-->

Backlinks
Backlinks (Image: Flickr.com)

For those of you who have just started creating a blog or website, what term is backlinks may still be unfamiliar What distinguishes backlinks from other types of links? Why does the term backlink often appear in the discussion of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)? Why do you have to understand backlinks and apply them to your website or blog? How do you get quality backlinks? Everything will be discussed in this article, starting from what is a backlink.

What is a backlink?

A backlink is a link that is installed on a blog / website that leads to your blog / website page. The activity of building backlinks is also called link building. There are also terms of external links and inbound links. So there are backlinks and recipients of backlinks. You are a backlink when placing other websites or blogs links on your website. Backlink recipients are websites that get links from backlinks.

Simple enough, right? Although it looks simple, backlinks also play an important role in the success of your website or blog.

Why Are Backlinks Important?

After understanding what backlinks are, it's time to learn why backlinks are important. What benefits can be obtained from backlinks and why you should also use them.

Here are some reasons why backlinks are important:
  • Google Finds Your Website Through Backlinks
The easiest explanation behind the question "Why are backlinks important?" Is how Google finds new pages to display in their search results. Google search engines will always do crawling to find the pages that are most relevant to certain keywords.

Like when humans use maps to find new locations, Google search engines use backlinks to find new pages, crawling on those pages, and then entering them into the Google index.

Think about this. You will find it easier to find new locations that are connected to other locations, right? Remote locations that are not connected to other locations will be more difficult to find. Likewise with the website page. Website pages that don't get backlinks from other websites will be difficult to find by Google.

The more backlinks you get, the easier it is for Google to find your website page. However, you also have to consider the quality of backlinks. You can't carelessly look for backlinks. Because quality backlinks might actually harm your website.
  • Useful Backlinks to Maintain Reputation on Google
When people search for a keyword on Google, Google will try to provide the best search results for the searcher. Google will certainly direct search on popular website pages. How does Google judge a popular website page or not? Yes, right. Google uses backlinks as an indicator of the popularity of a website page. The more quality backlinks lead to your website, the better the reputation of your website in Google's assessment.
  • Relevant Backlinks to Increase Website Credibility
Previously I explained earlier that backlinks are an important indicator in determining the popularity of a website page on Google. However, Google does not only assess backlinks from the quantity. Google also assesses the backlinks on your website based on their relevance.

What is the relevant backlink? Relevant backlinks are backlinks obtained from websites or blogs from relevant niches. For example, a smartphone company is said to have relevant backlinks when they get backlinks from websites or blogs whose technology is niche. That way the smartphone company can be considered credible by Google.

What happens when the smartphone company gets backlinks from websites, blogs, beauty, fashion, or even furniture blogs? Of course Google will question the credibility of the smartphone company's website, is the company credible enough for the smartphone and technology industry?
  • Backlink Brings Traffic to the Website
In the previous point, it was explained that backlinks can help websites to be more easily found by Google so they can appear in search results. The more quality backlinks you get, the better Google's assessment of your website. Then your website page can get high ranking in search results.

In addition to the traffic that you get from Google search results, backlinks also bring traffic from links that are planted on the backlinks website. Especially if the backlinks website has a good reputation on Google and gets a lot of traffic. The traffic obtained from the backlink website will also lead to your website.

6 Strategies to Get Quality Backlinks

Quality backlinks are not easily obtained. The strategy of building quality backlinks consists of starting with complete, unique and solution-based content. Here's how to get quality backlinks on your website.
  • Build credibility
To be able to get quality backlinks, you must build the credibility of your website or blog first. As I mentioned in the Outbound Link Quality points, usually a website or blog with quality backlinks is only willing to provide backlinks to quality websites and blogs. Therefore, you need to build credibility first.
  • Write Complete and Solutive Content
How to build the credibility of a website or blog? Of course the answer is in the content. Make sure the content on your website is complete content and can answer questions from people who are searching. The content you write must also be a solution. So after reading articles on your blog or website, readers can solve the problems they are experiencing. That way they will not hesitate to share your articles on social media or even their website or blog.
  • Create Unique Content
In addition to complete and solution content, your content must also be unique. If possible, create content that no one else has ever made. A point of view that no one has ever taken. For example, you can do a case study about your customer or business. The uniqueness of your content will attract other people to embed links to your website or blog.
  • Create Infographics
Sometimes people are lazy to read long paragraphs. To get around this, you can use the infographic. Make an infographic so that people are interested in reading your article. In addition, people also more easily share infographics because they are more interesting and easier to understand.
  • Use the Backlink Tools
The four ways above are ways to get backlinks naturally. Content that is good, unique, complete, and solution will attract people to put your website or blog link on their website.

