strong SEO game is needed, link building is one of its techniques. Hiring an agency for that procedure may be the best option for your website.
FAQ
What is a Link Building Agency?
It is a company where an SEO expert finds websites and places links to your websites on relevant pages.
Do Backlinks matter in 2021?
Yes, Backlinks are important for SEO performance.
What is the best link building strategy?
Guest blogging is considered as one of the most popular link building strategies.
Common mistakes while evaluating the quality of backlink:
Focusing Only on DA and DR.
Don’t consider the traffic.
Don’t check the outbound links of the referring domain.
Don’t check the Referring domain IPs.
Don’t use the relevant anchor text.
Don’t check the top keywords of the referring domain.
Don’t check the Spam Score.
What are toxic backlinks?
Toxic backlinks are links that are unnatural on Google’s eye. It can impact your SEO badly. It can happen naturally as well. Thus always keep an eye on your backlinks.
What makes a Backlink Toxic?
Here, I have listed a few parameters:
Low Domain Authority.
Mirror pages – Too many backlinks coming from the same anchor text.
Spam sites or the sites which are built for only link building purposes.
If the site is not indexed.
Links with unnatural anchor text.
Trust flow = Null.
Links those marked as sponsored.
Hidden links from the website’s footer.
Links that are forced into blog comments.
Free google links ( Ex: Google Maps Links).
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Here I have prepared a checklist of KPIs that people used to follow while determining the quality of a link.
Domain Authority/Domain Rating.
Organic Traffic.
Link-type should be Do-follow only. No sponsor tag or no-follow links.
Check if it is indexed on Google or not.
The number of Unique Referring Domains.
Relevant or natural anchor text.
Alexa Rank.
Trust Flow.
Citation Flow.
Spam score.
The number of outbound links.
The number of inbound links.
Social shares
Site and Page relevance – Similar niche or relevant sites.
Referring IPs – to check PBN.
Domain Age – Usually, Old domains have more authority.
Link Location- Header, footer, left sidebar, right-sidebar, body.
Quality of the keywords they are ranking.
But to be honest, I don’t follow all the KPIs mentioned above.
List of my KPIs:
DA/DR – Must be higher than my website. It should be 30+ at least.
Organic Traffic – Always Check the trend of organic traffic growth. Ensure the traffic is growing exponentially. Organic traffic should be a minimum of 5k on Ahrefs. Though, it may vary with the different niches.
Growth of traffic on Similarweb
Link Location – Ensure you are getting links from the body of the content.
Link Type – It should be Do-follow. A no-follow link does not add SEO value.
Spam Score – Always check the Spam Score on Moz. It should be under 5 %.
The number of outbound links – Always try to build links from the websites, which are providing very few and relevant outbound links. Avoid websites that are giving numerous outbound links to irrelevant websites.
Check Outgoing Links from Ahrefs
Site and Page relevance – Build links only from the relevant niche websites. The link must look natural inside the body of the content.
Relevant or natural anchor text – Always use relevant anchor text. Don’t make your anchor text keyword rich.
Indexing Status – Always check the link you have acquired, if it’s indexed on Google or not.
Referring IPs – If you are buying links from cheap sellers who used to provide you with a list of 50 sites, then always check the referring IPs to check if those are PBN sites or not. Building PBN links is risky, Once Google identifies, you will get penalized.
Quality of the Top-Ranking Keywords – It is important to check the top-ranking keywords. It will give you an idea about the quality of the traffic that a particular website is driving.
It was the early days of my SEO career. I used to work for a Digital Marketing agency. I was handling a brand new website there.
As the website was new, thus my primary focus was working on on-page & technical SEO. I spent most of my time building Content strategy and fixing Site architecture.
But there was pressure from the client-side, as they want to strengthen their link profile too.
Whereas, Our Agency did not have the resources to build high-quality relevant links. Thus, they outsourced the complete Link building work to another agency.
End of the first month, they have created around 60 links. ( Most of them were profile links, blog commenting and web 2.0)
End of the 2nd month, they doubled the number of similar kinds of shitty links.
But DR remained 0.
