Optimizing the natural referencing of your website is essential to increase its visibility and notoriety. The backlink constitutes one of the components of the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy and its “off-page” component, the netlinking strategy. So why integrate backlinks into your SEO strategy? How to obtain and integrate these inbound links? What types of links should you favor? An update on best practices with David Bedouet, digital strategy expert.
According to a HubSpot study on the state of inbound marketing in France, the SEO constitutes one of the reference marketing channels in 2022. SEOs indeed carry out optimization to the maximum, on and off websites.
On the website (on-page SEO), you need a clear architecture and well-separated sections. We work on a minimum page for each target key expression, with structured data, as well as keywords present in the main “technical” elements. Namely: the URL, the “TITLE”, the meta-description, the text content, images and various tags (ALT, TITLE)…
The search experience (SXO) must also be optimal, the site must be fast, it must be “https” and “responsive”, that is to say adapted to different formats (smartphone, for example). ). Outside of the website (off-page SEO), the presence and reputation of the site are important. They result in links that point to our site via other websites: backlinks.
1 – Backlink strategies
Historically, Google prioritized quantity. Thus, the more backlinks there were, the higher our off-page SEO score: the famous “PageRank”.
But the abuses were numerous. Creating dozens of web pages or subscribing to hundreds of directories was enough to be in the top results of Google.
Google and search results
More than 90 % online experiences begin on a search engine, usually Google.
After analyzing “the keyword”, the search engine selects, via its index, the web pages of interest to the Internet user.
It presents them in an orderly manner on its results pages. Each page generally consists of 10 “natural” results and up to 7 “paid” results (the ads).
The objective: to classify these millions of pages according to Internet user demand. The search engine rates them in real time and uses more than 200 criteria, while applying filters: the famous Google algorithm.
In 2012, Google adapted and deployed a new algorithm (Google Penguin) which is based on quality and trust. “PageRank” is replaced by “TrustRank”.
Today, SEO must be for the benefit of the Internet user. Good practices for creating links go in this direction.
A link pointing to your website will be more relevant if it:
- is present on a site other than yours;
- is present on a site with strong authority (recognized, with high traffic in your field of activity or on one of your themes);
- is found in the text content of a page with at least one complete paragraph;
- is on an expression or a word (anchor of the link) grammatically correct (no sequence of keywords).
To note
The anchor of the hyperlink is the text (the word(s)) on which the Internet user can click. Generally underlined, it allows, in one click, access to new content on a new page. Sometimes this hyperlink is added on an image.
2 – The double advantage of the backlink
The backlink brings potentially qualified traffic and off-page SEO points.
How to get a link?
There are several possibilities to obtain a link:
- ask your partners to integrate a quality link to one of your web pages;
- approach sites with a strong audience or reputation in your field of activity and establish a reciprocal, give-and-take, win-win link;
- or simply pay news sites or influencer blogs, who make money from writing articles with links.
Be careful, Google is able to differentiate a “real site” with real content from an artificial site designed only for backlinks. It is therefore advisable to regularly monitor the origin of the links that point to your site to avoid poor rating by Google.
Create your own opportunities
By creating a blog or website on a domain name other than your main site, you become your own backlink provider.
However, two concepts still clash in the world of SEO:
- have an internal blog to increase the authority of your main domain;
- have an external blog to further work on your backlinks.
Internal or external, your editorial strategy can become a real SEO asset by working on the quality and quantity of content of the links and your semantic cocoon.
3 – Not all links are equal
It's all about technique and checking links from other sites. Although they all bring traffic, only “dofollow” links are followed by Google’s “crawlers” (or indexing robots), unlike “nofollow” links. A quality backlink is therefore a “dofollow” link.
“Dofollow” and “nofollow” links
We can add different attributes in the coding of a hyperlink: “dofollow” or “nofollow” will tell the “crawlers” what they should do.
Ex : <a href="/en/ »http://www.sitecible.fr »/" rel=" »dofollow »">Link anchor</a>
To note
The links present on social networks (post, bio, comment, etc.) only bring traffic, and no off-page point. They do not intervene directly on SEO.
Help and analysis tools
To find useful backlinks, you must target accessible sites, such as those of your customers, suppliers, partners, or by typing a target query listing the sites present on the first page of search engine results (Sear Engine Results Page: SERP) which are not direct competitors and offer them integration into your strategy. Software such as Semrush allows an exhaustive list of web competitors for the keywords that interest you.
Track your backlinks
It is essential to check if the links still exist, to control the quantity and quality of existing backlinks, to control the anchors and the nature of the sites which point to you.
Many tools exist, allowing manual or automatic verification: Ahrefs, Majestic SEO or Semrush.
Other tools help you get an overview of sites that have a link to yours (tracking), such as Google Analytics 4, Matomo, etc.
If you do not want Google to take it into account because the incoming link comes from an inappropriate site, it is possible to request this link to be disavowed from your Google Search Console via Semrush.
What you need to remember: Off-page SEO is complementary, but much less controllable than on-page SEO, because it depends mainly on others and their willingness or ability to implement the backlinks that are useful to you. Whatever the strategy deployed, it remains essential to regularly monitor the quality of the backlinks.
