How about I tell you a geek joke to start:
- “Where is the best place to hide a body?
- on the second page of Google!”
That’s right! Nobody goes to this second page, and even less to the third or fourth…
For what ?
Because in the vast majority of cases, we already find the answer to our needs on the first page.
And it’s Google’s algorithm that’s behind this magic! It does us a favor by sorting out good content from bad.
But then the real question is: “How does Google differentiate between good and bad content?”
In other words, how does Google determine which site to show first, second, etc. in search results?
Many entrepreneurs have already spent sleepless nights on the internet trying to find the answer to this question…
Today, there are over 200 factors that Google uses to rank a website.
But, according to SEO experts, the number one factor that Google uses is backlinks .
This is the factor that most correlates with positions in search results. They are the very basis for the creation of Google’s PageRank algorithm .
So backlinks would affect Google ranking more than any other factor?!
But then…
What is a Backlink?
Also called “inbound links” or “external links” in SEO jargon, they refer to a hyperlink placed in content that points to another site.
These are links from third-party sources that point to a site. Not to be confused with “internal links” that point to content on the same site.
Let’s connect this with what we said earlier:
Now do you understand why these backlinks are so important for entrepreneurs?
- On the one hand, these links attest to the quality of your site in the eyes of Google!
- On the other hand, they are a transfer of authority from other blogs!
In this article, I will present to you in detail our best techniques for obtaining quality backlinks to increase your traffic.
But before getting into the specifics, let’s first understand what a quality backlink is!
Here we go!
I) What is a quality backlink?
Before we dive into backlink building strategies, it’s important to know what makes a good (or bad) link.
This way, you can focus on building links that will actually improve your rankings in Google.
So here’s how to identify the links that are actually worth building:
Page Authority
Receiving a backlink from a page that has high authority affects your ranking very positively.
A page that has high authority is a page that itself receives quality backlinks.
A page’s authority is calculated by a metric that ranges from 0 to 100.
100 being the best score.
How do you know if a page has high authority?
There are several tools on the net to help you…
Semrush is one of them!
All you have to do is enter the URL of a web page into the software and it will give you its authority.
The authority of the site
So page authority is important, but it’s not everything.
The quality of a backlink is also determined by a site-wide domain authority .
Authority is measured by a metric called “domain authority.” It’s a scale from 0 to 100. The higher the number, the better.
Ideally, you want to get backlinks from sites with a higher domain authority than yours.
In general, a backlink from a site like lemonde.fr will have a significantly greater impact than a backlink from an unknown blog.
Although these links are difficult to france telegram data obtain, they are worth the effort.
Again, Semrush is very helpful here. Enter any site URL into the tool and check the site ranking.
You can also use another tool: the MozBar which is a free Google Chrome plugin.
The relevance of the site
I will start right away with an example to illustrate this point.
Let’s say you have a blog specializing in mountain hiking. Your concern is obviously to appear among the first in Google results…
Here comes another blog, quite well-known, which talks about a completely different subject to yours, which sends a backlink to your site.
For example: a motorcycle specialist blog pamela fahlbeck president/founder sends a backlink to your site in one of their articles entitled “Which neo-retro motorcycle to choose?” .
There is little chance that this will affect your ranking in Google.
For what ?
The answer is obvious: there is no relevant connection between the two sites and Google’s algorithm has understood this!
Finding quality backlinks means finding backlinks from sites that have a common theme with you.
Now, let’s go a little further…
Let’s say that it’s lemonde.fr that makes a database d backlink to your blog specializing in mountain hiking…
Le Monde is a site with very, very strong authority!
My question is: would a backlink like this be more effective than a backlink this time from a site SIMILAR to yours (which deals with mountain hiking)?
The answer is not so obvious, the criterion of relevance is very important.
Some experts would say that the backlink from the similar blog would be even more effective than that of lemonde.fr!
Recently a Google engineer said:
…Getting a link from a high ranking page was always valuable, today it’s more about the relevance of the site’s theme to yours, relevance is the new ranking.
Personally I don’t have the answer to the question…
What we can advise you at Livementor is to have both.