There is no significant improvement in the 3rd month as well.
As a result, My agency lost the client.
But, It does not mean those profile links, blog commenting and web 2.0 do not work today.
It still works, Only if you are doing it strategically.
Thus, before outsourcing your link building campaign, ask the following questions to yourself.
At Startuptalky, we were able to generate 5000 daily pageviews without building significant links. (We got some natural links due to our quality of content and created very few profiles and blog commenting links.)
Links work as fuel to your traffic. Thus build a strong foundation with your content and proper On-page SEO first, and bring decent organic traffic. You can always invest later in Link building to boost your traffic and Domain Authority.
2. Do you have the budget to hire a professional link builder, a professional content writer, and the maintenance cost of tools?
If the answer is yes, then go for it and launch your link building outreach campaign.
If the answer is no, then simply outsource. You need professionals to bring results and get your ROI back. Else, end up losing your money and time.
3. Are you passionate about different techniques of Link building & want to pursue a career upon that?
If you are passionate about link building, then do it by yourself. You can explore this field in your own way and may end up with your own link building methodologies.
4. Do you have the time to invest in a link building campaign?
If you don’t have time or you have other important tasks to run your business smoothly. Then outsourcing to the right person or agency is the best option for you.
5. Is your business heavily dependent on SEO?
If SEO is the core of your business. Then always hire an expert. Not just to build high-quality links but also to ensure that you are not building spammy links which may affect your website badly. No matter what Google says, Link is still a key factor to outrank your competitor and scale your website traffic.
6. How to Choose the right Link building provider?
If you are about to hire a link builder or any agency, here are a few questions you should ask them.
1. Ask about their process. How will they create links?
2. Ask them to share some relevant sites from where they will create links for you. Then check and verify the quality of those websites.
Check the right metrics
3. Always ask for sample links and check their indexing status.
4. Confirm the duration of the live links.
5. Avoid people who send you the list of hundreds of profiles, directory submission, and PBN links. Also, ignore who offers you guest posts in bulk on low-quality irrelevant sites with cheap prices.
However, you need to understand link building is not a one-time investment. It’s a process. It takes time and money.
Thus don’t invest in link building randomly. Keep tracking and measuring the KPIs. Analyse what results they are bringing.
According to my experience, there is no single way to get success in SEO. It’s about finding the winning process that will work best for your website. Till then, keep experimenting and keep hustling.
FAQ
What is link building?
Link building is a search engine optimization technique that increases your search engine ranking. Having a good number of links to a website indicates that the content there is valuable.
How much does link building cost?
You can expect to pay around $100-$250 per hour or $2,000 – $8,000 per month on average.
Is link building still relevant to SEO?
Yes, Link building is a crucial part of any successful SEO strategy.
Google has been promoting website owners and Search Engine Optimizations to adapt to mobile-first indexing for the past decade. Back in 2015, Google was promoting a mobile-friendly tag and Mobilegeddon. Recently they have come up with a new move mobile-first indexing.
They have been experimenting their mobile-first indexing for the past few weeks. From March 2021, Google has told that they would use Mobile-first indexing for all your websites. This was originally supposed to be in September 2020, but they pushed it later on.
Mobile-first indexing means mobile only. It means that Google will use its bots that are mobile-friendly to index and crawl through your website. Google’s current guidelines suggest that they do a content-parity test in the beginning and only then they would move the websites to mobile-first. This happens only when they recognize that the websites are ready.
How does Mobile-First Indexing Work?
Google has plans to implement Mobile-First Indexing from March 2021, even though your website is not ready for it. If you are posting something on your website that is visible only for desktop users and not visible for mobile users, then it will be invisible for Google’s Mobile-First indexing purposes as well.
For example, if your website posts contents about Nutrition. let’s say fitness and the post is visible only for a desktop user, and for some reason it is not visible to mobile users. Then, From March 2021 all your fitness-related content will not be indexed by Google.
Which means that you will lose your ranking for fitness related keywords. This will lead to the diminishing of the Google’s understanding of the whole page, which in turn leads to knock-on effects on your other keywords as well.
