Why backlinks are important for SEO
In a marketing world very much governed by online content, getting found on Google remains one of the main aims for businesses.
However, this art of the right content on your website (Search Engine Optimisation SEO) is complex, and that is why digital marketing agencies do much of the groundwork in today’s fast changing world.
After all, the world wide web is a league table of billions of web pages, millions of websites, etc, where the search engines, dominated by Google (93% of the market), work out how trustworthy websites are.
With many rogue sites being focussed on by search engines trustworthiness, is ranked on the domain authority, which is the hierarchy table of websites.
For instance, the BBC is one of the world’s most highly rated, whilst a blogging site just started by a conspiracy theorist is not.
Therefore, if the BBC write a story and put a link in the copy (backlink) then it can not only jet propel a Google rating but also direct many visitors to the site.
We are now in a world where people read most of their content online, making the backlink to another site a normal part of surfing – that is why digital PR and search engine optimisation can team up to provide a powerful mix.
For example, if you are a business making giant strides in health and have invented a cure for a disease, the chances are, once you get a backlink (PR/ third party endorsement) from the BBC, for example, it will mean that search engines will promote you far up their league table.
It is for this reason that many more digital agencies see the power of PR and use tools like PressPlugs, because it could mean instead of being behind way behind competitors, a business is now in the top few.
Backlinks (links from other websites) to a site – is the most effective way to improve rankings, but as we say, not all these links are created equally.
High quality journalist requests from the country’s top publications offer amazing google juice. Many of the most heavyweight trusted publishers use PressPlugs including Metro,
The Guardian and The Telegraph to seek out experts, who in turn find themselves with high quality backlinks.
The term high quality is subjective though, and every SEO consultant will have their own view on the topic, yet the majority will agree that quality backlinks include being mentioned in the type of websites/news outlets that have credibility on the web.
Search engines take into account, the overall relevance of the linking site, the relevance of the specific page with the link on it, and also the credibility of the content directly surrounding the link.
To benchmark, if a website is trustworthy, the likes of Google use a set of trusted seed sites (for example, Wikipedia and the BBC, CNN, etc.), which they know for sure are difficult to get links from.
It is also worth knowing, that the fewer the number of links away a site is from one of the seed sites, the higher its ranking is.
For those without in-depth digital expertise who wish to know more, here’s a very useful blog, in the form of a backlink from Moz, one of the world’s leader’s in SEO software.
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