Even so, you also have to pick up the ball so you can get quality backlinks. Because websites and blogs with good quality backlinks need to be approached personally first and then can plant backlinks there.

To find quality websites and blogs, you need help from third parties like Ahrefs. Until now, Ahrefs is the best tool for finding quality backlinks. With Ahrefs you can find quality blogs and websites based on keywords that are relevant to your business. In addition, you can also find out the credibility of the website through the Domain Rating (DR) and the amount of traffic generated.
  • Use the Content Sharing Platform
Most people share their latest articles or content on social media. That is indeed a must do. However, in addition to sharing content on social media, you also need to share your content content sharing platform.

Content sharing platforms such as Medium, Kompasiana, Hipwee, VIVA Blog, Kaskus, Reddit, and SlideShare can be used to place your website or blog link. You can write new articles that are still related to the topic you are discussing and then place the article link that you want. That way you get a backlink from the content sharing platform. Even though the link is nofollow, this method is still feasible for promoting blog or website content.
  • Do Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is when you write articles that are not published on your own blog, but are published on other people's blogs or websites. In the article you put a link to your blog or website. However, you need to choose a blog or website with high traffic so that guest blogging can feel the benefits.

Criteria and Examples of Quality Backlinks

You can't carelessly look for backlinks. Google does not judge backlinks from quantity, but also considers quality. Remember, quality backlinks will only harm you. So you have to select backlinks carefully to get quality backlinks. What are the criteria for quality backlinks? Here are six quality backlink criteria:
  • Relevance
As explained earlier, you must get relevant backlinks in order to obtain positive effects from backlinks. How to determine a website that is relevant to your website?

Make a website priority scale that has the potential to be planted with backlinks. You can group them into several potential website groups. From very relevant, quite relevant, to irrelevant.

A very relevant backlink group is websites that are mostly contained in a review of certain products. For example, your business is computers and laptops. Look for websites or review blogs that specifically review computers and laptops.

In the backlink group it is quite relevant, you can expand the criteria for prospective backlinks. You can search for blogs or websites whose posts are mostly about technology, not just laptops and computers.

Finally, can you plant backlinks on websites that are not relevant to your business? The answer is yes and no. Yes, you can plant backlinks on websites that are not relevant provided that the website has super high traffic and discusses content as diverse as news portals. If the website is not relevant to the business and does not have high traffic, you should leave it.
  • Have an Authority
Relevance is not enough. You also have to make sure the website you are going to install with backlinks really has credibility and influence. How to ensure the credibility of a website? You can check the credibility of the website using software like Ahrefs. The credibility at Ahrefs is measured using a scale of 1 to 100 called the Domain Rating (DR). Rating domains measure how many quality backlinks a website gets. The higher the DR value, the more potential for backlinks.
  • Traffic
Besides Domain Rating (DR), you also need to consider the amount of traffic generated by a website before making it a backlink. To measure how much traffic a website generates per month you can also use Ahrefs. Make sure the website to be planted with backlinks really gets traffic.
  • Editorial Standard
Also pay attention to the editorial standards of website content that will be planted with backlinks. Usually those that produce quality backlinks are websites with strict editorial standards such as news portals or credible bloggers.
  • Outbound Link Quality
Websites with good quality backlinks will usually only provide quality backlinks to websites. Therefore, pay attention to the outbound links from prospective websites that will be planted with backlinks. Are their outbound link track records good? Do they provide outbound links to quality websites or not?
  • Google Indexed
Last and most important is Google indexed. The website that you want to install backlinks must be indexed by Google. If a website is not indexed by Google, it should be abandoned. Because planting backlinks on websites that are not indexed by Google is futile.

How to check whether a website has been indexed by Google or not easy enough. Open Google. Then type "site: examplewebsite.com". If after that nothing appears, leave the website

Conclusion

Building a website with quality backlinks requires a lot of effort. Keep in mind that before building quality backlinks, you must build the main foundation first, namely content. No matter how many backlinks you get, everything will be in vain without unique, complete, and quality content.

The backlink you get must also meet certain criteria so that the effect can be felt. So always do research first before deciding to plant backlinks using the indicators mentioned above. That way your backlink will produce a positive effect on the website or blog.
By