Mobile-only makes it much clear that your content will be indexed and ranked by Google only and only if it is visible through your mobile device.
There are essentially 3 different ways to have a mobile site.
Responsive Design –
This is the most common way through which a mobile site is developed. Here you will serve a single page that will automatically respond to the design to fit the device of the user. In this design, the code used is the same irrespective of the device whether it is a mobile or desktop.
Dynamic Serving –
In this method, the server checks the device used by the user who has logged in to your website whether the person is using a mobile, tablet, or a desktop. Later it would send out different HTML, Java, and JS code on the same URL according to the user’s device.
Separate Mobile Site –
This is an older way to do it. Here you will have to maintain a separate website only for mobile users. It is often maintained on an m-dot subdomain.
What will be Impacted by Mobile-First Indexing?
The main consideration that google looks for is, whether the mobile and desktop contents are the same. To be specific it considers the contents which would have an impact upon indexing, ranking, and crawling.
It includes internal links, On page contents, Titles, and descriptions, Robots.txt, Page resources, Meta robots, Canonicals, Hreflang, and structured data. In short, it would look at the contents for the users as well as contents that will act as signals for the search engines.
You can also check if your website is mobile friendly or not. As Google offers a website where you can test your website to see if it is mobile friendly or not.
When you look at the term mobile-first, the reference content parity does not necessarily mean, all the content must be exactly the same in both mobile as well as desktop. You just have to ensure that the bits that are important for your website visitors and the search engines should be visible.
It can be differentiated into Two different categories.
Content
If you have content on your website which you want your users to see, then you will have to make sure that it is also visible on the mobile website page.
HTML
If you have HTML tags that you want the search engines to see then ensure that the tags are present in the mobile rendered HTML.
These are the two broad categories that you should ensure for content parity between mobile and desktop.
FAQ
What happens during Google indexing process?
Google analyzes the content of the page, catalogs images and video files embedded on the page, and tries to understand the page.
What are the tools of SEO?
Ahrefs, Google Search Console, SEMRush, Moz Pro, Ubersuggest are the some of the best tools of SEO.
How long does it take for Google to index a site?
It seems to take as little as 4 days and up to 6 months for a site to be crawled by Google.
Conclusion
Some of you would have received a notification in Google Search Console long back about the shift to mobile-first indexing of your website. John Mueller has said that we essentially need to be sure that the mobile version when indexed with mobile should be similar to the desktop version. So that we will be able to shift it without any problems.
Google is planning to implement this mobile-First indexing to every single website in the world.
High-quality content and inbound links are the two essential factors used by Google to rank a website for search. According to a study on Local search ranking factors, quality, and quantity of the links. These are important factors across search engine results.
So this is obvious that a strong inbound link profile holds a big impact on the ranking of the website pages. But this is also the most confusing and challenging process to complete. 41% of the large companies consider difficult for SEO tactic in link building.
Everything in SEO strategy link building is under your control. This depends on your industry’s relationships and the ability to get favor from other pages.
Hence the goal of this post is to provide you the basics of link building. Also, you will know the basic link building tactics.
What is Link Building?
It is the action of increasing the quality and quantity of links. That points to your website from other related sites. Links are the factors that help you get more traffic in two ways.
If any site is linked to you, the traffic to that website will come to your website and get to know about your service. From here you can engage and turn them into sales. A backlink from a famous business website will carry more weightage than from a low traffic blog.
Create a Link Building Team
Also if your website points to irrelevant links. Then there is a chance that you get penalized and not rank at all. The links that say references about the real world get considered to be of higher quality.
So the main thing is links from partners, customers, distributors, publications, and organizations of your area get higher weight from Google. And you should focus on these links for your business.
Before starting to link building, you need to have:
Link the worthy sites
A poorly structured and designed site is the biggest turn off for people who want to link to it. Your site should look professional. Also, you have to make sure you have a great brand website with a logo, business details, page, etc.
Link the worthy content
Just a website with certain pages detailing the products and services you provide is not enough. Products and services landing pages are the least to get a backlink.
Only when you own some kind of blog with high-quality content. People would want to link to. It is easier to build links to an information resource despite landing pages.
What Comes Under SEO Link Building Strategies
Competitor link analysis
To find out the kind of links and link building methods that work best for the business. It will be a great idea to see your competitor’s links and how they are getting them.
Today using the SEO tools you can analyze which websites are linking to the competitor website. Also what type of pages they link to and types of pages. You can make a list of your competitor’s websites along with the key pages and their URLs.
Start Building Relationships
80% of link building strategies include reaching out to people who don’t know you. It is important to know the correct way of building relationships with people related to your area.
It will be better to be friends way before you want a link than to reach out only you need help. A warm email will always work better than a cold email. Start to follow them, understanding their content, use their products, and help them. The sooner you start acknowledging them the more they will be helpful to your needs.
So putting these complications in your mind. Let’s see the basic link building tactics.
Backlinks are the easiest to use from your contact in the industry. All you have to do is inform and ask your contacts. These could be the partners, suppliers, distributors, vendors, or anyone related to your business.
Strategy For Link Building
Also if you become a member of your local/national chamber of commerce and trade associations. You can request to get included in their online member directory. If they don’t have one, you can volunteer to help to build it for the benefit of other members. By doing this you only won’t end up getting a backlink from the directory but also will build a relationship with other members. And some of them would want to link to you.
Help a reporter out(HARO) is a service that connects journalists and bloggers who work on a story with sources. You will just need to get signed up as a source and select topics that are relevant to your niche. After this, you will be getting email requests from journalists asking inputs from experts.
Whenever you see a request that is relevant to your service. You can respond to that with the info that was asked. At the time the reporter finds your response interesting. They will feature it in their story with a link back to your site.
This has been the best source of backlinks. Other similar services include SourceBottle, The Kiti, and ProfNet. If you have time and resources, you can start using these to lift the reach of your link building campaign.
Give Testimonials
This is normal that your business buys and uses goods or services from other businesses. You can contact each of the vendors helping to contribute a testimonial for their website. If your relations are good, many of them will accept and help you with your testimonial to have a backlink to your website.
If you will be featured in a trade publication will get a little difficult. It involves building a relationship with writers in your organization. To start, find writers and editors employed at key publications in your organization. Find if you have a common friend with any of them. Then request your friend to make an introduction on your behalf.
Guest Blogging
Guest posting is the way of approaching other relevant websites and engaging content for them to get published for the audience. And then after their agreement writing and submitting that content.
What Does Customer Satisfaction Contains
The websites that accept the guest posts. Also allows the authors to provide their bio below the posts. The bio can include the backlink to your website also.
Additionally, as long as that is relevant and natural. You will get the freedom of linking other web pages from the post that you are submitting. However, for putting guest blogging to your work. You will need extremely high-quality content.
Resource page link building depends a whole lot on the type of your business. You will need to find collections and the listings relevant to your expertise. Request to get added to the list.
If you have an SEO software product or a keyword research tool. You can create or submit a profile on sites such as ProductHunt, GetApp, Capterra.
You can also search for blog posts and other pages covering the collection of all the products in your category. If you have a local business, get signed up for sites such as Yelp, Thumbtack, etc.
I know that link building is tough. You have to spend countless hours trying to build links. But some point you were not able to convince anyone to link you. But you should not take shortcuts by buying links. You need to focus on long term strategies. This will ensure that you will be doing better in Google.
And if you are struggling while building links. You can use the above-mentioned ways. They will work well. Also, you will notice results after a few couples of days.
Creating strong Backlinks is one of the most crucial ways to rank
Okay, so you wrote and published a good, long and well-researched article. You waited for a week to get shares and appreciation from your users. But to your surprise and amusement, you didn’t receive the response you were looking for and are wondering why and what went wrong. This is the time and place when “backlinks” come into the picture. Backlinks are links from outside domains that point to pages on your domain, essentially linking back from their domains to yours.
Well, there is only one major reason behind this lack of traffic and that is your poor link building skill which is not up to the mark. Link building is very important to get your website rank higher on any search engine. Also if you are assuming that any kind of backlink to your website is good, then you need to change your thinking buddy. Google, one of the major search engines with more than 80% of web traffic, doesn’t value poorly backlinked website. Generally speaking, backlinks are considered to be a “vote” of confidence for the content that’s being linked to on your domain from outside sources. Each of these votes tells search engines, “This content is valuable, credible and useful.”
While the right inbound website link can grow your Google rankings, revenue and brand, the wrong ones can get your site penalized. And you never know what Google will do next. Google doesn’t tolerate poorly linked websites and never hesitate to take strong actions against such offenders. According to a study, about 37% of business owners spend between $10,000 and $50,000 per month on external link building. If you’re making that kind of investment, you need to have accurate information on how to build links that Google will trust. So in this post, we are going to dwell deep to find the perfect backlinks for your website and the right approach which you need to follow to achieve that link.
Google is the big daddy here when we talk about SEO optimization and high ranked links. So if you want to publish nice content online without getting penalized from the Google, then you need to understand how Google functions. By understanding the Google behavior in advance, you can save your time as well as the search engine’s. Google asks you to get the answer to these two questions before building backlinks for your website. [symple_ul style=“simplelist”] [symple_li]Is my content well-organized?[/symple_li] [symple_li]Do I provide useful information to the sites that will link to mine?[/symple_li] [/symple_ul]
Google only gives high ranking to websites which are well organized and viewers can easily operate them. The website should be designed in such a manner that a first time user can easily navigate through it. Also, the content of the website must be clear and meaningful.
The sites which linkback to your site must have relevance to your website. The websites which aren’t relevant to your website’s content won’t be approved by Google. For example, if you have a beauty tips blog and you are seeking links from a dog products website, it will be highly inappropriate. So get backlinks from the sites which are related to your site; taking the above example, you can take links from a beauty product selling website and some other related websites. You can use different tools to generate relevant links such as Alexa.
Factors on which Link Building depends
Link building for some people is a very daunting task and hence, they pay very less attention to it, if not ignoring it. While selecting the back links for your website, pay attention to following aspects of the site:
Domain Authority: It’s important to know the domain authority of the websites you consider for link acquisition. A great tool for this is the Moz Bar which shows the authority status of any domain or keyword in the search results.
Domain Relevancy: It has already been mentioned above that relevancy is the key factor to get a high Google ranking. Thus, it is important to consider domain relevancy while linking the website.
Trust flow: Trust flow is the ranking which reflects the people’s trust on the website. So pay close attention to this parameter while backlinking your website. The trust flow is ranked between 0 to 100 and higher the number, it’s better for you. For example, Bing has 86 trust flow, which is very good.
Citation flow: This metric from Majestic is designed to predict how influential a website link in a site might be.
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Earning backlinks is an essential component of off-site SEO. The process of obtaining these links is known as link earning or link building.
Some backlinks are inherently more valuable than others. Backlinks from trustworthy, popular, high-authority sites are considered the most desirable backlinks to earn, while backlinks from low-authority and potentially spammy sites are typically at the other end of the spectrum. Whether or not a link followed (i.e. whether a site owner specifically instructs search engines to pass, or not pass, link equity) is certainly relevant, don’t entirely discount the value of nofollow links. Even just being mentioned on high-quality websites can give your brand a boost.
Tagging your content with relevant keywords is essential to get more backlinks on your website. How relevant are your keywords to the prospects’ needs? If you want to make your site more powerful through external link building, you can’t afford to ignore keyword research. Keyword research helps you to dig into the minds of your target audience.
To better understand the importance of keywords, let’s take the example of searching for the best hotels in the New York City. Let’s see how you will perform this search according to the Google Adwords planner:
#1: Log into your account and click “search for new keyword and ad group ideas.“
#2: Type in “hotels in New York.” Now, scroll down and click “Get ideas.“
#3: Next, click on “keywords ideas” for a list of search queries that you can target. The suggestions for this will be like:
Link building is not a cup of tea for everyone and can’t be summarized in a short article. However, we have tried to compress it in three main elements which can’t be avoided with respect to backlinks. Hope this article helps you in securing some high ranked backlinks for your website.
Parnas Ghosh
